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  • Ocean models  (34)
  • Topographic effects  (33)
  • American Meteorological Society  (65)
  • Elsevier B.V.  (1)
  • American Institute of Physics (AIP)
  • Springer Science + Business Media
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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2023-02-28
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12),(2022): 3199-3219, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0009.1.
    Description: The abyssal overturning circulation is thought to be primarily driven by small-scale turbulent mixing. Diagnosed water-mass transformations are dominated by rough topography “hotspots,” where the bottom enhancement of mixing causes the diffusive buoyancy flux to diverge, driving widespread downwelling in the interior—only to be overwhelmed by an even stronger upwelling in a thin bottom boundary layer (BBL). These water-mass transformations are significantly underestimated by one-dimensional (1D) sloping boundary layer solutions, suggesting the importance of three-dimensional physics. Here, we use a hierarchy of models to generalize this 1D boundary layer approach to three-dimensional eddying flows over realistically rough topography. When applied to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Brazil Basin, the idealized simulation results are roughly consistent with available observations. Integral buoyancy budgets isolate the physical processes that contribute to realistically strong BBL upwelling. The downward diffusion of buoyancy is primarily balanced by upwelling along the sloping canyon sidewalls and the surrounding abyssal hills. These flows are strengthened by the restratifying effects of submesoscale baroclinic eddies and by the blocking of along-ridge thermal wind within the canyon. Major topographic sills block along-thalweg flows from restratifying the canyon trough, resulting in the continual erosion of the trough’s stratification. We propose simple modifications to the 1D boundary layer model that approximate each of these three-dimensional effects. These results provide local dynamical insights into mixing-driven abyssal overturning, but a complete theory will also require the nonlocal coupling to the basin-scale circulation.
    Description: We acknowledge funding support from National Science Foundation Awards 1536515, 1736109, and 2149080. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant 174530.
    Description: 2023-05-18
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Diapycnal mixing ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2022-06-10
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society , 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Zambon, J. B., He, R., Warner, J. C., & Hegermiller, C. A. Impact of SST and surface waves on Hurricane Florence (2018): a coupled modeling investigation. Weather and Forecasting, 36(5), (2021): 1713–1734, https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-20-0171.1.
    Description: Hurricane Florence (2018) devastated the coastal communities of the Carolinas through heavy rainfall that resulted in massive flooding. Florence was characterized by an abrupt reduction in intensity (Saffir–Simpson category 4 to category 1) just prior to landfall and synoptic-scale interactions that stalled the storm over the Carolinas for several days. We conducted a series of numerical modeling experiments in coupled and uncoupled configurations to examine the impact of sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean waves on storm characteristics. In addition to experiments using a fully coupled atmosphere–ocean–wave model, we introduced the capability of the atmospheric model to modulate wind stress and surface fluxes by ocean waves through data from an uncoupled wave model. We examined these experiments by comparing track, intensity, strength, SST, storm structure, wave height, surface roughness, heat fluxes, and precipitation in order to determine the impacts of resolving ocean conditions with varying degrees of coupling. We found differences in the storm’s intensity and strength, with the best correlation coefficient of intensity (r = 0.89) and strength (r = 0.95) coming from the fully coupled simulations. Further analysis into surface roughness parameterizations added to the atmospheric model revealed differences in the spatial distribution and magnitude of the largest roughness lengths. Adding ocean and wave features to the model further modified the fluxes due to more realistic cooling beneath the storm, which in turn modified the precipitation field. Our experiments highlight significant differences in how air–sea processes impact hurricane modeling. The storm characteristics of track, intensity, strength, and precipitation at landfall are crucial to predictability and forecasting of future landfalling hurricanes.
    Description: This work has been supported by the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources Program, and by Congressional appropriations through the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019 (H.R. 2157). The authors also wish to acknowledge research support through NSF Grant OCE-1559178 and NOAA Grant NA16NOS0120028. We also wish to thank Chris Sherwood from the U.S. Geological Survey for his help in deriving wave length from WAVEWATCH III data.
    Keywords: Hurricanes/typhoons ; Hindcasts ; Numerical weather prediction/forecasting ; Coupled models ; Ocean models
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2022-06-03
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 34(22), (2021): 8971–8987, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0610.1.
    Description: The impact of increasing Greenland freshwater discharge on the subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) remains unknown as there are uncertainties associated with the time scales of the Greenland freshwater anomaly (GFWA) in the SPNA. Results from numerical simulations tracking GFWA and an analytical approach are employed to estimate the response time, suggesting that a decadal time scale (13 years) is required for the SPNA to adjust for increasing GFWA. Analytical solutions obtained for a long-lasting increase of freshwater discharge show a non-steady-state response of the SPNA with increasing content of the GFWA. In contrast, solutions for a short-lived pulse of freshwater demonstrate different responses of the SPNA with a rapid increase of freshwater in the domain followed by an exponential decay after the pulse has passed. The derived theoretical relation between time scales shows that residence time scales are time dependent for a non-steady-state case and asymptote the response time scale with time. The residence time of the GFWA deduced from Lagrangian experiments is close to and smaller than the response time, in agreement with the theory. The Lagrangian analysis shows dependence of the residence time on the entrance route of the GFWA and on the depth. The fraction of the GFWA exported through Davis Strait has limited impact on the interior basins, whereas the fraction entering the SPNA from the southwest Greenland shelf spreads into the interior regions. In both cases, the residence time of the GFWA increases with depth demonstrating long persistence of the freshwater anomaly in the subsurface layers.
    Description: D. S. Dukhovskoy and E. P. Chassignet were funded by the DOE (Award DE-SC0014378) and HYCOM NOPP (Award N00014-19-1-2674). The HYCOM-CICE simulations were supported by a grant of computer time from the DoD High-Performance Computing Modernization Program at NRL SSC. G. Platov was funded by the RSF N19-17-00154. P. G. Myers was funded by an NSERC Discovery Grant (Grant RGPIN 04357). A. Proshutinsky was funded by FAMOS project (NSF Grant NSF 14-584).
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Differential equations ; Ocean models
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2022-06-03
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(12),(2021): 3663–3678, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0058.1.
    Description: The wind-driven exchange through complex ridges and islands between marginal seas and the open ocean is studied using both numerical and analytical models. The models are forced by a steady, spatially uniform northward wind stress intended to represent the large-scale, low-frequency wind patterns typical of the seasonal monsoons in the western Pacific Ocean. There is an eastward surface Ekman transport out of the marginal sea and westward geostrophic inflows into the marginal sea. The interaction between the Ekman transport and an island chain produces strong baroclinic flows along the island boundaries with a vertical depth that scales with the ratio of the inertial boundary layer thickness to the baroclinic deformation radius. The throughflows in the gaps are characterized by maximum transport in the center gap and decreasing transports toward the southern and northern tips of the island chain. An extended island rule theory demonstrates that throughflows are determined by the collective balance between viscosity on the meridional boundaries and the eastern side boundary of the islands. The outflowing transport is balanced primarily by a shallow current that enters the marginal sea along its equatorward boundary. The islands can block some direct exchange and result in a wind-driven overturning cell within the marginal sea, but this is compensated for by eastward zonal jets around the southern and northern tips of the island chain. Topography in the form of a deep slope, a ridge, or shallow shelves around the islands alters the current pathways but ultimately is unable to limit the total wind-driven exchange between the marginal sea and the open ocean.
    Description: This research is supported in part by the China Scholarship Council (201906330102). H. G. is financially supported by the China Scholarship Council to study at WHOI for 2 years as a guest student. M. A. S. is supported by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1922538.
    Keywords: Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of [publisher] for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Farrar, J. T., Durland, T., Jayne, S. R., & Price, J. F. Long-distance radiation of Rossby Waves from the equatorial current system. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 51(6), (2021): 1947–1966, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0048.1.
    Description: Measurements from satellite altimetry are used to show that sea surface height (SSH) variability throughout much of the North Pacific Ocean is coherent with the SSH signal of the tropical instability waves (TIWs) that result from instabilities of the equatorial currents. This variability has regular phase patterns consistent with freely propagating barotropic Rossby waves radiating energy away from the unstable equatorial currents, and the waves clearly propagate from the equatorial region to at least 30°N. The pattern of SSH variance at TIW frequencies exhibits remarkable patchiness on scales of hundreds of kilometers, which we interpret as being due to the combined effects of wave reflection, refraction, and interference. North of 40°N, more than 6000 km from the unstable equatorial currents, the SSH field remains coherent with the near-equatorial SSH variability, but it is not as clear whether the variability at the higher latitudes is a simple result of barotropic wave radiation from the tropical instability waves. Even more distant regions, as far north as the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula of eastern Russia, have SSH variability that is significantly coherent with the near-equatorial instabilities. The variability is not well represented in the widely used gridded SSH data product commonly referred to as the AVISO or DUACS product, and this appears to be a result of spatial variations in the filtering properties of the objective mapping scheme.
    Description: This work was supported by NASA Grants NNX13AE46G, NNX14AM71G, and NNX17AH54G.
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Barotropic flows ; Instability ; Planetary waves ; Rossby waves ; Topographic effects
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(1), (2021): 247-266, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0098.1.
    Description: This study focuses on mechanisms of shelf valley bathymetry affecting the spread of riverine freshwater in the nearshore region. In the context of Changjiang River, a numerical model is used with different no-tide idealized configurations to simulate development of unforced river plumes over a sloping bottom, with and without a shelf valley off the estuary mouth. All simulated freshwater plumes are surface-trapped with continuously growing bulges near the estuary mouth and narrow coastal currents downstream. The simulations indicate that a shelf valley tends to compress the bulge along the direction of the valley long axis and modify the incident angle of the bulge flow impinging toward the coast, which then affects the strength of the coastal current. The bulge compression results from geostrophic adjustment and isobath-following tendency of the depth-averaged flow in the bulge region. Generally, the resulting change in the direction of the bulge impinging flow enhances down-shelf momentum advection and freshwater delivery into the coastal current. Sensitivity simulations with altered river discharges Q, Coriolis parameter, shelf bottom slope, valley geometry, and ambient stratification show that enhancement of down-shelf freshwater transport in the coastal current, ΔQc, increases with increasing valley depth within the bulge region and decreasing slope Burger number of the ambient shelf. Assuming potential vorticity conservation, a scaling formula of ΔQc/Q is developed, and it agrees well with results of the sensitivity simulations. Mechanisms of valley influences on unforced river plumes revealed here will help future studies of topographic influence on river plumes under more realistic conditions.
    Description: This work is conducted by Canbo Xiao and Weifeng (Gordon) Zhang during CX’s one-year visit at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in 2018–19. CX was supported by China Scholarship Council.
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Buoyancy ; Coastal flows ; Topographic effects ; Runoff ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(9),(2020): 2797-2814, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0326.1.
    Description: Hydrographic measurements recently acquired along the thalweg of the Lifamatola Passage combined with historical moored velocity measurements immediately downstream of the sill are used to study the hydraulics, transport, mixing, and entrainment in the dense overflow. The observations suggest that the mean overflow is nearly critical at the mooring site, suggesting that a weir formula may be appropriate for estimating the overflow transport. Our assessment suggests that the weir formulas corresponding to a rectangular, triangular, or parabolic cross section all result in transports very close to the observation, suggesting their potential usage in long-term monitoring of the overflow transport or parameterizing the transport in numerical models. Analyses also suggest that deep signals within the overflow layer are blocked by the shear flow from propagating upstream, whereas the shallow wave modes of the full-depth continuously stratified flow are able to propagate upstream from the Banda Sea into the Maluku Sea. Strong mixing is found immediately downstream of the sill crest, with Thorpe-scale-based estimates of the mean dissipation rate within the overflow up to 1.1 × 10−7 W kg−1 and the region-averaged diapycnal diffusivity within the downstream overflow in the range of 2.3 × 10−3 to 10.1 × 10−3 m2 s−1. Mixing in the Lifamatola Passage results in 0.6–1.2-Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) entrainment transport added to the overflow, enhancing the deep-water renewal in the Banda Sea. A bulk diffusivity coefficient estimated in the deep Banda Sea yields 1.6 × 10−3 ± 5 × 10−4 m2 s−1, with an associated downward turbulent heat flux of 9 W m−2.
    Description: This study is supported by NSFC (91858204), the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB42000000), NSFC(41720104008, 41421005, 41876025), QMSNL (2018SDKJ0104-02), and the Shandong Provincial projects (U1606402). L. Pratt was supported by the U.S. NSF Grant OCE-1657870.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Entrainment ; Internal waves ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 34(5), (2021): 1767-1788, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-1020.1.
