Eddies of the California Current System: Physical and Ecological Characteristis

Abstract

This paper reviews eddies and their ecological effects in the California Current System (CCS). The importance of eddies lies in the physical properties of eddy motion and the effect on what we can identify to be systematic in flow patterns and in patterns of organism distribution. The Southern California Eddy (SC Eddy), which owes at least its character and perhaps its existence to the island and bank system off southern California, receives special attention because it is the most resolvable and ecologically significant eddy known in the CCS.