Long-lived solitary eddies in the ocean

The objective of this paper is to elucidate the cause of the anomalously long lifetimes of solitary eddies and to obtain theoretical estimates of their lifetimes as a function of their intensity and horizontal size. The author takes account of new factors resulting from finite amplitude effects and focus on solutions which, while they are not steady-state, evolve rather slowly. The author also describes two classes of long-lived solitary eddies of the non-soliton type. Such eddies may be anticyclonic or cyclonic or may have a more complex structure.