Cyprus Topographic Eddies in the Eastward Meandering Flow

— This paper examines the eddy structure of surface and bottom currents that form in an eastward meandering flow over non‑axisymmetric seabed topography at different meandering phases, drawing an analogy with the eastward‑flowing Mid‑Mediterranean Jet (MMJ). The topography includes the Eratosthenes Seamount, located in the southeastern part of the deep-sea hollow in the Levantine Basin south of Cyprus. Different modes of the dipolar vortex structure, consisting of a topographic anticyclone (the Cyprus eddy) and a smaller local topographic cyclone, are described. The influence of different meandering phases of the background flow on the appearance and size of two separate topographic eddies, as well as on the trapped stationary Rossby wave formed behind them, is established. The solutions are based on the classical analytical theory of topographic eddies on the β-plane [3, 4] and complement earlier studies [1, 2, 17, 18] explaining the variability of the dipolar vortex structure south of Cyprus. The results of the study are consistent with the CMEMS-MED-PUM-006_013 reanalysis data.