ALBERT

Description: A realistic representation of the North Atlantic tropical cyclone tracks is crucial as it allows, for example, explaining potential changes in U.S. landfalling systems. Here, the authors present a tentative study that examines the ability of recent climate models to represent North Atlantic tropical cyclone tracks. Tracks from two types of climate models are evaluated: explicit tracks are obtained from tropical cyclones simulated in regional or global climate models with moderate to high horizontal resolution (1°–0.25°), and downscaled tracks are obtained using a downscaling technique with large-scale environmental fields from a subset of these models. For both configurations, tracks are objectively separated into four groups using a cluster technique, leading to a zonal and a meridional separation of the tracks. The meridional separation largely captures the separation between deep tropical and subtropical, hybrid or baroclinic cyclones, while the zonal separation segregates Gulf of Mexico and Cape Verde storms. The properties of the tracks’ seasonality, intensity, and power dissipation index in each cluster are documented for both configurations. The authors’ results show that, except for the seasonality, the downscaled tracks better capture the observed characteristics of the clusters. The authors also use three different idealized scenarios to examine the possible future changes of tropical cyclone tracks under 1) warming sea surface temperature, 2) increasing carbon dioxide, and 3) a combination of the two. The response to each scenario is highly variable depending on the simulation considered. Finally, the authors examine the role of each cluster in these future changes and find no preponderant contribution of any single cluster over the others.

Description: Published

Description: 1333–1361

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: Heavy rainfall and flooding associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) are responsible for a large number of fatalities and economic damage worldwide. Despite their large socio-economic impacts, research into heavy rainfall and flooding associated with TCs has received limited attention to date, and still represents a major challenge. Our capability to adapt to future changesin heavy rainfall and flooding associated with TCs is inextricably linked to and informed by ourunderstanding of the sensitivity of TC rainfall to likely future forcing mechanisms. Here we use a set of idealized high-resolution atmospheric model experiments produced as part of the U.S. CLIVAR Hurricane Working Group activity to examine TC response to idealized global-scale perturbations: the doubling of CO2, uniform 2K increases in global sea surface temperature(SST), and their combined impact. As a preliminary but key step, daily rainfall patterns ofcomposite TCs within climate model outputs are first compared and contrasted to the observational records. To assess similarities and differences across different regions in response to the warming scenarios, analyses are performed at the global and hemispheric scales and in six global TC ocean basins. The results indicate a reduction in TC daily precipitation rates in the doubling CO2 scenario (on the order of 5% globally), and an increase in TC rainfall rates associated with a uniform increase of 2K in SST (both alone and in combination with CO2 doubling; on the order of 10-20% globally).

Description: Published

Description: 4622–4641

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: open

Description: The Aegean water masses and circulation structure are studied via two large-scale surveys performed during the late winters of 1988 and 1990 by the R/V Yakov Gakkel of the former Soviet Union. The analysis of these data sheds light on the mechanisms of water mass formation in the Aegean Sea that triggered the outflow of Cretan Deep Water (CDW) from the Cretan Sea into the abyssal basins of the eastern Mediterranean Sea (the so-called Eastern Mediterranean Transient). It is found that the central Aegean Basin is the site of the formation of Aegean Intermediate Water, which slides southward and, depending on their density, renews either the intermediate or the deep water of the Cretan Sea. During the winter of 1988, the Cretan Sea waters were renewed mainly at intermediate levels, while during the winter of 1990 it was mainly the volume of CDW that increased. This Aegean water mass redistribution and formation process in 1990 differed from that in 1988 in two major aspects: (i) during the winter of 1990 the position of the front between the Black Sea Water and the Levantine Surface Water was displaced farther north than during the winter of 1988 and (ii) heavier waters were formed in 1990 as a result of enhanced lateral advection of salty Levantine Surface Water that enriched the intermediate waters with salt. In 1990 the 29.2 isopycnal rose to the surface of the central basin and a large volume of CDW filled the Cretan Basin. It is found that, already in 1988, the 29.2 isopycnal surface, which we assume is the lowest density of the CDW, was shallower than the Kassos Strait sill and thus CDW egressed into the Eastern Mediterranean.

