Yes kids, science is neat. I like seeing new discoveries, particularly in the oceans - which have lots of secrets to still be discovered.

Paper published yesterday in "Geophysical Research Letters" - title is: Rapid Water Transport by Long-Lasting Modon Eddy Pairs in the Southern Midlatitude Oceans



Finding is that paired whirlpools, spinning in opposite directions, are cruising around the oceans, moving heat and nutrients around in ways never considered before - and faster than other currents.

Plain Language Summary

The ocean's equivalent of smoke rings has been found. They last for about 6 months and can carry water over distances of more than 1,000 km in different directions to the usual ocean currents and much faster than other eddies. This changes the way heat, nutrients, and carbon are transported in parts of the ocean. Most eddies drift to the west at or around a particular speed that depends on latitude, faster near the equator, and slower near the poles (about 1–2 km/d at midlatitudes). However, it has long been theoretically predicted that eddies can sometimes pair up in a way that allows them, like smoke rings, to travel much faster, to the east as well as west, staying together for a long time. For the first time, using satellite measurements of sea level, we have seen these eddy pairs, called “modons,” traveling over long distances in the oceans. Eight pairs are seen around Australia and one in the South Atlantic. They travel at about 10 times the typical eddy speed, over distances of 1,000 km or more, stirring up the surface temperatures as they pass and lasting for about 6 months before splitting up.



Abstract

Water in the ocean is generally carried with the mean flow, mixed by eddies, or transported westward by coherent eddies at speeds close to the long baroclinic Rossby wave speed. Modons (dipole eddy pairs) are a theoretically predicted exception to this behavior, which can carry water to the east or west at speeds much larger than the Rossby wave speed, leading to unusual transports of heat, nutrients, and carbon. We provide the first observational evidence of such rapidly moving modons propagating over large distances. These modons are found in the midlatitude oceans around Australia, with one also seen in the South Atlantic west of the Agulhas region. They can travel at more than 10 times the Rossby wave speed of 1–2 cm s−1 and typically persist for about 6 months carrying their unusual water mass properties with them, before splitting into individual vortices, which can persist for many months longer.


Paper is here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...4F0F91EA55187.f04t04

Cool. Thanks for posting this- I loved fluid mechanics when I was in school.

That is very cool.

Random thought. I bet the mathematics that predicts this is related to, or at least might help explain, the red spot on Jupiter and other odd behavior of "fluid" models. If my memory serves me, I believe this is an effect of a strange attractor in complex, chaotic system mathematics.

Ken S

So what happens when the random ship traveling across the ocean runs across one of these? Do they only occur on the surface? Between this and the giant natural gas bubbles which occur in the Caribbean and possibly other places, I'm glad I'm not a mariner.