A bibliography of physical, chemical, and biological studies of rings in the world's oceans

Abstract

This bibliography marks the end of several years of sporadic attempts to put together a set of references on rings. The scope of the effort encompasses the chemistry, biology, and physics of the long-lived, coherent features which are commonly referred to as rings after Fuglister (1972). There is a vast literature on the mesoscale eddy field in different parts of the world. The present set of references includes a subset of this body of work. The basic criterion used in the compilation of this bibliography is fairly narrow compared to the range of eddies found in the world's oceans. The emphasis here is on the highly nonlinear features formed due to the instability processes in boundary currents and in the planetary scale jet which surrounds the Antarctic. The nomenclature "ring", refers to the strong encircling current which forms a kinematic trap in which the core of the ring is embedded.