Description: Published

Description: 1841-1859

Description: JCR Journal

Description: reserved

Description: While a quantitative climate theory of tropical cyclone formation remains elusive, considerable progress has been made recently in our ability to simulate tropical cyclone climatologies and understand the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation. Climate models are now able to simulate a realistic rate of global tropical cyclone formation, although simulation of the Atlantic tropical cyclone climatology remains challenging unless horizontal resolutions finer than 50 km are employed. This article summarizes published research from the idealized experiments of the Hurricane Working Group of U.S. CLIVAR (CLImate VARiability and predictability of the ocean-atmosphere system). This work, combined with results from other model simulations, has strengthened relationships between tropical cyclone formation rates and climate variables such as mid-tropospheric vertical velocity, with decreased climatological vertical velocities leading to decreased tropical cyclone formation. Systematic differences are shown between experiments in which only sea surface temperature is increased versus experiments where only atmospheric carbon dioxide is increased, with the carbon dioxide experiments more likely to demonstrate the decrease in tropical cyclone numbers previously shown to be a common response of climate models in a warmer climate. Experiments where the two effects are combined also show decreases in numbers, but these tend to be less for models that demonstrate a strong tropical cyclone response to increased sea surface temperatures. Further experiments are proposed that may improve our understanding of the relationship between climate and tropical cyclone formation, including experiments with two-way interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and variations in atmospheric aerosols.

Description: Published

Description: 997–1017

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: A land surface model (LSM) has been included in the ECMWF Hamburg version 4 (ECHAM4) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). The LSM is an early version of the Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) and it replaces the simple land surface scheme previously included in ECHAM4. The purpose of this paper is to document how a more exhaustive consideration of the land surface–vegetation processes affects the simulated boreal summer surface climate. To investigate the impacts on the simulated climate, different sets of Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-type simulations have been performed with ECHAM4 alone and with the AGCM coupled with ORCHIDEE. Furthermore, to assess the effects of the increase in horizontal resolution the coupling of ECHAM4 with the LSM has been implemented at different horizontal resolutions. The analysis reveals that the LSM has large effects on the simulated boreal summer surface climate of the atmospheric model. Considerable impacts are found in the surface energy balance due to changes in the surface latent heat fluxes over tropical and midlatitude areas covered with vegetation. Rainfall and atmospheric circulation are substantially affected by these changes. In particular, increased precipitation is found over evergreen and summergreen vegetated areas. Because of the socioeconomical relevance, particular attention has been devoted to the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) region. The results of this study indicate that precipitation over the Indian subcontinent is better simulated with the coupled ECHAM4–ORCHIDEE model compared to the atmospheric model alone.

Description: Published

Description: 255–278

Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano

Description: JCR Journal

Description: partially_open

Description: In this paper results from the application of an ocean data assimilation (ODA) system, combining a multivariate reduced-order optimal interpolator (OI) scheme with a global ocean general circulation model (OGCM), are described. The present ODA system, designed to assimilate in situ temperature and salinity observations, has been used to produce ocean reanalyses for the 1962–2001 period. The impact of assimilating observed hydrographic data on the ocean mean state and temporal variability is evaluated. A special focus of this work is on the ODA system skill in reproducing a realistic ocean salinity state. Results from a hierarchy of different salinity reanalyses, using varying combinations of assimilated data and background error covariance structures, are described. The impact of the space and time resolution of the background error covariance parameterization on salinity is addressed.

Description: This work has been funded by the ENACT Project (Contract EVK2-CT2001-00117) for A. Bellucci and P. Di Pietro, and partially by the ENSEMBLES Project (Contract GOCE-CT-2003-505539) for A. Bellucci.