    Description: Marine heatwaves along the coast of Western Australia, referred to as Ningaloo Niño, have had dramatic impacts on the ecosystem in the recent decade. A number of local and remote forcing mechanisms have been put forward; however, little is known about the depth structure of such temperature extremes. Utilizing an eddy-active global ocean general circulation model, Ningaloo Niño and the corresponding cold Ningaloo Niña events are investigated between 1958 and 2016, with a focus on their depth structure. The relative roles of buoyancy and wind forcing are inferred from sensitivity experiments. Composites reveal a strong symmetry between cold and warm events in their vertical structure and associated large-scale spatial patterns. Temperature anomalies are largest at the surface, where buoyancy forcing is dominant, and extend down to 300-m depth (or deeper), with wind forcing being the main driver. Large-scale subsurface anomalies arise from a vertical modulation of the thermocline, extending from the western Pacific into the tropical eastern Indian Ocean. The strongest Ningaloo Niños in 2000 and 2011 are unprecedented compound events, where long-lasting high temperatures are accompanied by extreme freshening, which emerges in association with La Niñas, that is more common and persistent during the negative phase of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation. It is shown that Ningaloo Niños during La Niña phases have a distinctively deeper reach and are associated with a strengthening of the Leeuwin Current, while events during El Niño are limited to the surface layer temperatures, likely driven by local atmosphere–ocean feedbacks, without a clear imprint on salinity and velocity.
    Description: The following support is gratefully acknowledged: the Feodor-Lynen Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the WHOI Postdoctoral Scholar program (to SR), the Office of Naval Research under project number N-00014-19-12646 (to GG), the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship for Climate-Related Research (to CCU), and IndoArchipel from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of the Special Priority Program (SPP)-1889 “Regional Sea Level Change and Society” (SeaLevel) (for PW).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Australia ; Indian Ocean ; Extreme events ; General circulation models ; Ocean models
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(11),(2020): 3219–3234, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0277.1.
    Description: Preexisting, oceanic barrier layers have been shown to limit turbulent mixing and suppress mixed layer cooling during the forced stage of a tropical cyclone (TC). Furthermore, an understanding of barrier layer evolution during TC passage is mostly unexplored. High precipitation rates within TCs provide a large freshwater flux to the surface that alters upper-ocean stratification and can act as a potential mechanism to strengthen the barrier layer. Ocean glider observations from the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) indicate that a strong barrier layer developed during the approach and passage of Hurricane Gonzalo (2014), primarily as a result of freshening within the upper 30 m of the ocean. Therefore, an ocean model case study of Hurricane Gonzalo has been designed to investigate how precipitation affects upper-ocean stratification and sea surface temperature (SST) cooling during TC passage. Ocean model hindcasts of Hurricane Gonzalo characterize the upper-ocean response to TC precipitation forcing. Three different vertical mixing parameterizations are tested to determine their sensitivity to precipitation forcing. For all turbulent mixing schemes, TC precipitation produces near-surface freshening of about 0.3 psu, which is consistent with previous studies and in situ ocean observations. The influence of precipitation-induced changes to the SST response is more complicated, but generally modifies SSTs by ±0.3°C. Precipitation forcing creates a dynamical coupling between upper-ocean stratification and current shear that is largely responsible for the heterogeneous response in modeled SSTs.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; Grant NNX15AD45G) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Grant NA11OAR4320199).
    Keywords: Air-sea interaction ; Hurricanes/typhoons ; Salinity ; Ocean models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Hahn, L. C., Storelvmo, T., Hofer, S., Parfitt, R., & Ummenhofer, C. C. Importance of Orography for Greenland cloud and melt response to atmospheric blocking. Journal of Climate, 33(10), (2020): 4187-4206, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0527.1.
    Description: More frequent high pressure conditions associated with atmospheric blocking episodes over Greenland in recent decades have been suggested to enhance melt through large-scale subsidence and cloud dissipation, which allows more solar radiation to reach the ice sheet surface. Here we investigate mechanisms linking high pressure circulation anomalies to Greenland cloud changes and resulting cloud radiative effects, with a focus on the previously neglected role of topography. Using reanalysis and satellite data in addition to a regional climate model, we show that anticyclonic circulation anomalies over Greenland during recent extreme blocking summers produce cloud changes dependent on orographic lift and descent. The resulting increased cloud cover over northern Greenland promotes surface longwave warming, while reduced cloud cover in southern and marginal Greenland favors surface shortwave warming. Comparison with an idealized model simulation with flattened topography reveals that orographic effects were necessary to produce area-averaged decreasing cloud cover since the mid-1990s and the extreme melt observed in the summer of 2012. This demonstrates a key role for Greenland topography in mediating the cloud and melt response to large-scale circulation variability. These results suggest that future melt will depend on the pattern of circulation anomalies as well as the shape of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
    Description: This research was supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellow program, by the U.S. National Science Foundation under AGS-1355339 to C.C.U., and by the European Research Council through Grant 758005.
    Keywords: Ice sheets ; Blocking ; Cloud cover ; Topographic effects ; Climate change ; Climate variability
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  • 11
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(4), (2020): 887-905, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0110.1.
    Description: The Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) encounters the Galápagos Archipelago on the equator as it flows eastward across the Pacific. The impact of the Galápagos Archipelago on the EUC in the eastern equatorial Pacific remains largely unknown. In this study, the path of the EUC as it reaches the Galápagos Archipelago is measured directly using high-resolution observations obtained by autonomous underwater gliders. Gliders were deployed along three lines that define a closed region with the Galápagos Archipelago as the eastern boundary and 93°W from 2°S to 2°N as the western boundary. Twelve transects were simultaneously occupied along the three lines during 52 days in April–May 2016. Analysis of individual glider transects and average sections along each line show that the EUC splits around the Galápagos Archipelago. Velocity normal to the transects is used to estimate net horizontal volume transport into the volume. Downward integration of the net horizontal transport profile provides an estimate of the time- and areal-averaged vertical velocity profile over the 52-day time period. Local maxima in vertical velocity occur at depths of 25 and 280 m with magnitudes of (1.7 ± 0.6) × 10−5 m s−1 and (8.0 ± 1.6) × 10−5 m s−1, respectively. Volume transport as a function of salinity indicates that water crossing 93°W south (north) of 0.4°S tends to flow around the south (north) side of the Galápagos Archipelago. Comparisons are made between previous observational and modeling studies with differences attributed to effects of the strong 2015/16 El Niño event, the annual cycle of local winds, and varying longitudes between studies of the equatorial Pacific.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation (Grants OCE-1232971 and OCE-1233282) and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program (Grant 80NSSC17K0443).
    Keywords: Tropics ; Boundary currents ; Topographic effects ; Transport ; Upwelling/downwelling ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 12
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(4), (2020): 1045-1064, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0137.1.
    Description: Three simulations of the circulation in the Gulf of Mexico (the “Gulf”) using different numerical general circulation models are compared with results of recent large-scale observational campaigns conducted throughout the deep (〉1500 m) Gulf. Analyses of these observations have provided new understanding of large-scale mean circulation features and variability throughout the deep Gulf. Important features include cyclonic flow along the continental slope, deep cyclonic circulation in the western Gulf, a counterrotating pair of cells under the Loop Current region, and a cyclonic cell to the south of this pair. These dominant circulation features are represented in each of the ocean model simulations, although with some obvious differences. A striking difference between all the models and the observations is that the simulated deep eddy kinetic energy under the Loop Current region is generally less than one-half of that computed from observations. A multidecadal integration of one of these numerical simulations is used to evaluate the uncertainty of estimates of velocity statistics in the deep Gulf computed from limited-length (4 years) observational or model records. This analysis shows that the main deep circulation features identified from the observational studies appear to be robust and are not substantially impacted by variability on time scales longer than the observational records. Differences in strengths and structures of the circulation features are identified, however, and quantified through standard error analysis of the statistical estimates using the model solutions.
    Description: This work was supported by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences under Awards 2000006422 and 2000009966. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Gulf Research Program or the National Academy of Sciences. The authors acknowledge the GLORYS project for providing the ocean reanalysis data used in the ROMS simulation. GLORYS is jointly conducted by MERCATOR OCEAN, CORIOLIS, and CNRS/INSU. Installation, recovery, data acquisition, and processing of the CANEK group current-meter moorings were possible because of CICESE-PetróleosMexicanos Grant PEP-CICESE 428229851 and the dedicated work of the crew of the B/O Justo Sierra and scientists of the CANEK group. The authors thank Dr. Aljaz Maslo, CICESE, for assistance with analysis of model data. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), U.S. Dept. of the Interior, provided funding for the Lagrangian Study of the Deep Circulation in the Gulf of Mexico and the Observations and Dynamics of the Loop Current study. HYCOM simulation data are available from the HYCOM data server (https://www.hycom.org/data/goml0pt04/expt-02pt2), MITgcm data are available from the ECCO data server (http://ecco.ucsd.edu/gom_results2.html), and the ROMS simulation data are available from GRIIDC (NA.x837.000:0001).
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Abyssal circulation ; Bottom currents/bottom water ; Eddies ; Ocean models
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  • 13
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(12), (2019): 3061-3068, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0172.1.
    Description: The calculation of energy flux in coastal trapped wave modes is reviewed in the context of tidal energy pathways near the coast. The significant barotropic pressures and currents associated with coastal trapped wave modes mean that large errors in estimating the wave flux are incurred if only the baroclinic component is considered. A specific example is given showing that baroclinic flux constitutes only 10% of the flux in a mode-1 wave for a reasonable choice of stratification and bathymetry. The interpretation of baroclinic energy flux and barotropic-to-baroclinic conversion at the coast is discussed: in contrast to the open ocean, estimates of baroclinic energy flux do not represent a wave energy flux; neither does conversion represent the scattering of energy from the tidal Kelvin wave to higher modes.
    Description: This work was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship, and by NSF under Grant OCE-1756781. I am grateful to K. Brink for the many useful conversations that contributed to this work and to J. Toole for providing detailed comments on an early version of this paper. The comments of three anonymous reviewers were very helpful in improving this paper.
    Description: 2020-06-03
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Tides
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  • 14
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(3), (2020): 715-726, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0021.1.
    Description: Closing the overturning circulation of bottom water requires abyssal transformation to lighter densities and upwelling. Where and how buoyancy is gained and water is transported upward remain topics of debate, not least because the available observations generally show downward-increasing turbulence levels in the abyss, apparently implying mean vertical turbulent buoyancy-flux divergence (densification). Here, we synthesize available observations indicating that bottom water is made less dense and upwelled in fracture zone valleys on the flanks of slow-spreading midocean ridges, which cover more than one-half of the seafloor area in some regions. The fracture zones are filled almost completely with water flowing up-valley and gaining buoyancy. Locally, valley water is transformed to lighter densities both in thin boundary layers that are in contact with the seafloor, where the buoyancy flux must vanish to match the no-flux boundary condition, and in thicker layers associated with downward-decreasing turbulence levels below interior maxima associated with hydraulic overflows and critical-layer interactions. Integrated across the valley, the turbulent buoyancy fluxes show maxima near the sidewall crests, consistent with net convergence below, with little sensitivity of this pattern to the vertical structure of the turbulence profiles, which implies that buoyancy flux convergence in the layers with downward-decreasing turbulence levels dominates over the divergence elsewhere, accounting for the net transformation to lighter densities in fracture zone valleys. We conclude that fracture zone topography likely exerts a controlling influence on the transformation and upwelling of bottom water in many areas of the global ocean.
    Description: The data used in this study were collected in the context of several projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), in particular BBTRE (OCE-9415589 and OCE-9415598) and DoMORE (OCE-1235094). Funding for the analysis was provided as part of the NSF DoMORE and DECIMAL (OCE-1735618) projects. Author Ijichi is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Overseas Research Fellow. Comments on an early draft of this paper by Jim Ledwell and Bryan Kaiser, as well as topical discussions with Jörn Callies and Trevor McDougall, are gratefully acknowledged. The paper was greatly improved during the review process, in particular because of the critical comments from one of the two anonymous reviewers.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Topographic effects ; Turbulence ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
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  • 15
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(7), (2019): 1889-1904, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0053.1.
    Description: A high-resolution numerical model, together with in situ and satellite observations, is used to explore the nature and dynamics of the dominant high-frequency (from one day to one week) variability in Denmark Strait. Mooring measurements in the center of the strait reveal that warm water “flooding events” occur, whereby the North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC) propagates offshore and advects subtropical-origin water northward through the deepest part of the sill. Two other types of mesoscale processes in Denmark Strait have been described previously in the literature, known as “boluses” and “pulses,” associated with a raising and lowering of the overflow water interface. Our measurements reveal that flooding events occur in conjunction with especially pronounced pulses. The model indicates that the NIIC hydrographic front is maintained by a balance between frontogenesis by the large-scale flow and frontolysis by baroclinic instability. Specifically, the temperature and salinity tendency equations demonstrate that the eddies act to relax the front, while the mean flow acts to sharpen it. Furthermore, the model reveals that the two dense water processes—boluses and pulses (and hence flooding events)—are dynamically related to each other and tied to the meandering of the hydrographic front in the strait. Our study thus provides a general framework for interpreting the short-time-scale variability of Denmark Strait Overflow Water entering the Irminger Sea.
