Meddies in the Mercator North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea eddy-resolving model

The new generation of high‐resolution ocean models offers a new way to investigate the characteristics and the evolution of the ocean mesoscale. An analysis of the simulated Mediterranean eddies, the so‐called “meddies,” is presented. The model used in this study is the Mercator North Atlantic [9°N, 70°N] and Mediterranean Sea Prototype (PAM), a high‐resolution configuration (3.5–8 km horizontal grid) based on the OPA ocean general circulation model. The meddies are coherent structures of warm and salt Mediterranean Water (MW) advected in the northeast Atlantic. A 5 year experiment performed with PAM reproduced the main observed characteristics of the meddies: thermohaline properties (11.8°C, 36 psu), sizes (radius between 25 and 110 km), thickness (between 500 and 1000 m), westward advection velocities (1.4 cm.s−1), angular velocities (a period of 20 days), a good estimate of the number of meddies in the northeast Atlantic (∼22), and their realistic geographical distribution (80% south of 40°N). Moreover, and in agreement with a previous study based on an observation cruise, these modeled meddies represent half of the westward salinity transport of MW.