Description: Published

Description: 3785-3807

Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano

Description: JCR Journal

Description: reserved

Description: The Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) is one of the main components of the Asian summer monsoon. It is well known that one of the starting mechanisms of a summer monsoon is the thermal contrast between land and ocean and that sea surface temperature (SST) and moisture are crucial factors for its evolution and intensity. The Indian Ocean, therefore, may play a very important role in the generation and evolution of the ISM itself. A coupled general circulation model, implemented with a high resolution atmospheric component, appears to be able to simulate the Indian summer monsoon in a realistic way. In particular, the features of the simulated ISM variability are similar to the observations. In this study, the relationships between ISM and Tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) SST anomalies are investigated, as well as the ability of the coupled model to capture those connections. The recent discovery of the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode (IODM) may suggest new perspectives in the relationship between ISM and TIO SST. A new statistical technique, the Coupled Manifold, is used to investigate the TIO SST variability and its relation with the Tropical Pacific Ocean (TPO). The analysis shows that the SST variability in the TIO contains a significant portion that is independent from the TPO variability. The same technique is used to estimate the amount of Indian rainfall variability that can be explained by the Tropical Indian Ocean SST. Indian Ocean SST anomalies are separated in a part remotely forced from the Tropical Pacific Ocean variability and a part independent from that. The relationships between the two SSTA components and the Indian monsoon variability are then investigated in detail.

Description: Published

Description: 3083-3105

Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano

Description: JCR Journal

Description: reserved

Description: Heavy precipitation is a major hazard over Europe. It is well established that climate model projections indicate a tendency towards more extreme daily rainfall events. It is still uncertain, however, how this changing intensity translates at the sub-daily time scales. The main goal of the present study is to examine possible differences in projected changes in intense precipitation events over Europe at the daily and sub-daily (3-hourly) time scales using a state-of-the-science climate model. The focus will be on one Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP 8.5), considered as illustrative of a high rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations over this century. There are statistically significant differences in intense precipitation projections (up to 40%) when comparing the results at the daily and sub-daily time scales. Over north-eastern Europe, projected precipitation intensification at the 3-hour scale is lower than at the daily scale. On the other hand, Spain and the western seaboard exhibit an opposite behaviour, with stronger intensification at the 3-hour scale rather than daily scale. While the mean properties of the precipitation distributions are independent of the analysed frequency, projected precipitation intensification exhibits regional differences. This finding has implications on the extrapolation of impacts of intense precipitation events, given the daily time scale the analyses are usually performed at.

Description: Published

Description: 6193–6203

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: Global-scale variations in the climate system over the last half of the twentieth century. including long-term increases in global-mean near-surface temperatures. are consistent with concurrent human-induced emissions of radiatively active gases and aerosols. However, such consistency does not preclude the possible influence of other forcing agents, including internal modes of climate variability or unaccounted for aerosol effects. To test whether other unknown forcing agents may have contributed to multidecadal increases in global-mean near-surface temperatures from 1950 to 2000. data pertaining to observed changes in global-scale sea surface temperatures and observed changes in radiatively active atmospheric constituents are incorporated into numerical global climate models. Results indicate that the radiative forcing needed to produce the observed long-term trends in sea surface temperatures-and global-mean near-surface temperatures-is provided predominantly by known changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols. Further, results indicate that less than 10% of the long-term historical increase in global-mean near-surface temperatures over the last half of the twentieth century could have been the result of internal climate variability. In addition. they indicate that less than 25% of the total radiative forcing needed to produce the observed long-term trend in global-mean near-surface temperatures could have been provided by changes in net radiative forcing from unknown sources (either positive or negative). These results, which are derived from simple energy balance requirements. emphasize the important role humans have played in modifying the global climate over the last half of the twentieth century.

