egin{figure*} centering includegraphics[ trim={ 0cm 1cm 0cm 0cm}, clip,height=1.9in]{./schematic.pdf} caption{Conceptual representation of the mesoscale eddy field illustrating the persistence of eddies in time during the equilibration process (e.g. during an Ekman-driven spin up). Red eddies have statistical properties that correspond to the equilibrium state, while blue eddies correspond to an earlier equilibrium state. The …show more content…
In addition, they demonstrate that, due to eddies, a large-scale circulation viewed in an ensemble mean sense (i.e. averaged over small scale eddies and waves) is a stable dynamical system that equilibrates on a time scale controlled by eddy diffusivity. However, their conclusion relies upon the use of a conventional Gent-McWilliams (GM) eddy parameterization citep{gent1990isopycnal} that takes the eddy thickness fluxes to be proportional to the large-scale halocline thickness