    Description: MAS was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants OCE-1558742 and OCE-1534618. RSP, PL, and DM were supported by NSF under Grants OCE-1558742 and OCE-1259618. WJvA was supported by the Helmholtz Infrastructure Initiative FRAM. TWNH and MA were supported by NSF under Grants OCE-1633124 and OCE-118123.
    Description: 2020-07-01
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Topographic effects
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  • 16
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019): 1639-1649, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0154.1.
    Description: Using a recently developed asymptotic theory of internal solitary wave propagation over a sloping bottom in a rotating ocean, some new qualitative and quantitative features of this process are analyzed for internal waves in a two-layer ocean. The interplay between different singularities—terminal damping due to radiation and disappearing quadratic nonlinearity, and reaching an “internal beach” (e.g., zero lower-layer depth)—is discussed. Examples of the adiabatic evolution of a single solitary wave over a uniformly sloping bottom under realistic conditions are considered in more detail and compared with numerical solutions of the variable-coefficient, rotation-modified Korteweg–de Vries (rKdV) equation.
    Description: LAO is thankful to Yu. Stepanyants for broad discussions of mutual benefit. KRH was supported by Grant N00014-18-1-2542 from the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2020-06-13
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Differential equations ; Nonlinear models ; Ocean models
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  • 17
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019):1463-1483, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0213.1.
    Description: A set of float trajectories, deployed at 1500- and 2500-m depths throughout the deep Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2015, are analyzed for mesoscale processes under the Loop Current (LC). In the eastern basin, December 2012–June 2014 had 〉40 floats per month, which was of sufficient density to allow capturing detailed flow patterns of deep eddies and topographic Rossby waves (TRWs), while two LC eddies formed and separated. A northward advance of the LC front compresses the lower water column and generates an anticyclone. For an extended LC, baroclinic instability eddies (of both signs) develop under the southward-propagating large-scale meanders of the upper-layer jet, resulting in a transfer of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) to the lower layer. The increase in lower-layer EKE occurs only over a few months during meander activity and LC eddy detachment events, a relatively short interval compared with the LC intrusion cycle. Deep EKE of these eddies is dispersed to the west and northwest through radiating TRWs, of which examples were found to the west of the LC. Because of this radiation of EKE, the lower layer of the eastern basin becomes relatively quiescent, particularly in the northeastern basin, when the LC is retracted and a LC eddy has departed. A mean west-to-east, anticyclone–cyclone dipole flow under a mean LC was directly comparable to similar results from a previous moored LC array and also showed connections to an anticlockwise boundary current in the southeastern basin.
    Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M08PC20043 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, NC. The authors also wish to acknowledge the enthusiastic support of Dr. Alexis Lugo-Fernández, the BOEM Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative, during the study into the Deep Circulation of the Gulf of Mexico, using Lagrangian Methods. Thanks go to the captains and crews of the R/V Pelican and B/O Justo Sierra, J. Malbrough (LUMCON), J. Singer (Leidos), J. Valdes (WHOI), B. Guest (WHOI), and the CANEK group (CICESE).
    Description: 2020-05-29
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Eddies ; Instability ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
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  • 18
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 883-904, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0084.1.
    Description: The dynamics controlling the along-valley (cross shelf) flow in idealized shallow shelf valleys with small to moderate Burger number are investigated, and analytical scales of the along-valley flows are derived. This paper follows Part I, which shows that along-shelf winds in the opposite direction to coastal-trapped wave propagation (upwelling regime) force a strong up-valley flow caused by the formation of a lee wave. In contrast, along-shelf winds in the other direction (downwelling regime) do not generate a lee wave and consequently force a relatively weak net down-valley flow. The valley flows in both regimes are cyclostrophic with 0(1) Rossby number. A major difference between the two regimes is the along-shelf length scales of the along-valley flows L. In the upwelling regime Ls, depends on the valley width W, and the wavelength lambda(1w) of the coastal-trapped lee wave arrested by the along-shelf flow U-s. In the downwelling regime L depends on the inertial length scale U-s|'f and W-c. The along-valley velocity scale in the upwelling regime, given by V-u approximate to root pi H-c/H-s integral W-c lambda(1w)/2 pi L-x (1+L-x(2)/L-c(2))(-1) e(-(pi Wc)/(lambda 1w),) is based on potential vorticity (PV) conservation and lee-wave dynamics (Hs and H, are the shelf and valley depth scales, respectively, and fis the Coriolis parameter). The velocity scale in the downwelling regime, given by |v(d)| approximate to (H-s/H-s)[1 + (L-x(2)/L-x(2))](-1) fL, is based on PV conservation. The velocity scales are validated by the numerical sensitivity simulations and can be useful for observational studies of along -valley transports. The work provides a framework for investigating cross -shelf transport induced by irregular shelf bathymetry and calls for future studies of this type under realistic environmental conditions and over a broader parameter space.
    Description: Both WGZ and SJL were supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Grant OCE 1154575.WGZis also supported by the NSF Grant OCE 1634965 and SJL by NSF Grant OCE 1558874.
    Description: 2018-10-16
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Waves, oceanic ; Wind stress ; Ocean models
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  • 19
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 31 (2018): 8059-8079, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0769.1.
    Description: We use the method of least squares with Lagrange multipliers to fit an ocean general circulation model to the Multiproxy Approach for the Reconstruction of the Glacial Ocean Surface (MARGO) estimate of near sea surface temperature (NSST) at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; circa 23–19 thousand years ago). Compared to a modern simulation, the resulting global, last-glacial ocean state estimate, which fits the MARGO data within uncertainties in a free-running coupled ocean–sea ice simulation, has global-mean NSSTs that are 2°C lower and greater sea ice extent in all seasons in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Increased brine rejection by sea ice formation in the Southern Ocean contributes to a stronger abyssal stratification set principally by salinity, qualitatively consistent with pore fluid measurements. The upper cell of the glacial Atlantic overturning circulation is deeper and stronger. Dye release experiments show similar distributions of Southern Ocean source waters in the glacial and modern western Atlantic, suggesting that LGM NSST data do not require a major reorganization of abyssal water masses. Outstanding challenges in reconstructing LGM ocean conditions include reducing effects from model biases and finding computationally efficient ways to incorporate abyssal tracers in global circulation inversions. Progress will be aided by the development of coupled ocean–atmosphere–ice inverse models, by improving high-latitude model processes that connect the upper and abyssal oceans, and by the collection of additional paleoclimate observations.
    Description: DEA was supported by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and NSF Grant OCE-1060735. OM acknowledges support from the NSF. GF was supported by NASA Award 1553749 and Simons Foundation Award 549931.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Abyssal circulation ; Sea surface temperature ; Paleoclimate ; Inverse methods ; Ocean models
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  • 20
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2999-3013, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0129.1.
    Description: Initial results are presented from a yearlong, high-resolution (~2 km) numerical simulation covering the east Greenland shelf and the Iceland and Irminger Seas. The model hydrography and circulation in the vicinity of Denmark Strait show good agreement with available observational datasets. This study focuses on the variability of the Denmark Strait overflow (DSO) by detecting and characterizing boluses and pulses, which are the two dominant mesoscale features in the strait. The authors estimate that the yearly mean southward volume flux of the DSO is about 30% greater in the presence of boluses and pulses. On average, boluses (pulses) are 57.1 (27.5) h long, occur every 3.2 (5.5) days, and are more frequent during the summer (winter). Boluses (pulses) increase (decrease) the overflow cross-sectional area, and temperatures around the overflow interface are colder (warmer) by about 2.6°C (1.8°C). The lateral extent of the boluses is much greater than that of the pulses. In both cases the along-strait equatorward flow of dense water is enhanced but more so for pulses. The sea surface height (SSH) rises by 4–10 cm during boluses and by up to 5 cm during pulses. The SSH anomaly contours form a bowl (dome) during boluses (pulses), and the two features cross the strait with a slightly different orientation. The cross streamflow changes direction; boluses (pulses) are associated with veering (backing) of the horizontal current. The model indicates that boluses and pulses play a major role in controlling the variability of the DSO transport into the Irminger Sea.
    Description: This work was supported by the NSF Grants OCE-1433448, OCE-1633124, and OCE- 1259618 and the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) seed grant funding.
    Description: 2018-06-13
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean models ; Regional models
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  • 21
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2927-2947, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0083.1.
    Description: Motivated by observations in Hudson shelf valley showing stronger onshore than offshore flows, this study investigates wind-driven flows in idealized shallow shelf valleys. This first part of a two-part sequence focuses on the mechanism of the asymmetrical flow response in a valley to along-shelf winds of opposite directions. Model simulations show that (i) when the wind is in the opposite direction to coastal-trapped wave (CTW) phase propagation, the shelf flow turns onshore in the valley and generates strong up-valley transport and a standing meander on the upstream side (in the sense of CTW phase propagation) of the valley, and (ii) when the wind is in the same direction as CTW phase propagation, the flow forms a symmetric onshore detour pattern over the valley with negligible down-valley transport. Comparison of the modeled upstream meanders in the first scenario with CTW characteristics confirms that the up-valley flow results from CTWs being arrested by the wind-driven shelf flow establishing lee waves. The valley bathymetry generates an initial excessive onshore pressure gradient force that drives the up-valley flow and induces CTW lee waves that sustain the up-valley flow. When the wind-driven shelf flow aligns with CTW phase propagation, the initial disturbance generated in the valley propagates away, allowing the valley flow to adjust to roughly follow isobaths. Because of the similarity in the physical setup, this mechanism of arrested CTWs generating stronger onshore than offshore flow is expected to be applicable to the flow response in slope canyons to along-isobath background flows of opposite directions.
    Description: WGZ and SJL were supported by the National Science Foundation through GrantOCE1154575.WGZ is also supported by the NSF Grant OCE 1634965 and SJL by NSF Grant OCE 1558874.
    Description: 2018-06-08
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Transport ; Vertical motion ; Waves, oceanic ; Wind stress
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  • 22
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1291-1305, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0160.1.
    Description: Along-stream variations in the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) impact heat and tracer transport, regulate interbasin exchange, and influence closure of the overturning circulation. Topography is primarily responsible for generating deviations from zonal-mean properties, mainly through standing meanders associated with regions of high eddy kinetic energy. Here, an idealized channel model is used to explore the spatial distribution of energy exchange and its relationship to eddy geometry, as characterized by both eddy momentum and eddy buoyancy fluxes. Variations in energy exchange properties occur not only between standing meander and quasi-zonal jet regions, but throughout the meander itself. Both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties, as well as the magnitude of energy exchange terms, undergo abrupt changes along the path of the ACC. These transitions are captured by diagnosing eddy fluxes of energy and by adopting the eddy geometry framework. The latter, typically applied to barotropic stability properties, is applied here in the depth–along-stream plane to include information about both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties of the flow. These simulations reveal that eddy momentum fluxes, and thus barotropic instability, play a leading role in the energy budget within a standing meander. This result suggests that baroclinic instability alone cannot capture the dynamics of ACC standing meanders, a challenge for models where eddy fluxes are parameterized.
    Description: The authors all acknowledge support from NSF OCE-1235488. MKY also acknowledges support from the AMS Graduate Student Fellowship.
    Description: 2017-10-12
    Keywords: Southern Ocean ; Channel flows ; Stability ; Topographic effects ; Eddies ; Mesoscale models
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  • 23
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2479-2498, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0167.1.
    Description: The generation of trapped and radiating internal tides around Izu‐Oshima Island located off Sagami Bay, Japan, is investigated using the three-dimensional Stanford Unstructured Nonhydrostatic Terrain-following Adaptive Navier–Stokes Simulator (SUNTANS) that is validated with observations of isotherm displacements in shallow water. The model is forced by barotropic tides, which generate strong baroclinic internal tides in the study region. Model results showed that when diurnal K1 barotropic tides dominate, resonance of a trapped internal Kelvin wave leads to large-amplitude internal tides in shallow waters on the coast. This resonance produces diurnal motions that are much stronger than the semidiurnal motions. The weaker, freely propagating, semidiurnal internal tides are generated on the western side of the island, where the M2 internal tide beam angle matches the topographic slope. The internal wave energy flux due to the diurnal internal tides is much higher than that of the semidiurnal tides in the study region. Although the diurnal internal tide energy is trapped, this study shows that steepening of the Kelvin waves produces high-frequency internal tides that radiate from the island, thus acting as a mechanism to extract energy from the diurnal motions.
    Description: This study was supported by JST CREST Grant Number JPRMJCR12A6.
    Description: 2018-04-12
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves ; In situ oceanic observations ; Baroclinic models ; Ocean models
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  • 24
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 3599-3621, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0085.1.
