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Articles https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01006-9 1 Research School of Earth Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 2 Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. ✉ e-mail: josue.martinezmoreno@anu.edu.au C hanges in the climate system over recent decades have warmed the upper ocean and modified the wind stress, heat and freshwater fluxes that drive ocean circulation 1,2 . These changes have the capacity to modify the ocean circulation, includ- ing the overturning circulation 3,4 , basin-scale gyres 5,6 and boundary currents 7,8 . Changes in climate can also affect mesoscale processes— for example, through changes in wind stress forcing over the Southern Ocean 9 . The oceanic mesoscale incorporates motions that occur at spatial scales from approximately 10 to 100 km. These motions include both steady flows (such as jets and recirculations) and time-varying flows (such as meanders and coherent vortices). Generally, time-varying mesoscale flows are also referred to as eddies....