  This article deals with the investigation of the influence of topography and
coastlines on the dynamics of the depth averaged Antarctic Circumpolar Current
(ACC), driven by wind and atmospheric pressure. This is achieved with the help
of a global barotropic circulation model, under idealized and real atmospheric
conditions.
  It is shown that the variability of meridional mass fluxes due to the
atmospheric conditions over the ACC can induce short-period density anomalies
in the Southern Ocean to the north in the vicinity of 47S, which can be
transferred to low latitudes by the wave mechanism described by Ivchenko et al.
2004, that could have significance with respect to rapid extra-tropical oceanic
links. The results of the barotropic modeling demonstrate that changes in wind
strength over the ACC, together with the effect of bottom topography and
coastlines, induce some meridional flow variability in the Southern Ocean, and
this meridional flux variability in the Pacific Ocean is anticorrelated with
the strength of the wind over the ACC. The possible link between the short-term
variations of the meridional flux in the Pacific sector and the ENSO events
(Southern Oscillation) is discussed.
