ON THE UTILITY AND DISUTILITY OF JEBAR

The usefulness of the concept of JEBAR, the joint effect of baroclinic ity and relief, in large-scale ocean dynamics is critically analyzed. The authors address two questions. Does the JEBAR term properly charac terize the joint impact of stratification and bottom topography on the ocean circulation? Do estimates of the JEBAR term from observational data allow reliable diagnostic calculations? The authors give a negati ve answer to the first question. The JEBAR term need not give a true m easure of the effect of bottom relief in a stratified ocean. A simple two-layer model provides examples. As to the second question, it is de monstrated that the large-scale pattern of the transport streamfunctio n is captured by the smoothed solution, especially with the Mellor et al. formulation of the JEBAR term. However, the calculated velocity fi eld is very noisy and the relative errors are large.