Choked flows from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean

The author considers two oceanic basins separated by a meridional wall. The wall contains a gap that is initially blocked by a gate; westward winds are allowed to blow over the two-layered oceans creating western boundary currents and a sea level difference between the basins. The conceptual gate is then removed and the resulting nonlinear flow is computed. It is suggested that the actual Indonesian Throughflow corresponds to an exchange via two adjacent gaps. Computations suggest that approximately 6 Sv (Sv identical with 10 super(6)m super(3)s super(-1)) enter the passages from the North Pacific and 1 Sv from the South Pacific giving a total of 7 Sv. This may resolve the apparent difficulty associated with existing linear theories (and nonlinear theories that neglect western boundary currents), which predict that without strong turbulent diffusion only South Pacific water can enter the passages.