Publication Date:
2022-05-27
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 126(4), (2021):
e2020JC016614, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016614.
Description:
Horizontal and vertical motions associated with mesoscale (10–100 km) and submesoscale (1–10 km) features, such as fronts, meanders, eddies, and filaments, play a critical role in redistributing physical and biogeochemical properties in the ocean. This study makes use of a multiplatform data set of 82 drifters, a Lagrangian float, and profile timeseries of temperature and salinity, obtained in a ∼1-m/s semipermanent frontal jet in the Alboran Sea as part of CALYPSO (Coherent Lagrangian Pathways from the Surface Ocean to Interior). Drifters drogued at ∼1-m and 15-m depth capture the mesoscale and submesoscale circulation aligning along the perimeter of fronts due to horizontal shear. Clusters of drifters are used to estimate the kinematic properties, such as vorticity and divergence, of the flow by fitting a bivariate plane to the horizontal drifter velocities. Clusters with submesoscale length scales indicate normalized vorticity ζ/f 〉 1 with Coriolis frequency f and normalized divergence of (1) occurring in patches along the front, with error variance around 10%. By computing divergence from drifter clusters at two different depths, we estimate minimum vertical velocity of (−100 m day−1) in the upper 10 m of the water column. These results are at least twice as large as previous estimates of vertical velocity in the region. Location, magnitude, and timing of the convergence are consistent with behavior of a Lagrangian float subducting in the center of a drifter cluster. These results improve our understanding of frontal subduction and quantify convergence and vertical velocity using Lagrangian tools.
Description:
This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Departmental Research Initiative CALYPSO under program officers Terri Paluszkiewicz and Scott Harper. The authors' ONR grant numbers are as follows: D. R. Tarry, A. Pascual, S. Ruiz and A. Mahadevan N000141613130, S. Essink N000146101612470, P.-M. Poulain N000141812418, T. OÖzgökmen N000141812138, L. R. Centurioni N000141712517 and N00014191269, T. Farrar N000141812431, A. Shcherbina N000141812139 and N000141812420, and E. A. D'Asaro N000141812139.
Keywords:
Alboran Sea
;
drifters
;
kinematic properties
;
Lagrangian float
;
submesoscale
;
vertical velocity
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Permalink
