Baroclinic Modeling of the South Pacific Gyre

This paper examines observed and filtered sea level changes at the Fort Denison tide gauge site in Sydney, Australia, in the context of decadal climate variability as represented by the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation index. The strong climatic relationship prompts the intermediate-complexity modeling and analysis of the baroclinic transport anomalies in the East Australian Current - the western boundary current of the South Pacific Gyre – against the observed sea level changes at Fort Denison. We find that the strength of this relationship is both surprising and remarkable.