title: Western boundary currents regulated by interaction between ocean eddies and the atmosphere.
abstract: Current climate models systematically underestimate the strength of oceanic fronts associated with strong western boundary currents, such as the Kuroshio and Gulf Stream Extensions, and have difficulty simulating their positions at the mid-latitude ocean's western boundaries. Even with an enhanced grid resolution to resolve ocean mesoscale eddies-energetic circulations with horizontal scales of about a hundred kilometres that strongly interact with the fronts and currents-the bias problem can still persist; to improve climate models we need a better understanding of the dynamics governing these oceanic frontal regimes. Yet prevailing theories about the western boundary fronts are based on ocean internal dynamics without taking into consideration the intense air-sea feedbacks in these oceanic frontal regions. Here, by focusing on the Kuroshio Extension Jet east of Japan as the direct continuation of the Kuroshio, we show that feedback between ocean mesoscale eddies and the atmosphere (OME-A) is fundamental to the dynamics and control of these energetic currents. Suppressing OME-A feedback in eddy-resolving coupled climate model simulations results in a 20-40 per cent weakening in the Kuroshio Extension Jet. This is because OME-A feedback dominates eddy potential energy destruction, which dissipates more than 70 per cent of the eddy potential energy extracted from the Kuroshio Extension Jet. The absence of OME-A feedback inevitably leads to a reduction in eddy potential energy production in order to balance the energy budget, which results in a weakened mean current. The finding has important implications for improving climate models' representation of major oceanic fronts, which are essential components in the simulation and prediction of extratropical storms and other extreme events, as well as in the projection of the effect on these events of climate change.
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Zhao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.|Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Montuoro
authors.affiliation: Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
authors.forename: R Justin
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Small
authors.affiliation: Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
authors.forename: Frank O
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Bryan
authors.affiliation: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany.|Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Greatbatch
authors.affiliation: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany.|Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Dexing
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Xiaopei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Lixin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wu