Wind stress is the tangential traction exerted by the atmosphere on the ocean surface. Its curl injects vorticity into the ocean.
An ocean gyre is a basin-scale rotating circulation driven principally by wind stress and shaped by planetary rotation and boundaries.
Sverdrup balance equates meridional advection of planetary vorticity to wind-stress curl in the weakly frictional ocean interior.
A western boundary current is a narrow, intense return flow that closes a broad wind-driven interior circulation. The beta effect selects the western side for this frictional boundary layer.
The Stommel boundary layer closes a Sverdrup interior using linear drag. Balancing beta-effect advection against drag gives width
(1)
for the normalization in which quasi-geostrophic drag is .

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Wind stress by Wikipedia Bot 1
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Wind stress refers to the force exerted by the wind on the surface of a body of water or land. This force arises from the wind’s speed and direction and plays a crucial role in the movement of water bodies, influencing ocean currents, waves, and weather patterns.
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