Some Physical Properties of Mesoscale Eddies in the Caspian Sea Basins Based on Numerical Simulations

This paper investigates the mechanism of the eddy’s formation and their locations in the Caspian Sea using numerical simulations. The HYCOM model is used to simulate the evolutions of eddies. The model ran for 18 years from 1992 to 2009 while river runoff and atmospheric forcing are applied in the model as input files. The model output is appropriately compared to some observation data. The results indicate that one cyclonic eddy in the middle and two cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies in the southern basin of the Caspian Sea are the main eddies in this closed sea. Herein we prepare a comprehensive map to show the exact location of eddies with their important features like scales of them in all months using model simulation outputs. Topographic steering seems to be very important in the formation of mesoscale deep basin size eddies.