Sverdrup Balance
D1. Physical and chemical oceanography and marine meteorologyDefinition
Wind-driven interior flow balance between meridional transport and wind stress curl.
The Sverdrup balance relates the depth-integrated meridional transport of the interior wind-driven ocean to the curl of the wind stress: beta times the meridional transport equals the wind-stress curl divided by density. It explains why subtropical gyres carry equatorward interior flow under the negative curl of the trade-and-westerly wind pattern, with the return flow concentrated in narrow western boundary currents. It is the backbone of wind-driven circulation theory.