I. Kamenkovich

Mesoscale eddies—irregular time‐dependent currents with lateral scales of 10–200 km—are ubiquitous in the World Ocean. They profoundly affect general circulation and actively redistribute oceanic heat, salt, biogeochemical tracers, and pollutants. The development of accurate parameterizations of eddy‐induced transport remains one of the most pressing challenges in physical oceanography. Commonly used mesoscale parameterizations assume that the relation between eddy‐induced fluxes and the large‐scale property gradients is local and instantaneous. The present communication challenges this premise. We consider a closure that incorporates a delay in the adjustment of eddy fluxes to changing ambient distribution of properties. This model is inspired by the century‐and‐a‐half‐old idea of Maxwell, who argued that molecular dispersion necessarily involves a finite relaxation period. In our study, this principle is reinterpreted in the context of the turbulent transport problem. A series of simulations reveal marked improvements in eddy parameterizations brought by the inclusion of Maxwell's effect.