    Description: At continental margins, energetic deep-ocean eddies can transport shelf water offshore in filaments that wrap around the eddy. One example is that of Gulf Stream warm-core rings interacting with the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf. The rate at which shelf water is exported in these filaments is a major unknown in regional budgets of volume, heat, and salt. This unknown transport is constrained using a series of idealized primitive equation numerical experiments wherein a surface-intensified anticyclonic eddy interacts with idealized shelf–slope topography. There is no shelfbreak front in these experiments, and shelf water is tracked using a passive tracer. When anticyclones interact with shelf–slope topography, they suffer apparent intrusions of shelf–slope water, resulting in a subsurface maximum in offshore transport. The simulations help construct an approximate model for the filament of exported water that originates inshore of any given isobath. This model is then used to derive an expression for the total volume of shelf–slope water transported by the eddy across that isobath. The transport scales with water depth, radius, and azimuthal velocity scale of the eddy. The resulting expression can be used with satellite-derived eddy properties to estimate approximate real-world transports ignoring the presence of a shelfbreak front. The expression assumes that the eddy’s edge is at the shelf break, a condition not always satisfied by real eddies.
    Description: The research presented here was funded by NSF Grants OCE-1059632 and OCE-1433953. Funding support from the Academic Programs Office, and WHOI is also gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2017-06-08
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Advection ; Dynamics ; Eddies ; Topographic effects
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  • 25
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2913–2932, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0179.1.
    Description: The oceanic deep circulation is shared between concentrated deep western boundary currents (DWBCs) and broader interior pathways, a process that is sensitive to seafloor topography. This study investigates the spreading and deepening of Denmark Strait overflow water (DSOW) in the western subpolar North Atlantic using two ° eddy-resolving Atlantic simulations, including a passive tracer injected into the DSOW. The deepest layers of DSOW transit from a narrow DWBC in the southern Irminger Sea into widespread westward flow across the central Labrador Sea, which remerges along the Labrador coast. This abyssal circulation, in contrast to the upper levels of overflow water that remain as a boundary current, blankets the deep Labrador Sea with DSOW. Farther downstream after being steered around the abrupt topography of Orphan Knoll, DSOW again leaves the boundary, forming cyclonic recirculation cells in the deep Newfoundland basin. The deep recirculation, mostly driven by the meandering pathway of the upper North Atlantic Current, leads to accumulation of tracer offshore of Orphan Knoll, precisely where a local maximum of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) inventory is observed. At Flemish Cap, eddy fluxes carry ~20% of the tracer transport from the boundary current into the interior. Potential vorticity is conserved as the flow of DSOW broadens at the transition from steep to less steep continental rise into the Labrador Sea, while around the abrupt topography of Orphan Knoll, potential vorticity is not conserved and the DSOW deepens significantly.
    Description: This work is supported by ONR Award N00014-09-1-0587, the NSF Physical Oceanography Program, and NASA Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Program.
    Description: 2016-06-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Abyssal circulation ; Boundary currents ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Topographic effects
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  • 26
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 3011-3029, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0248.1.
    Description: Seasonal variability of the tropical Atlantic circulation is dominated by the annual cycle, but semiannual variability is also pronounced, despite weak forcing at that period. This study uses multiyear, full-depth velocity measurements from the central equatorial Atlantic to analyze the vertical structure of annual and semiannual variations of zonal velocity. A baroclinic modal decomposition finds that the annual cycle is dominated by the fourth mode and the semiannual cycle is dominated by the second mode. Similar local behavior is found in a high-resolution general circulation model. This simulation reveals that the annual and semiannual cycles of the respective dominant baroclinic modes are associated with characteristic basinwide structures. Using an idealized, linear, reduced-gravity model to simulate the dynamics of individual baroclinic modes, it is shown that the observed circulation variability can be explained by resonant equatorial basin modes. Corollary simulations of the reduced-gravity model with varying basin geometry (i.e., square basin vs realistic coastlines) or forcing (i.e., spatially uniform vs spatially variable wind) show a structural robustness of the simulated basin modes. A main focus of this study is the seasonal variability of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) as identified in recent observational studies. Main characteristics of the observed EUC including seasonal variability of transport, core depth, and maximum core velocity can be explained by the linear superposition of the dominant equatorial basin modes as obtained from the reduced-gravity model.
    Description: This study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as part of the Sonderforschungsbereich 754 (SFB754) ‘‘Climate–Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropical Ocean’’ and through several research cruises with R/V Meteor, R/V Maria S. Merian, andR/VL’Atalante by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the cooperative projects RACE (03F0605B) and SACUS (03G0837A) and by European Union 7th Framework Programme (FP7 2007–13) under Grant Agreement 603521 PREFACE project.
    Keywords: Atlantic Ocean ; Ocean circulation ; In situ oceanic observations ; Ocean models ; Seasonal cycle ; Tropical variability
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  • 27
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 439-459, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0086.1.
    Description: The summertime California Current System (CCS) is characterized by energetic mesoscale eddies, whose sea surface temperature (SST) and surface current can significantly modify the wind stress and Ekman pumping. Relative importance of the eddy–wind interactions via SST and surface current in the CCS is examined using a high-resolution (7 km) regional coupled model with a novel coupling approach to isolate the small-scale air–sea coupling by SST and surface current. Results show that when the eddy-induced surface current is allowed to modify the wind stress, the spatially averaged surface eddy kinetic energy (EKE) is reduced by 42%, and this is primarily due to enhanced surface eddy drag and reduced wind energy transfer. In contrast, the eddy-induced SST–wind coupling has no significant impact on the EKE. Furthermore, eddy-induced SST and surface current modify the Ekman pumping via their crosswind SST gradient and surface vorticity gradient, respectively. The resultant magnitudes of the Ekman pumping velocity are comparable, but the implied feedback effects on the eddy statistics are different. The surface current-induced Ekman pumping mainly attenuates the amplitude of cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies, acting to reduce the eddy activity, while the SST-induced Ekman pumping primarily affects the propagation. Time mean–rectified change in SST is determined by the altered offshore temperature advection by the mean and eddy currents, but the magnitude of the mean SST change is greater with the eddy-induced current effect. The demonstrated remarkably strong dynamical response in the CCS system to the eddy-induced current–wind coupling indicates that eddy-induced current should play an important role in the regional coupled ocean–atmosphere system.
    Description: We thank NSF for support under GrantsOCE-0960770,OCE-1419235, andOCE-1419306. HS is grateful for the WHOI internal support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards for Innovative Research and the additional support from the ONR We thank NSF for support under GrantsOCE-0960770,OCE-1419235, andOCE-1419306. HS is grateful for the WHOI internal support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards for Innovative Research and the additional support from the ONR
    Description: 2016-05-30
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Ekman pumping ; Models and modeling ; Ocean models ; Regional models
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  • 28
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    Unknown
    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 33 (2016): 1225-1235, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-15-0115.1.
    Description: Accurate estimation of the transport probabilities among regions in the ocean provides valuable information for understanding plankton transport, the spread of pollutants, and the movement of water masses. Individual-based particle-tracking models simulate a large ensemble of Lagrangian particles and are a common method to estimate these transport probabilities. Simulating a large ensemble of Lagrangian particles is computationally expensive, and appropriately allocating resources can reduce the cost of this method. Two universal questions in the design of studies that use Lagrangian particle tracking are how many particles to release and how to distribute particle releases. A method is presented for tailoring the number and the release location of particles to most effectively achieve the objectives of a study. The method detailed here is a sequential analysis procedure that seeks to minimize the number of particles that are required to satisfy a predefined metric of result quality. The study assesses the result quality as the precision of the estimates for the elements of a transport matrix and also describes how the method may be extended for use with other metrics. Applying this methodology to both a theoretical system and a particle transport model of the Gulf of Maine results in more precise estimates of the transport probabilities with fewer particles than from uniformly or randomly distributing particle releases. The application of this method can help reduce the cost of and increase the robustness of results from studies that use Lagrangian particles.
    Description: This research was supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) program and the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-1459133 and Grant OCE-1031256.
    Description: 2016-12-02
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Models and modeling ; Model evaluation/performance ; Ocean models ; Tracers
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  • 29
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 606–612, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0221.1.
    Description: Mesoscale intrathermocline lenses are observed throughout the World Ocean and are commonly attributed to water mass anomalies advected from a distant origin. An alternative mechanism of local generation is offered herein, in which eddy–wind interaction can create lens-shaped disturbances in the thermocline. Numerical simulations illustrate how eddy–wind-driven upwelling in anticyclones can yield a convex lens reminiscent of a mode water eddy, whereas eddy–wind-driven downwelling in cyclones produces a concave lens that thins the mode water layer (a cyclonic “thinny”). Such transformations should be observable with long-term time series in the interiors of mesoscale eddies.
    Description: Support of this research by the National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2015-08-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Eddies ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Models and modeling ; Ocean models ; Primitive equations model
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  • 30
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 966–987, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0110.1.
    Description: A key remaining challenge in oceanography is the understanding and parameterization of small-scale mixing. Evidence suggests that topographic features play a significant role in enhancing mixing in the Southern Ocean. This study uses 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel EM-APEX profiling floats to investigate turbulent mixing north of the Kerguelen Plateau, a major topographic feature in the Southern Ocean. A shear–strain finescale parameterization is applied to estimate diapycnal diffusivity in the upper 1600 m of the ocean. The indirect estimates of mixing match direct microstructure profiler observations made simultaneously. It is found that mixing intensities have strong spatial and temporal variability, ranging from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1. This study identifies topographic roughness, current speed, and wind speed as the main factors controlling mixing intensity. Additionally, the authors find strong regional variability in mixing dynamics and enhanced mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current frontal region. This enhanced mixing is attributed to dissipating internal waves generated by the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the topography of the Kerguelen Plateau. Extending the mixing observations from the Kerguelen region to the entire Southern Ocean, this study infers a large water mass transformation rate of 17 Sverdrups (Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) across the boundary of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Upper Circumpolar Deep Water in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This work suggests that the contribution of mixing to the Southern Ocean overturning circulation budget is particularly significant in fronts.
    Description: AM was supported by the joint CSIRO–University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. BMS was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program, jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and CSIRO. KLPs salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2015-10-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Fronts ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixing
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  • 31
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2598–2620, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0249.1.
    Description: Through combining analytical arguments and numerical models, this study investigates the finite-amplitude meanders of shelfbreak fronts characterized by sloping isopycnals outcropping at both the surface and the shelfbreak bottom. The objective is to provide a formula for the meander length scale that can explain observed frontal length scale variability and also be verified with observations. Considering the frontal instability to be a mixture of barotropic and baroclinic instability, the derived along-shelf meander length scale formula is [b1/(1 + a1S1/2)]NH/f, where N is the buoyancy frequency; H is the depth of the front; f is the Coriolis parameter; S is the Burger number measuring the ratio of energy conversion associated with barotropic and baroclinic instability; and a1 and b1 are empirical constants. Initial growth rate of the frontal instability is formulated as [b2(1 + a1S1/2)/(1 + a2αS1/2)]NH/L, where α is the bottom slope at the foot of the front, and a2 and b2 are empirical constants. The formulas are verified using numerical sensitivity simulations, and fitting of the simulated and formulated results gives a1 = 2.69, b1 = 14.65, a2 = 5.1 × 103, and b2 = 6.2 × 10−2. The numerical simulations also show development of fast-growing frontal symmetric instability when the minimum initial potential vorticity is negative. Although frontal symmetric instability leads to faster development of barotropic and baroclinic instability at later times, it does not significantly influence the meander length scale. The derived meander length scale provides a framework for future studies of the influences of external forces on shelfbreak frontal circulation and cross-frontal exchange.
    Description: WGZ and GGG were supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-1129125.
    Description: 2016-04-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Instability ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Fronts ; Models and modeling ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 32
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 3033–3053, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0227.1.
    Description: The East Greenland Current (EGC) had long been considered the main pathway for the Denmark Strait overflow (DSO). Recent observations, however, indicate that the north Icelandic jet (NIJ), which flows westward along the north coast of Iceland, is a major separate pathway for the DSO. In this study a two-layer numerical model and complementary integral constraints are used to examine various pathways that lead to the DSO and to explore plausible mechanisms for the NIJ’s existence. In these simulations, a westward and NIJ-like current emerges as a robust feature and a main pathway for the Denmark Strait overflow. Its existence can be explained through circulation integrals around advantageous contours. One such constraint spells out the consequences of overflow water as a source of low potential vorticity. A stronger constraint can be added when the outflow occurs through two outlets: it takes the form of a circulation integral around the Iceland–Faroe Ridge. In either case, the direction of overall circulation about the contour can be deduced from the required frictional torques. Some effects of wind stress forcing are also examined. The overall positive curl of the wind forces cyclonic gyres in both layers, enhancing the East Greenland Current. The wind stress forcing weakens but does not eliminate the NIJ. It also modifies the sign of the deep circulation in various subbasins and alters the path by which overflow water is brought to the Faroe Bank Channel, all in ways that bring the idealized model more in line with observations. The sequence of numerical experiments separates the effects of wind and buoyancy forcing and shows how each is important.
    Description: This study has been supported by National Science Foundation (OCE0927017 and ARC1107412).
    Description: 2015-06-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Channel flows ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects
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  • 33
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 294–312, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0104.1.
