Difference in centrifugal force and the slope of sea level off Miami

Abstract

The sea level in the Florida Straits is part of the controversial issue of sea level slope along continental boundaries (Balazs, 1973; Sturges, 1974; Mourad, 1975; Chew, 1977). In this paper we show a case where the sea level topography off Miami is significantly affected by a downstream difference in centrifugal force. This case centers on an application of the turning vorticity equation (Chew, 1975) to the observation of Schmitz and Richardson (1966), wherein the divergence effect of Bernoulli acceleration is taken into account in an estimation of centrifugal force. On one hand, the analysis shows a downstream increase in centrifugal force in conjunction with a concurrent decrease in average cross‐stream sea level slope. On the other hand, the generally held notion of cross‐stream geostrophy in conjunction with a downstream increase in average cross‐stream slope is shown to be inconsistent with the observation.