Purpose. The work is aimed at determining the reasons for the spatial inhomogeneity of mechanical energy flows that arise during formation and evolution of the large-scale currents in the Black Sea. The uneven distribution of energy flows over the sea area was revealed in the analysis of time-averaged fields of the energy characteristics resulted from numerical simulation.

Methods and Results. The data of numerical experiments performed using the two-layer eddy-resolving model permitted to calculate the energy balance components in the eastern and western parts of the Black Sea. Averaging the energy characteristics over time and area within the selected areas made it possible to construct an integrated circuit of mechanical energy flows. To confirm the hypothesis on influence of the β-effect on the redistribution of energy flows, an additional experiment including the constant Coriolis parameter was carried out, and the energy balances were calculated by the method similar to the one applied in the first experiment.

Conclusions. It is revealed that under the impact of the β-effect, the energy flows are redistributed over the Black Sea basin area. In the eastern half of the sea, currents are pumped with wind energy and there is the process of formation of potential energy, which later, due to advection, is transferred to the west by the currents. In the western part of the sea, the potential energy that had been transported from the eastern half of the basin is converted into the kinetic energy of currents, a significant part of which dissipates due to bottom friction and horizontal turbulent viscosity. The rest of the kinetic energy is transported back to the basin eastern part by the current in the sea upper layer, where it again participates in the process of forming the potential energy.