    Description: Model analyses of an alongshelf flow over a continental shelf and slope reveal upwelling near the shelf break. A stratified, initially uniform, alongshelf flow undergoes a rapid adjustment with notable differences onshore and offshore of the shelf break. Over the shelf, a bottom boundary layer and an offshore bottom Ekman transport develop within an inertial period. Over the slope, the bottom offshore transport is reduced from the shelf’s bottom transport by two processes. First, advection of buoyancy downslope induces vertical mixing, destratifying, and thickening the bottom boundary layer. The downward-tilting isopycnals reduce the geostrophic speed near the bottom. The reduced bottom stress weakens the offshore Ekman transport, a process known as buoyancy shutdown of the Ekman transport. Second, the thickening bottom boundary layer and weakening near-bottom speeds are balanced by an upslope ageostrophic transport. The convergence in the bottom transport induces adiabatic upwelling offshore of the shelf break. For a time period after the initial adjustment, scalings are identified for the upwelling speed and the length scale over which it occurs. Numerical experiments are used to test the scalings for a range of initial speeds and stratifications. Upwelling occurs within an inertial period, reaching values of up to 10 m day−1 within 2 to 7 km offshore of the shelf break. Upwelling drives an interior secondary circulation that accelerates the alongshelf flow over the slope, forming a shelfbreak jet. The model results are compared with upwelling estimates from other models and observations near the Middle Atlantic Bight shelf break.
    Description: J. Benthuysen acknowledges support from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (CE110001028) and the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, where this work was initiated.
    Description: 2015-07-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mixing ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling
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  • 34
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 1398–1406, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-028.1.
    Description: An adiabatic, inertial, and quasigeostrophic model is used to discuss the interaction of surface Ekman transport with an island. The theory extends the recent work of Spall and Pedlosky to include an analytical and nonlinear model for the interaction. The presence of an island that interrupts a uniform Ekman layer transport raises interesting questions about the resulting circulation. The consequential upwelling around the island can lead to a local intake of fluid from the geostrophic region beneath the Ekman layer or to a more complex flow around the island in which the fluid entering the Ekman layer on one portion of the island's perimeter is replaced by a flow along the island's boundary from a downwelling region located elsewhere on the island. This becomes especially pertinent when the flow is quasigeostrophic and adiabatic. The oncoming geostrophic flow that balances the offshore Ekman flux is largely diverted around the island, and the Ekman flux is fed by a transfer of fluid from the western to the eastern side of the island. As opposed to the linear, dissipative model described earlier, this transfer takes place even in the absence of a topographic skirt around the island. The principal effect of topography in the inertial model is to introduce an asymmetry between the circulation on the northern and southern sides of the island. The quasigeostrophic model allows a simple solution to the model problem with topography and yet the resulting three-dimensional circulation is surprisingly complex with streamlines connecting each side of the island.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE Grant 0925061.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Large-scale motions ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Topographic effects
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  • 35
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 2938–2950, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0201.1.
    Description: Direct observations in the Southern Ocean report enhanced internal wave activity and turbulence in a kilometer-thick layer above rough bottom topography collocated with the deep-reaching fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Linear theory, corrected for finite-amplitude topography based on idealized, two-dimensional numerical simulations, has been recently used to estimate the global distribution of internal wave generation by oceanic currents and eddies. The global estimate shows that the topographic wave generation is a significant sink of energy for geostrophic flows and a source of energy for turbulent mixing in the deep ocean. However, comparison with recent observations from the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean shows that the linear theory predictions and idealized two-dimensional simulations grossly overestimate the observed levels of turbulent energy dissipation. This study presents two- and three-dimensional, realistic topography simulations of internal lee-wave generation from a steady flow interacting with topography with parameters typical of Drake Passage. The results demonstrate that internal wave generation at three-dimensional, finite bottom topography is reduced compared to the two-dimensional case. The reduction is primarily associated with finite-amplitude bottom topography effects that suppress vertical motions and thus reduce the amplitude of the internal waves radiated from topography. The implication of these results for the global lee-wave generation is discussed.
    Description: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award CMG-1024198.
    Description: 2015-05-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Mixing ; Mountain waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic
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  • 36
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 834-849, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0179.1.
    Description: A hydrostatic numerical model with alongshore-uniform barotropic M2 tidal boundary forcing and idealized shelfbreak canyon bathymetries is used to study internal-tide generation and onshore propagation. A control simulation with Mid-Atlantic Bight representative bathymetry is supported by other simulations that serve to identify specific processes. The canyons and adjacent slopes are transcritical in steepness with respect to M2 internal wave characteristics. Although the various canyons are symmetrical in structure, barotropic-to-baroclinic energy conversion rates Cυ are typically asymmetrical within them. The resulting onshore-propagating internal waves are the strongest along beams in the horizontal plane, with the stronger beam in the control simulation lying on the side with higher Cυ. Analysis of the simulation results suggests that the cross-canyon asymmetrical Cυ distributions are caused by multiple-scattering effects on one canyon side slope, because the phase variation in the spatially distributed internal-tide sources, governed by variations in the orientation of the bathymetry gradient vector, allows resonant internal-tide generation. A less complex, semianalytical, modal internal wave propagation model with sources placed along the critical-slope locus (where the M2 internal wave characteristic is tangent to the seabed) and variable source phasing is used to diagnose the physics of the horizontal beams of onshore internal wave radiation. Model analysis explains how the cross-canyon phase and amplitude variations in the locally generated internal tides affect parameters of the internal-tide beams. Under the assumption that strong internal tides on continental shelves evolve to include nonlinear wave trains, the asymmetrical internal-tide generation and beam radiation effects may lead to nonlinear internal waves and enhanced mixing occurring preferentially on one side of shelfbreak canyons, in the absence of other influencing factors.
    Description: All three authors were supported by Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grant N00014-11-1-0701. WGZ was additionally supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant OCE-1154575, and TFD was additionally supported by NSF Grant OCE-1060430.
    Description: 2014-09-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Internal waves ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Models and modeling ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 37
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 418–431, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-087.1.
    Description: The overflow of the dense water mass across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge (GSR) from the Nordic Seas drives the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The Nordic Seas is a large basin with an enormous reservoir capacity. The volume of the dense water above the GSR sill depth in the Nordic Seas, according to previous estimates, is sufficient to supply decades of overflow transport. This large capacity buffers overflow’s responses to atmospheric variations and prevents an abrupt shutdown of the AMOC. In this study, the authors use a numerical and an analytical model to show that the effective reservoir capacity of the Nordic Seas is actually much smaller than what was estimated previously. Basin-scale oceanic circulation is nearly geostrophic and its streamlines are basically the same as the isobaths. The vast majority of the dense water is stored inside closed geostrophic contours in the deep basin and thus is not freely available to the overflow. The positive wind stress curl in the Nordic Seas forces a convergence of the dense water toward the deep basin and makes the interior water even more removed from the overflow-feeding boundary current. Eddies generated by the baroclinic instability help transport the interior water mass to the boundary current. But in absence of a robust renewal of deep water, the boundary current weakens rapidly and the eddy-generating mechanism becomes less effective. This study indicates that the Nordic Seas has a relatively small capacity as a dense water reservoir and thus the overflow transport is sensitive to climate changes.
    Description: This study has been supported by National Science Foundation (OCE0927017,ARC1107412).
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Drainage flow ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Topographic effects
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  • 38
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 283–300, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0240.1.
    Description: Motivated by the recent interest in ocean energetics, the widespread use of horizontal eddy viscosity in models, and the promise of high horizontal resolution data from the planned wide-swath satellite altimeter, this paper explores the impacts of horizontal eddy viscosity and horizontal grid resolution on geostrophic turbulence, with a particular focus on spectral kinetic energy fluxes Π(K) computed in the isotropic wavenumber (K) domain. The paper utilizes idealized two-layer quasigeostrophic (QG) models, realistic high-resolution ocean general circulation models, and present-generation gridded satellite altimeter data. Adding horizontal eddy viscosity to the QG model results in a forward cascade at smaller scales, in apparent agreement with results from present-generation altimetry. Eddy viscosity is taken to roughly represent coupling of mesoscale eddies to internal waves or to submesoscale eddies. Filtering the output of either the QG or realistic models before computing Π(K) also greatly increases the forward cascade. Such filtering mimics the smoothing inherent in the construction of present-generation gridded altimeter data. It is therefore difficult to say whether the forward cascades seen in present-generation altimeter data are due to real physics (represented here by eddy viscosity) or to insufficient horizontal resolution. The inverse cascade at larger scales remains in the models even after filtering, suggesting that its existence in the models and in altimeter data is robust. However, the magnitude of the inverse cascade is affected by filtering, suggesting that the wide-swath altimeter will allow a more accurate determination of the inverse cascade at larger scales as well as providing important constraints on smaller-scale dynamics.
    Description: BKA received support from Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-11-1-0487, National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants OCE-0924481 and OCE- 09607820, and University of Michigan startup funds. KLP acknowledges support from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds. RBS acknowledges support from NSF grants OCE-0960834 and OCE-0851457, a contract with the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, and a NASA subcontract to Boston University. JFS and JGR were supported by the projects ‘‘Global and remote littoral forcing in global ocean models’’ and ‘‘Agesotrophic vorticity dynamics of the ocean,’’ respectively, both sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under program element 601153N.
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Eddies ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean dynamics ; Satellite observations ; Ocean models
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  • 39
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 766–789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0141.1.
    Description: Nonlinear energy transfers from the semidiurnal internal tide to high-mode, near-diurnal motions are documented near Kaena Ridge, Hawaii, an energetic generation site for the baroclinic tide. Data were collected aboard the Research Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) over a 35-day period during the fall of 2002, as part of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment (HOME) Nearfield program. Energy transfer terms for a PSI resonant interaction at midlatitude are identified and compared to those for near-inertial PSI close to the M2 critical latitude. Bispectral techniques are used to demonstrate significant energy transfers in the Nearfield, between the low-mode M2 internal tide and subharmonic waves with frequencies near M2/2 and vertical wavelengths of O(120 m). A novel prefilter is used to test the PSI wavenumber resonance condition, which requires the subharmonic waves to propagate in opposite vertical directions. Depth–time maps of the interactions, formed by directly estimating the energy transfer terms, show that energy is transferred predominantly from the tide to subharmonic waves, but numerous reverse energy transfers are also found. A net forward energy transfer rate of 2 × 10−9 W kg−1 is found below 400 m. The suggestion is that the HOME observations of energy transfer from the tide to subharmonic waves represent a first step in the open-ocean energy cascade. Observed PSI transfer rates could account for a small but significant fraction of the turbulent dissipation of the tide within 60 km of Kaena Ridge. Further extrapolation suggests that integrated PSI energy transfers equatorward of the M2 critical latitude may be comparable to PSI energy transfers previously observed near 28.8°N.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2013-10-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Energy transport ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 40
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 26 (2013): 9291–9312, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00566.1.
    Description: The authors compare Community Earth System Model results to marine observations for the 1990s and examine climate change impacts on biogeochemistry at the end of the twenty-first century under two future scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Late-twentieth-century seasonally varying mixed layer depths are generally within 10 m of observations, with a Southern Ocean shallow bias. Surface nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations exhibit positive biases at low latitudes and negative biases at high latitudes. The volume of the oxygen minimum zones is overestimated. The impacts of climate change on biogeochemistry have similar spatial patterns under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, but perturbation magnitudes are larger under RCP8.5. Increasing stratification leads to weaker nutrient entrainment and decreased primary and export production (〉30% over large areas). The global-scale decreases in primary and export production scale linearly with the increases in mean sea surface temperature. There are production increases in the high nitrate, low chlorophyll (HNLC) regions, driven by lateral iron inputs from adjacent areas. The increased HNLC export partially compensates for the reductions in non-HNLC waters (~25% offset). Stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions and climate by the end of this century (as in RCP4.5) will minimize the changes to nutrient cycling and primary production in the oceans. In contrast, continued increasing emission of CO2 (as in RCP8.5) will lead to reduced productivity and significant modifications to ocean circulation and biogeochemistry by the end of this century, with more drastic changes beyond the year 2100 as the climate continues to rapidly warm.
    Description: The CESM project is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science (BER) of the U.S. Department of Energy. S.C.D. acknowledges support of Collaborative Research: Improved Regional and Decadal Predictions of the Carbon Cycle (NSF AGS-1048827). This work was supported by NSF grants (ARC-0902045 and AGS-1021776 to Moore and AGS- 1048890 to Moore, Lindsay, and Doney).
    Description: 2014-06-01
    Keywords: Climate prediction ; Forecast verification/skill ; Climate models ; Ecological models ; Model evaluation/performance ; Ocean models
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  • 41
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 602–615, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-055.1.
