Gulf Stream meanders and eddies off the Carolina coast are studied using an ocean numerical model. Numerical simulation results show that the isobathic curvature in the vicinity of the Charleston Bump has great effect on the development and evolution of Gulf Stream meanders and eddies, and the formation of the Charleston Trough, a Gulf Stream meander that appears as a low pressure or depressed water surface region downstream of the bump, is the result of the combined effect of the Charleston Bump and the isobathic curvature in the region. The isobathic curvature plays a major role in enhancing the baroclinic and barotropic energy transfer rates, whereas the bump provided a localized mechanism to maximize the energy transfer rate downstream of the Charleston Bump. The effects of the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies on the cross-shelf transport near the Carolina coast are also studied in the ocean numerical model. There are two factors that affect the ocean circulations on the continental shelf off the North and South Carolina coast: wind and the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies. It is concluded that the combination of the wind effect and the effect of the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies caused the red tide bloom event in the North Carolina near shore waters in October 1987. Neither wind alone nor the Gulf Stream meander/eddy alone is sufficient to transport the passive tracer to the near-shore area.

The effects of the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies on the cross-shelf transport near the Carolina coast are also studied in the ocean numerical model. There are two factors that affect the ocean circulations on the continental shelf off the North and South Carolina coast: wind and the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies. It is concluded that the combination of the wind effect and the effect of the Gulf Stream meanders and eddies caused the red tide bloom event in the North Carolina near shore waters in October 1987. Neither wind alone nor the Gulf Stream meander/eddy alone is sufficient to transport the passive tracer to the near-shore area.

It is now well known that the mid-ocean flow is almost everywhere domi nated by so-called synoptic or meso-scale eddies, rotating about nearly vertical axes and extending throughout the water column. A typical mid ocean horizontal scale is 100 km and a time scale is 100 days: these meso scale eddies have swirl speeds of order 10 cm s -1 which are usually con siderably greater than the long-term average flow. Many types of eddies with somewhat different scales and characteristics have been identified. The existence of such eddies was suspected by navigators more than a century ago and confirmed by the world of C. O'D. Iselin and V. B. Stock man in the 1930's. Measurements from RIV Aries in 1959/60, using the then newly developed neutrally buoyant floats, indicated the main char acteristics of the eddies in the deep ocean of the NW Atlantic while a se ries of Soviet moored current-meter arrays culminated, in POLYGON- 1970, in the explicit mapping of an energetic anticyclonic eddy in the tropical NE Atlantic. In 1973 a large collaborative (mainly U. S. , U. K. ) program, MODE-I, produced synoptic charts for an area of the NW At lantic and confirmed the existence of an open ocean eddy field and es tablished its characteristics. Meso-scale eddies are now known to be of interest and importance to marine chemists and biologists as well as to physical oceanographers and meteorologists.