Eddy fluxes and mean flow tendencies in open-ocean baroclinic instability

Linear normal-mode instabilities of a mean flow varying over many internal radii of deformation are considered. Attention is devoted not to the instabilities themselves, but to the second-order effects of such instabilities on the mean flow. These are derived analytically from solutions by Killworth. The effects on symmetric profiles are very different from those on asymmetric profiles. Specifically, the tendencies are much larger in the latter case with the strongest tendency being on the barotropic part of the mean flow; this tendency apparently attempts to make the profile more symmetric.