    Description: The ocean interior stratification and meridional overturning circulation are largely sustained by diapycnal mixing. The breaking of internal tides is a major source of diapycnal mixing. Many recent climate models parameterize internal-tide breaking using the scheme of St. Laurent et al. While this parameterization dynamically accounts for internal-tide generation, the vertical distribution of the resultant mixing is ad hoc, prescribing energy dissipation to decay exponentially above the ocean bottom with a fixed-length scale. Recently, Polzin formulated a dynamically based parameterization, in which the vertical profile of dissipation decays algebraically with a varying decay scale, accounting for variable stratification using Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) stretching. This study compares two simulations using the St. Laurent and Polzin formulations in the Climate Model, version 2G (CM2G), ocean–ice–atmosphere coupled model, with the same formulation for internal-tide energy input. Focusing mainly on the Pacific Ocean, where the deep low-frequency variability is relatively small, the authors show that the ocean state shows modest but robust and significant sensitivity to the vertical profile of internal-tide-driven mixing. Therefore, not only the energy input to the internal tides matters, but also where in the vertical it is dissipated.
    Description: This work is a component of the Internal- Wave Driven Mixing Climate Process Team funded by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0968721 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Award NA08OAR4320752.
    Description: 2013-09-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Ocean models ; Parameterization
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  • 42
    Publication Date: 2017-04-03
    Description: A global ocean three-dimensional variational data assimilation system was developed with the aim of assimilating along-track sea level anomaly observations, along with in situ observations from bathythermographs and conventional sea stations. All the available altimetric data within the period October 1992–January 2006 were used in this study. The sea level corrections were covariated with vertical profiles of temperature and salinity according to the bivariate definition of the background-error vertical covariances. Sea level anomaly observational error variance was carefully defined as a sum of instrumental, representativeness, observation operator, and mean dynamic topography error variances. The mean dynamic topography was computed from the model long-term mean sea surface height and adjusted through an optimal interpolation scheme to account for observation minus first-guess biases. Results show that the assimilation of sea level anomaly observations improves the model sea surface height skill scores as well as the subsurface temperature and salinity fields. Furthermore, the estimate of the tropical and subtropical surface circulation is clearly improved after assimilating altimetric data. Nonnegligible impacts of the mean dynamic topography used have also been found: compared to a gravimeter-based mean dynamic topography the use of the mean dynamic topography discussed in this paper improves both the consistency with sea level anomaly observations and the verification skill scores of temperature and salinity in the tropical regions. Furthermore, the use of a mean dynamic topography computed from the model long-term sea surface height mean without observation adjustments results in worsened verification skill scores and highlights the benefits of the current approach for deriving the mean dynamic topography.
    Description: European Commission WP4 Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna Cnes
    Description: Published
    Description: 738-754
    Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano
    Description: 4.6. Oceanografia operativa per la valutazione dei rischi in aree marine
    Description: 5.4. Banche dati di geomagnetismo, aeronomia, clima e ambiente
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Data assimilation ; Satellite observations ; Ocean models ; Sea level ; In situ observations ; Variational analysis ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.01. Analytical and numerical modeling ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.03. Global climate models ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.04. Ocean data assimilation and reanalysis
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 43
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 25 (2012): 5153–5172, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00463.1.
    Description: Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variability is documented in the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) preindustrial control simulation that uses nominal 1° horizontal resolution in all its components. AMOC shows a broad spectrum of low-frequency variability covering the 50–200-yr range, contrasting sharply with the multidecadal variability seen in the T85 × 1 resolution CCSM3 present-day control simulation. Furthermore, the amplitude of variability is much reduced in CCSM4 compared to that of CCSM3. Similarities as well as differences in AMOC variability mechanisms between CCSM3 and CCSM4 are discussed. As in CCSM3, the CCSM4 AMOC variability is primarily driven by the positive density anomalies at the Labrador Sea (LS) deep-water formation site, peaking 2 yr prior to an AMOC maximum. All processes, including parameterized mesoscale and submesoscale eddies, play a role in the creation of salinity anomalies that dominate these density anomalies. High Nordic Sea densities do not necessarily lead to increased overflow transports because the overflow physics is governed by source and interior region density differences. Increased overflow transports do not lead to a higher AMOC either but instead appear to be a precursor to lower AMOC transports through enhanced stratification in LS. This has important implications for decadal prediction studies. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is significantly correlated with the positive boundary layer depth and density anomalies prior to an AMOC maximum. This suggests a role for NAO through setting the surface flux anomalies in LS and affecting the subpolar gyre circulation strength.
    Description: The CCSM project is supported by NSF and the Office of Science (BER) of the U.S. Department of Energy. SGY and YOK were supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office under Climate Variability and Predictability Program Grants NA09OAR4310163 and NA10OAR4310202, respectively.
    Description: 2013-02-01
    Keywords: Meridional overturning circulation ; Coupled models ; Ocean models ; Oceanic variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 44
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 2168–2186, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-08.1.
    Description: This paper studies the interaction of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)–like wind-driven channel flow with a continental slope and a flat-bottomed bay-shaped shelf near the channel’s southern boundary. Interaction between the model ACC and the topography in the second layer induces local changes of the potential vorticity (PV) flux, which further causes the formation of a first-layer PV front near the base of the topography. Located between the ACC and the first-layer slope, the newly formed PV front is constantly perturbed by the ACC and in turn forces the first-layer slope with its own variability in an intermittent but persistent way. The volume transport of the slope water across the first-layer slope edge is mostly directly driven by eddies and meanders of the new front, and its magnitude is similar to the maximum Ekman transport in the channel. Near the bay’s opening, the effect of the topographic waves, excited by offshore variability, dominates the cross-isobath exchange and induces a mean clockwise shelf circulation. The waves’ propagation is only toward the west and tends to be blocked by the bay’s western boundary in the narrow-shelf region. The ensuing wave–coast interaction amplifies the wave amplitude and the cross-shelf transport. Because the interaction only occurs near the western boundary, the shelf water in the west of the bay is more readily carried offshore than that in the east and the mean shelf circulation is also intensified along the bay’s western boundary.
    Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography and NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE- 0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
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  • 45
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 25 (2012): 343–349, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00059.1.
    Description: The Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) is a major component of the tropical Pacific Ocean circulation. EUC velocity in most global climate models is sluggish relative to observations. Insufficient ocean resolution slows the EUC in the eastern Pacific where nonlinear terms should dominate the zonal momentum balance. A slow EUC in the east creates a bottleneck for the EUC to the west. However, this bottleneck does not impair other major components of the tropical circulation, including upwelling and poleward transport. In most models, upwelling velocity and poleward transport divergence fall within directly estimated uncertainties. Both of these transports play a critical role in a theory for how the tropical Pacific may change under increased radiative forcing, that is, the ocean dynamical thermostat mechanism. These findings suggest that, in the mean, global climate models may not underrepresent the role of equatorial ocean circulation, nor perhaps bias the balance between competing mechanisms for how the tropical Pacific might change in the future. Implications for model improvement under higher resolution are also discussed.
    Description: KBK gratefully acknowledges the J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund. GCJ is supported by NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. RM gratefully acknowledges the generous support and hospitality of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change and CAOS at IISc, Bangalore, and partial support by NASA PO grants.
    Description: 2012-07-01
    Keywords: Tropics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Climate models ; Coupled models ; Ocean models
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  • 46
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 1083–1098, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-015.1.
    Description: Here, the response of a coastally trapped buoyant plume to downwelling-favorable wind forcing is explored using a simplified two-dimensional numerical model and a prognostic theory for the resulting width, depth, and density anomaly and along-shelf transport of the plume. Consistent with the numerical simulations, the analytical model shows that the wind causes mixing of the plume water and that the forced cross-shelf circulation can also generate significant deepening and surface narrowing, as well as increased along-shelf transport. The response is due to a combination of the purely advective process that leads to the steepening of the isopycnals and the entrainment of ambient water into the plume. The advective component depends on the initial plume geometry: plumes that have a large fraction of their total width in contact with the bottom (“bottom trapped”) suffer relatively small depth and width changes compared to plumes that have a large fraction of their total width detached from the bottom (“surface trapped”). Key theoretical parameters are Wγ/Wα, the ratio of the width of the plume detached from the bottom to the width of the plume in contact with it, and the ratio of the wind-generated mixed layer δe to the initial plume depth hp, which determines the amount of water initially entrained into the plume. The model results also show that the cross-shelf circulation can be strongly influenced by the wind-driven response in combination with the geostrophic shear of the plume. The continuous entrainment into the plume, as well as transient events, is also discussed.
    Description: This work has been supported by FONDECYT Grant 1070501. S. Lentz received support by theNational Science Foundation GrantOCE-0751554. C. Moffat had additional support from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs through U.S. Southern Ocean GLOBEC Grants OPP 99-10092 and 06- 23223.
    Description: 2013-01-01
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Boundary currents ; Coastal flows ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Wind ; Ocean models
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  • 47
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 25 (2012): 3549–3565, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00320.1.
    Description: The recently released NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) is used to examine the response to ENSO in the northeast tropical Pacific Ocean (NETP) during 1979–2009. The normally cool Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) associated with wind jets through the gaps in the Central American mountains at Tehuantepec, Papagayo, and Panama are substantially warmer (colder) than the surrounding ocean during El Niño (La Niña) events. Ocean dynamics generate the ENSO-related SST anomalies in the gap wind regions as the surface fluxes damp the SSTs anomalies, while the Ekman heat transport is generally in quadrature with the anomalies. The ENSO-driven warming is associated with large-scale deepening of the thermocline; with the cold thermocline water at greater depths during El Niño in the NETP, it is less likely to be vertically mixed to the surface, particularly in the gap wind regions where the thermocline is normally very close to the surface. The thermocline deepening is enhanced to the south of the Costa Rica Dome in the Papagayo region, which contributes to the local ENSO-driven SST anomalies. The NETP thermocline changes are due to coastal Kelvin waves that initiate westward-propagating Rossby waves, and possibly ocean eddies, rather than by local Ekman pumping. These findings were confirmed with regional ocean model experiments: only integrations that included interannually varying ocean boundary conditions were able to simulate the thermocline deepening and localized warming in the NETP during El Niño events; the simulation with variable surface fluxes, but boundary conditions that repeated the seasonal cycle, did not.
    Description: This research was supported by grants from the NOAA office of Global Programs and the NSF Climate and Global Dynamics Division.
    Description: 2012-11-15
    Keywords: North Pacific Ocean ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; ENSO ; Thermocline circulation ; Waves, oceanic ; Ocean models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 48
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 25 (2012): 1361–1389, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00091.1.
    Description: The ocean component of the Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) is described, and its solutions from the twentieth-century (20C) simulations are documented in comparison with observations and those of CCSM3. The improvements to the ocean model physical processes include new parameterizations to represent previously missing physics and modifications of existing parameterizations to incorporate recent new developments. In comparison with CCSM3, the new solutions show some significant improvements that can be attributed to these model changes. These include a better equatorial current structure, a sharper thermocline, and elimination of the cold bias of the equatorial cold tongue all in the Pacific Ocean; reduced sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity biases along the North Atlantic Current path; and much smaller potential temperature and salinity biases in the near-surface Pacific Ocean. Other improvements include a global-mean SST that is more consistent with the present-day observations due to a different spinup procedure from that used in CCSM3. Despite these improvements, many of the biases present in CCSM3 still exist in CCSM4. A major concern continues to be the substantial heat content loss in the ocean during the preindustrial control simulation from which the 20C cases start. This heat loss largely reflects the top of the atmospheric model heat loss rate in the coupled system, and it essentially determines the abyssal ocean potential temperature biases in the 20C simulations. There is also a deep salty bias in all basins. As a result of this latter bias in the deep North Atlantic, the parameterized overflow waters cannot penetrate much deeper than in CCSM3.
    Description: NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The CCSM is also sponsored by the Department of Energy. SGY was supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office under Climate Variability and Predictability Program Grant NA09OAR4310163.
    Description: 2012-09-01
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Climate models ; General circulation models ; Ocean models
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  • 49
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 889–910, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4496.1.
    Description: This paper examines interaction between a barotropic point vortex and a steplike topography with a bay-shaped shelf. The interaction is governed by two mechanisms: propagation of topographic Rossby waves and advection by the forcing vortex. Topographic waves are supported by the potential vorticity (PV) jump across the topography and propagate along the step only in one direction, having higher PV on the right. Near one side boundary of the bay, which is in the wave propagation direction and has a narrow shelf, waves are blocked by the boundary, inducing strong out-of-bay transport in the form of detached crests. The wave–boundary interaction as well as out-of-bay transport is strengthened as the minimum shelf width is decreased. The two control mechanisms are related differently in anticyclone- and cyclone-induced interactions. In anticyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in opposite directions by the point vortex and topographic waves; a topographic cyclone forms out of the balance between the two opposing mechanisms and is advected by the forcing vortex into the deep ocean. In cyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in the same direction by the two mechanisms; a topographic cyclone forms out of the wave–boundary interaction but is confined to the coast. Therefore, anticyclonic vortices are more capable of driving water off the topography. The anticyclone-induced transport is enhanced for smaller vortex–step distance or smaller topography when the vortex advection is relatively strong compared to the wave propagation mechanism.
    Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of theMIT-WHOI Joint Programin Physical Oceanography, NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE- 9901654 and OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Transport ; Eddies ; Barotropic flow ; Topographic effects ; Vortices ; Currents ; Potential vorticity ; Rossby waves
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  • 50
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 2679–2695, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4395.1.
