Why Does the North Brazil Current Regularly Shed Rings but the Brazil Current Does Not?

Abstract

Both the North Brazil Current (NBC) and the Brazil Current (BC) are western boundary currents (WBCs) that separate from the western Atlantic coast. The NBC retroflects and sheds several rings per year (at the retroflection region), whereas the BC rarely sheds rings near its separation point. Traditionally, the difference between these two WBCs has been attributed to the Malvinas Current (MC), whose momentum flux opposes the poleward momentum flux of the BC, thus preventing rings shedding at the point where the current leaves the coast. Even in the absence of the MC, rings from the separating BC would have never been regularly generated because of the relatively large slant of the coastline relative to the zonal direction. Using the recently proposed theory of Zharkov and Nof, it is demonstrated that the large inclination of the coastline between 20° and 45°S (approximately 50°) lies within the regime that does not allow the BC a continuous shedding of rings. In contrast, the inclination of the coastline between 5° and 8°N is sufficiently small to allow the NBC a continuous and smooth shedding of rings. The importance of the coastline inclination comes about through a ring ?-induced westward propagation rate. In the small inclination case, the alongshore migration is fast, allowing the newly formed rings to quickly escape from their generation zone (i.e., before they are recaptured by the newly born rings generated behind). In contrast, in the high inclination case, the alongshore speed is so small that the rings spend a long time in the generation area and, consequently, are usually recaptured by the new rings generated just behind them. The authors argue, paradoxically, that the rings occasionally shed by the BC are probably due to the MC that advects the rings away from the generation area, preventing their recapture by the current behind them. Although no new analytical solutions are presented, the authors elaborate on the application of the recapturing condition to the NBC and BC and show new numerical simulations for both the NBC and the BC.