    Description: Observations of stratification and currents between June 2007 and March 2009 reveal a strong overflow between 400- and 570-m depth from the Panay Strait into the Sulu Sea. The overflow water is derived from approximately 400 m deep in the South China Sea. Temporal mean velocity is greater than 0.75 m s−1 at 50 m above the 570-m Panay Sill. Empirical orthogonal function analysis of a mooring time series shows that the flow is dominated by the bottom overflow current with little seasonal variance. The overflow does not descend below 1250 m in the Sulu Sea but rather settles above high-salinity deep water derived from the Sulawesi Sea. The mean observed overflow transport at the sill is 0.32 × 106 m3 s−1. The observed transport was used to calculate a bulk diapycnal diffusivity of 4.4 × 10−4 m2 s−1 within the Sulu Sea slab (575–1250 m) ventilated from Panay Strait. Analysis of Froude number variation across the sill shows that the flow is hydraulically controlled. A suitable hydraulic control model shows overflow transport equivalent to the observed overflow. Thorpe-scale estimates show turbulent dissipation rates up to 5 × 10−7 W kg−1 just downstream of the supercritical to subcritical flow transition, suggesting a hydraulic jump downstream of the sill.
    Description: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-09-1-0582 to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; Grants ONR-13759000 and N00014-09-1-0582 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Grant ONR-N00014-06-1-0690 to Scripps Institute of Oceanography; and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
    Keywords: Transport ; Dynamics ; Topographic effects ; Currents ; Empirical orthogonal functions
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  • 51
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 23 (2010): 6221–6233, doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3402.1.
    Description: Enhanced decadal variability in sea surface temperature (SST) centered on the Kuroshio Extension (KE) has been found in the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) as well as in other coupled climate models. This decadal peak has higher energy than is found in nature, almost twice as large in some cases. While previous analyses have concentrated on the mechanisms for such decadal variability in coupled models, an analysis of the causes of excessive SST response to changes in wind stress has been missing. Here, a detailed comparison of the relationships between interannual changes in SST and sea surface height (SSH) as a proxy for geostrophic surface currents in the region in both CCSM3 and observations, and how these relationships depend on the mean ocean circulation, temperature, and salinity, is made. We use observationally based climatological temperature and salinity fields as well as satellite-based SSH and SST fields for comparison. The primary cause for the excessive SST variability is the coincidence of the mean KE with the region of largest SST gradients in the model. In observations, these two regions are separated by almost 500 km. In addition, the too shallow surface oceanic mixed layer in March north of the KE in the subarctic Pacific contributes to the biases. These biases are not unique to CCSM3 and suggest that mean biases in current, temperature, and salinity structures in separated western boundary current regions can exert a large influence on the size of modeled decadal SST variability.
    Description: Support for L.T. was provided by the NASA sponsored Ocean Surface Topography Science Team, under Contract 1267196 with the University of Washington, administered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Support for Y.-O. K. comes from the NOAA Office of Global Programs (grant to C. Deser and Y.-O. Kwon) and the WHOI Heyman fellowship.
    Keywords: Bias ; Coupled models ; Decadal variability ; Ocean models ; Sea surface temperature ; Wind stress
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  • 52
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 1075-1086, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4375.1.
    Description: A quasigeostrophic, two-layer model is used to study the baroclinic circulation around a thin, meridionally elongated island. The flow is driven by either buoyancy forcing or wind stress, each of whose structure would produce an antisymmetric double-gyre flow. The ocean bottom is flat. When the island partially straddles the intergyre boundary, fluid from one gyre is forced to flow into the other. The amount of the intergyre flow depends on the island constant, that is, the value of the geostrophic streamfunction on the island in each layer. That constant is calculated in a manner similar to earlier studies and is determined by the average, along the meridional length of the island, of the interior Sverdrup solution just to the east of the island. Explicit solutions are given for both buoyancy and wind-driven flows. The presence of an island of nonzero width requires the determination of the baroclinic streamfunction on the basin’s eastern boundary. The value of the boundary term is proportional to the island’s area. This adds a generally small additional baroclinic intergyre flow. In all cases, the intergyre flow produced by the island is not related to topographic steering of the flow but rather the pressure anomaly on the island as manifested by the barotropic and baroclinic island constants. The vertical structure of the flow around the island is a function of the parameterization of the vertical mixing in the problem and, in particular, the degree to which long baroclinic Rossby waves can traverse the basin before becoming thermally damped.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE 0451086.
    Keywords: Gyres ; Baroclinic flows ; Topographic effects ; Streamfunction ; Orographic effects
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  • 53
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 394-407, doi:10.1175/jpo3018.1.
    Description: The ability of paleoceanographic tracers to constrain rates of transport is examined using an inverse method to combine idealized observations with a geostrophic model. Considered are the spatial distribution, accuracy, and types of tracers required to constrain changes in meridional transport within an idealized single-hemisphere basin. Measurements of density and radioactive tracers each act to constrain rates of transport. Conservative tracers, while not of themselves able to inform regarding rates of transport, improve constraints when coupled with density or radioactive observations. It is found that the tracer data would require an accuracy one order of magnitude better than is presently available for paleo-observations to conclusively rule out factor-of-2 changes in meridional transport, even when assumed available over the entire model domain. When data are available only at the margins and bottom of the model, radiocarbon is unable to constrain transport while density remains effective only when a reference velocity level is assumed. The difficulty in constraining the circulation in this idealized model indicates that placing firm bounds on past meridional transport rates will prove challenging.
    Description: The first author is supported by the NOAA Postdoctoral Program in Climate and Global Change and GG by the National Ocean Partnership Program (ECCO). Author OM acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Tracers ; Transport ; Paleoclimatology ; Ocean models
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  • 54
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1258-1271, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4028.1.
    Description: This paper presents a set of laboratory experiments focused on how a buoyant coastal current flowing over a sloping bottom interacts with a canyon and what controls the separation, if any, of the current from the upstream canyon bend. The results show that the separation of a buoyant coastal current depends on the current width W relative to the radius of curvature of the bathymetry ρc. The flow moved across the mouth of the canyon (i.e., separated) for W/ρc 〉 1, in agreement with previous results. The present study extends previous work by examining both slope-controlled and surface-trapped currents, and using a geometry specific to investigating buoyant current–canyon interaction. The authors find that, although bottom friction is important in setting the position of the buoyant front, the separation process driven by the inertia of the flow could overcome even the strongest bathymetric influence. Application of the laboratory results to the East Greenland Current (EGC), an Arctic-origin buoyant current that is observed to flow in two branches south of Denmark Strait, suggests that the path of the EGC is influenced by the large canyons cutting across the shelf, as the range of W/ρc in the ocean spans those observed in the laboratory. What causes the formation of a two-branched EGC structure downstream of the Kangerdlugssuaq Canyon (68°N, 32°W) is still unclear, but potential mechanisms are discussed.
    Description: This work was partially funded by NSF Grant OCE-0450658. DS also received support from the Academic Programs Office of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, while CC had partial support from NSF OCE-0350891.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Buoyancy ; Currents ; Experimental design ; Topographic effects
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  • 55
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 104–120, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3686.1.
    Description: Recent studies have indicated that the North Atlantic Ocean subpolar gyre circulation undergoes significant interannual-to-decadal changes in response to variability in atmospheric forcing. There are also observations, however, suggesting that the southern limb of the subpolar gyre, namely, the eastward-flowing North Atlantic Current (NAC), may be quasi-locked to particular latitudes in the central North Atlantic by fracture zones (gaps) in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This could constrain the current’s ability to respond to variability in forcing. In the present study, subsurface float trajectories at 100–1000 m collected during 1997–99 and satellite-derived surface geostrophic velocities from 1992 to 2006 are used to provide an improved description of the detailed pathways of the NAC over the ridge and their relationship to bathymetry. Both the float and satellite observations indicate that in 1997–99, the northern branch of the NAC was split into two branches as it crossed the ridge, one quasi-locked to the Charlie–Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ; 52°–53°N) and the other to the Faraday Fracture Zone (50°–51°N). The longer satellite time series shows, however, that this pattern did not persist outside the float sampling period and that other branching modes persisted for one or more years, including an approximately 12-month time period in 2002–03 when the strongest eastward flow over the ridge was at 49°N. Schott et al. showed how northward excursions of the NAC can temporarily block the westward flow of the Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water through the CGFZ. From the 13-yr time series of surface geostrophic velocity, it is estimated that such blocking may occur on average 6% of the time, although estimates for any given 12-month period range from 0% to 35%.
    Description: This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants OCE-9531877 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and OCE-9906775 to the University of Rhode Island, by the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship Program, and by the Lawrence J. Pratt and Melinda M. Hall Endowed Fund for Interdisciplinary Research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
    Keywords: Currents ; Topographic effects ; Interannual variability ; Forcing ; Gyres
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  • 56
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 880–895, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3750.1.
    Description: The oceanic response to overflows is explored using a two-layer isopycnal model. Overflows enter the open ocean as dense gravity currents that flow along and down the continental slope. While descending the slope, overflows typically double their volume transport by entraining upper oceanic water. The upper oceanic layer must balance this loss of mass, and the resulting convergent flow produces significant vortex stretching. Overflows thus represent an intense and localized mass and vorticity forcing for the upper ocean. In this study, simulations show that the upper ocean responds to the overflow-induced forcing by establishing topographic β plumes that are aligned more or less along isobaths and that have a transport that is typically a few times larger than that of the overflows. For the topographic β plume driven by the Mediterranean overflow, the occurrence of eddies near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, allows the topographic β plume to flow across isobaths. The modeled topographic β-plume circulation forms two transatlantic zonal jets that are analogous to the Azores Current and the Azores Countercurrent. In other cases (e.g., the Denmark Strait overflow), the same kind of circulation remains trapped along the western boundary and hence would not be readily detected.
    Description: SK’s support during the time of his Ph.D. research in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program was provided by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE04-24741. JP and JY have also received support from the Climate Process Team on Gravity Current Entrainment, NSF Grant OCE-0611530.
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Mediterranean region ; Ocean models ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Diapycnal mixing
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  • 57
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 380-399, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3728.1.
    Description: Barotropic to baroclinic conversion and attendant phenomena were recently examined at the Kaena Ridge as an aspect of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment. Two distinct mixing processes appear to be at work in the waters above the 1100-m-deep ridge crest. At middepths, above 400 m, mixing events resemble their open-ocean counterparts. There is no apparent modulation of mixing rates with the fortnightly cycle, and they are well modeled by standard open-ocean parameterizations. Nearer to the topography, there is quasi-deterministic breaking associated with each baroclinic crest passage. Large-amplitude, small-scale internal waves are triggered by tidal forcing, consistent with lee-wave formation at the ridge break. These waves have vertical wavelengths on the order of 400 m. During spring tides, the waves are nonlinear and exhibit convective instabilities on their leading edge. Dissipation rates exceed those predicted by the open-ocean parameterizations by up to a factor of 100, with the disparity increasing as the seafloor is approached. These observations are based on a set of repeated CTD and microconductivity profiles obtained from the research platform (R/P) Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP), which was trimoored over the southern edge of the ridge crest. Ocean velocity and shear were resolved to a 4-m vertical scale by a suspended Doppler sonar. Dissipation was estimated both by measuring overturn displacements and from microconductivity wavenumber spectra. The methods agreed in water deeper than 200 m, where sensor resolution limitations do not limit the turbulence estimates. At intense mixing sites new phenomena await discovery, and existing parameterizations cannot be expected to apply.
    Description: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation as a component of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Program. Added support for FLIP was provided by the Office of Naval Research.
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Topographic effects ; Internal waves ; Barotropic flows ; Baroclinic flows
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  • 58
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 1203–1221, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3768.1.
    Description: Analyses of current time series longer than 200 days from 33 sites over the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf reveal a consistent mean circulation pattern. The mean depth-averaged flow is equatorward, alongshelf, and increases with increasing water depth from 3 cm s−1 at the 15-m isobath to 10 cm s−1 at the 100-m isobath. The mean cross-shelf circulation exhibits a consistent cross-shelf and vertical structure. The near-surface flow is typically offshore (positive, range −3 to 6 cm s−1). The interior flow is onshore and remarkably constant (−0.2 to −1.4 cm s−1). The near-bottom flow increases linearly with increasing water depth from −1 cm s−1 (onshore) in shallow water to 4 cm s−1 (offshore) at the 250-m isobath over the slope, with the direction reversal near the 50-m isobath. A steady, two-dimensional model (no along-isobath variations in the flow) reproduces the main features of the observed circulation pattern. The depth-averaged alongshelf flow is primarily driven by an alongshelf pressure gradient (sea surface slope of 3.7 × 10−8 increasing to the north) and an opposing mean wind stress that also drives the near-surface offshore flow. The alongshelf pressure gradient accounts for both the increase in the alongshelf flow with water depth and the geostrophic balance onshore flow in the interior. The increase in the near-bottom offshore flow with water depth is due to the change in the relative magnitude of the contributions from the geostrophic onshore flow that dominates in shallow water and the offshore flow driven by the bottom stress that dominates in deeper water.
    Description: This research was funded by Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-820773, OCE-841292, and OCE-848961.
    Keywords: Ocean models ; Ocean circulation ; Continental shelf ; Currents ; In situ observations
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  • 59
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1103-1121, doi:10.1175/jpo3041.1.
    Description: The role of mesoscale oceanic eddies is analyzed in a quasigeostrophic coupled ocean–atmosphere model operating at a large Reynolds number. The model dynamics are characterized by decadal variability that involves nonlinear adjustment of the ocean to coherent north–south shifts of the atmosphere. The oceanic eddy effects are diagnosed by the dynamical decomposition method adapted for nonstationary external forcing. The main effects of the eddies are an enhancement of the oceanic eastward jet separating the subpolar and subtropical gyres and a weakening of the gyres. The flow-enhancing effect is due to nonlinear rectification driven by fluctuations of the eddy forcing. This is a nonlocal process involving generation of the eddies by the flow instabilities in the western boundary current and the upstream part of the eastward jet. The eddies are advected by the mean current to the east, where they backscatter into the rectified enhancement of the eastward jet. The gyre-weakening effect, which is due to the time-mean buoyancy component of the eddy forcing, is a result of the baroclinic instability of the westward return currents. The diagnosed eddy forcing is parameterized in a non-eddy-resolving ocean model, as a nonstationary random process, in which the corresponding parameters are derived from the control coupled simulation. The key parameter of the random process—its variance—is related to the large-scale flow baroclinicity index. It is shown that the coupled model with the non-eddy-resolving ocean component and the parameterized eddies correctly simulates climatology and low-frequency variability of the control eddy-resolving coupled solution.
    Description: Funding for this work came from NSF Grants OCE 02-221066 and OCE 03-44094. Additional funding for PB was provided by the U.K. Royal Society Fellowship and by WHOI Grants 27100056 and 52990035.
    Keywords: Ocean dynamics ; Ocean models ; Eddies ; Jets ; Coupled models
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  • 60
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1177-1191, doi:10.1175/jpo3054.1.
    Description: The stability of baroclinic Rossby waves in large ocean basins is examined, and the quasigeostrophic (QG) results of LaCasce and Pedlosky are generalized. First, stability equations are derived for perturbations on large-scale waves, using the two-layer shallow-water system. These equations resemble the QG stability equations, except that they retain the variation of the internal deformation radius with latitude. The equations are solved numerically for different initial conditions through eigenmode calculations and time stepping. The fastest-growing eigenmodes are intensified at high latitudes, and the slower-growing modes are intensified at lower latitudes. All of the modes have meridional scales and growth times that are comparable to the deformation radius in the latitude range where the eigenmode is intensified. This is what one would expect if one had applied QG theory in latitude bands. The evolution of large-scale waves was then simulated using the Regional Ocean Modeling System primitive equation model. The results are consistent with the theoretical predictions, with deformation-scale perturbations growing at rates inversely proportional to the local deformation radius. The waves succumb to the perturbations at the mid- to high latitudes, but are able to cross the basin at low latitudes before doing so. Also, the barotropic waves produced by the instability propagate faster than the baroclinic long-wave speed, which may explain the discrepancy in speeds noted by Chelton and Schlax.
    Description: PEI was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Norwegian Research Council, JHL was supported under the Norwegian NOCLIM II program, and JP was partly supported by NSF OCE 0451086.
    Keywords: Rossby waves ; Ocean models ; Barotropic flows ; Baroclinic flows
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  • 61
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 36 (2006): 2185-2198, doi:10.1175/JPO2967.1.
    Description: The time-dependent response of an ocean basin to the imposition of cooling (or heating) is examined in the context of a quasigeostrophic, two-layer model on the beta plane. The focus is on the structure and magnitude of the vertical motion and its response to both a switch-on forcing and a periodic forcing. The model employed is a time-dependent version of an earlier model used to discuss the intensification of sinking in the region of the western boundary current. The height of the interface of the two-layer model serves as an analog of temperature, and the vertical velocity at the interface consists of a cross-isopycnal velocity modeled in terms of a relaxation to a prescribed interface height, an adiabatic representation of eddy thickness fluxes parameterized as lateral diffusion of thickness, and the local vertical motion of the interface itself. The presence of time dependence adds additional dynamical features to the problem, in particular the emergence of low-frequency, weakly damped Rossby basin modes. If the buoyancy forcing is zonally uniform the basin responds to a switch-on of the forcing by coming into steady-state equilibrium after the passage of a single baroclinic Rossby wave. If the forcing is nonuniform in the zonal direction, a sequence of Rossby basin modes is excited and their decay is required before the basin achieves a steady state. For reasonable parameter values the boundary layers, in which both horizontal and vertical circulations are closed, are quasi-steady and respond to the instantaneous state of the interior. As in the steady problem the flow is sensitive to small nonquasigeostrophic mass fluxes across the perimeter of the basin. These fluxes generally excite basin modes as well. The basin modes will also be weakly excited if the beta-plane approximation is relaxed. The response to periodic forcing is also examined, and the sensitivity of the response to the structure of the forcing is similar to the switch-on problem.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE-9901654,
    Keywords: Vertical motion ; Ocean dynamics ; Buoyancy ; Ocean models
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  • 62
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 387-403, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3934.1.
    Description: Marginal sea overflows and the overlying upper ocean are coupled in the vertical by two distinct mechanisms—by an interfacial mass flux from the upper ocean to the overflow layer that accompanies entrainment and by a divergent eddy flux associated with baroclinic instability. Because both mechanisms tend to be localized in space, the resulting upper ocean circulation can be characterized as a β plume for which the relevant background potential vorticity is set by the slope of the topography, that is, a topographic β plume. The entrainment-driven topographic β plume consists of a single gyre that is aligned along isobaths. The circulation is cyclonic within the upper ocean (water columns are stretched). The transport within one branch of the topographic β plume may exceed the entrainment flux by a factor of 2 or more. Overflows are likely to be baroclinically unstable, especially near the strait. This creates eddy variability in both the upper ocean and overflow layers and a flux of momentum and energy in the vertical. In the time mean, the eddies accompanying baroclinic instability set up a double-gyre circulation in the upper ocean, an eddy-driven topographic β plume. In regions where baroclinic instability is growing, the momentum flux from the overflow into the upper ocean acts as a drag on the overflow and causes the overflow to descend the slope at a steeper angle than what would arise from bottom friction alone. Numerical model experiments suggest that the Faroe Bank Channel overflow should be the most prominent example of an eddy-driven topographic β plume and that the resulting upper-layer transport should be comparable to that of the overflow. The overflow-layer eddies that accompany baroclinic instability are analogous to those observed in moored array data. In contrast, the upper layer of the Mediterranean overflow is likely to be dominated more by an entrainment-driven topographic β plume. The difference arises because entrainment occurs at a much shallower location for the Mediterranean case and the background potential vorticity gradient of the upper ocean is much larger.
    Description: SK’s support during the time of his Ph.D. research in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program was provided by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE04-24741. JP and JY have also received support from the Climate Process Team on Gravity Current Entrainment, NSF Grant OCE-0611530. JY has also been supported by NSF Grant OCE-0351055.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Entrainment ; Topographic effects ; Potential vorticity
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  • 63
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    Unknown
    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 2639-2661, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3946.1.
    Description: A theory for the exchange between a rotating, buoyancy-forced marginal sea and an ocean is developed and tested numerically. Cooling over the marginal sea leads to sinking and sets up a two-layer exchange flow, with a warm surface layer entering from the ocean and a cool layer exiting at depth. The connecting strait is sufficiently narrow and shallow to cause the exchange flow to be hydraulically controlled. The incoming surface layer forms a baroclinically unstable boundary current that circles the marginal sea in a cyclonic sense and feeds heat to the interior by way of eddies. Consistent with the overall heat and volume balances for the marginal sea, there is a continuous family of hydraulically controlled states with critical flow at the most constricted section of the strait. Included in this family is a limiting “maximal-exchange” solution with two sections of hydraulic control in the strait and with fixed layer depths at the most constricted section. The state of exchange for a given forcing is predicted using a theory that assumes energy conservation over a certain path connecting the strait to the marginal sea or, in some cases, the ocean. Depending on the configuration of the exchange, long-wave information may be blocked from entering the strait from the marginal sea, from the open ocean, or both. The scenario that holds determines what is predicted and what needs to be input. Numerical tests of the prediction for the temperature difference and the state of exchange are carried out for straits with a pure contraction in width and for a constant width strait with a topographic sill. The comparison is reasonable in most cases, though the numerical model is not able to reproduce cases of multiple states predicted by the theory for certain forcing values. The analytical model is an alternative to the Price and Yang and Siddall et al. models of a marginal sea outflow.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0525729 and OCE-0423975.
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Coastlines ; Ocean models
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  • 64
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 23 (2010): 4841–4855, doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3273.1.
    Description: A 1-Myr-long time-dependent solution of a zonally averaged ocean–atmosphere model subject to Milankovitch forcing is examined to gain insight into long-term changes in the planetary-scale meridional moisture flux in the atmosphere. The model components are a one-dimensional (latitudinal) atmospheric energy balance model with an active hydrological cycle and an ocean circulation model representing four basins (Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans). This study finds that the inclusion of an active hydrological cycle does not significantly modify the responses of annual-mean air and ocean temperatures to Milankovitch forcing found in previous integrations with a fixed hydrological cycle. Likewise, the meridional overturning circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean is not significantly affected by hydrological changes. Rather, it mainly responds to precessionally driven variations of ocean temperature in subsurface layers (between 70- and 500-m depth) of this basin. On the other hand, annual and zonal means of evaporation rate and meridional flux of moisture in the atmosphere respond notably to obliquity-driven changes in the meridional gradient of annual-mean insolation. Thus, when obliquity is decreased (increased), the meridional moisture flux in the atmosphere is intensified (weakened). This hydrological response is consistent with deuterium excess records from polar ice cores, which are characterized by dominant obliquity cycles.
    Description: A. A. thanks the Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre of McGill University for a Network Grant that made possible an enriching twoweek stay at WHOI during June 2007. O. M. acknowledges support from theU.S.National Science Foundation. Support from a Canadian NSERC Discovery Grant awarded to L.A.M. is gratefully acknowledged.
    Keywords: Forcing ; Moisture ; Fluxes ; Ocean models ; Coupled models ; Southern Ocean ; Pacific Ocean ; Atlantic Ocean ; Indian Ocean
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  • 65
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1756-1775, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4085.1.
    Description: A parameterization of vertical diffusivity in ocean general circulation models has been implemented in the ocean model component of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The parameterization represents the dynamics of the mixing in the abyssal ocean arising from the breaking of internal waves generated by the tides forcing stratified flow over rough topography. This parameterization is explored over a range of parameters and compared to the more traditional ad hoc specification of the vertical diffusivity. Diapycnal mixing in the ocean is thought to be one of the primary controls on the meridional overturning circulation and the poleward heat transport by the ocean. When compared to the traditional approach with uniform mixing, the new mixing parameterization has a noticeable impact on the meridional overturning circulation; while the upper limb of the meridional overturning circulation appears to be only weakly impacted by the transition to the new parameterization, the deep meridional overturning circulation is significantly strengthened by the change. The poleward ocean heat transport does not appear to be strongly affected by the mixing in the abyssal ocean for reasonable parameter ranges. The transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current through the Drake Passage is related to the amount of mixing in the deep ocean. The new parameterization is found to be energetically consistent with the known constraints on the ocean energy budget.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants ATM 02-00929 and OCE 02-41061.
    Keywords: General circulation models ; Parameterization ; Abyssal circulation ; Ocean models
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  • 66
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © NATO Undersea Research Centre, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of NATO Undersea Research Centre for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Marine Systems 69 (2008): 86-98, doi:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2007.02.015.
    Description: Despite numerous and regular improvements in underlying models, surface drift prediction in the ocean remains a challenging task because of our yet limited understanding of all processes involved. Hence, deterministic approaches to the problem are often limited by empirical assumptions on underlying physics. Multi-model hyper-ensemble forecasts, which exploit the power of an optimal local combination of available information including ocean, atmospheric and wave models, may show superior forecasting skills when compared to individual models because they allow for local correction and/or bias removal. In this work, we explore in greater detail the potential and limitations of the hyper-ensemble method in the Adriatic Sea, using a comprehensive surface drifter database. The performance of the hyper-ensembles and the individual models are discussed by analyzing associated uncertainties and probability distribution maps. Results suggest that the stochastic method may reduce position errors significantly for 12 to 72 h forecasts and hence compete with pure deterministic approaches.
    Description: Funded by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
    Keywords: Forecast ; Surface drift ; Multi-model super-ensembles ; Linear regression ; Ocean models ; Atmospheric models ; Wave models
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