Description: Published

Description: 7163-7172

Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: In this work the authors investigate possible changes in the intensity of rainfall events associated 28with tropical cyclones (TCs) under idealized forcing scenarios, including a uniformly warmer climate, with a special focus on landfalling storms. A new set of experiments designed within the U.S. CLIVAR Hurricane Working Group allows disentangling the relative role of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide from that played by sea surface temperature (SST) in changing theamount of precipitation associated with TCs in a warmer world. Compared to the present day simulation, we found an increase in TC precipitation under the scenarios involving SST increases. On the other hand, in a CO2 doubling-only scenario, the changes in TC rainfall are small and we found that, on average, TC rainfall tends to decrease compared to the present day climate. The results of this study highlight the contribution of landfalling TCs to the projected increase in theprecipitation changes affecting the tropical coastal regions.

Description: Published

Description: 4642–4654

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: open

Description: Climate model simulations are currently the main tool to provide information about possible future climates. Apart from scenario uncertainties and model error, internal variability is a major source of uncertainty, complicating predictions of future changes. Here, a suite of statistical tests is proposed to determine the shortest time window necessary to capture the internal precipitation variability in a stationary climate. The length of this shortest window thus expresses internal variability in terms of years. The method is applied globally to daily precipitation in a 200-yr preindustrial climate simulation with the CMCC-CM coupled general circulation model. The two-sample Cramér–von Mises test is used to assess differences in precipitation distribution, the Walker test accounts for multiple testing at grid cell level, and field significance is determined by calculating the Bejamini–Hochberg false-discovery rate. Results for the investigated simulation show that internal variability of daily precipitation is regionally and seasonally dependent and that regions requiring long time windows do not necessarily coincide with areas with large standard deviation. The estimated time scales are longer over sea than over land, in the tropics than in midlatitudes, and in the transitional seasons than in winter and summer. For many land grid cells, 30 seasons suffice to capture the internal variability of daily precipitation. There exist regions, however, where even 50 years do not suffice to sample the internal variability. The results show that diagnosing daily precipitation change at different times based on fixed global snapshots of one climate simulation might not be a robust detection method.

Description: Published

Description: 3624–3630

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: In this work the authors investigate possible changes in the distribution of heavy precipitation events under a warmer climate, using the results of a set of 20 climate models taking part in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 effort (CMIP5). Future changes are evaluated as the difference between the last four decades of the 21st and the 20th Century assuming the Representative Concentration Pathway RCP8.5 scenario. As a measure of the width of the right tail of the precipitation distribution, we use the difference between the 99th and the 90th percentiles. Despite a slight tendency to underestimate the observed heavy precipitation, the considered CMIP5 models well represent the observed patterns in terms of the ensemble average, during both summer and winter seasons for the 1997-2005 period. Future changes in average precipitation are consistentwith previous findings based on CMIP3 models. CMIP5 models show a projected increase for the end of the twenty-first century of the width of the right tail of the precipitation distribution, particularly pronounced over India, South East Asia, Indonesia and Central Africa during borealsummer, as well as over South America and southern Africa during boreal winter.

Description: Published

Description: 7902–7911

Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano

Description: JCR Journal

Description: open

Description: Future tropical cyclone activity is a topic of great scientific and societal interest. In the absence of a climate theory of tropical cyclogenesis, general circulation models are the primary tool available for investigating the issue. However, the identification of tropical cyclones in model data at moderate resolution is complex, and numerous schemes have been developed for their detection. We here examine the influence of different tracking schemes on detected tropical cyclone activity and responses in the Hurricane Working Group experiments. These are idealized atmospheric general circulation model experiments aimed at determining and distinguishing the effects of increased sea-surface temperature and other increased CO2 effects on tropical cyclone activity. We apply two tracking schemes to these data and also analyze the tracks provided by each modelling group. Our results indicate moderate agreement between the different tracking methods, with some models and experiments showing better agreement across schemes than others. When comparing responses between experiments, we find that much of the disagreement between schemes is due to differences in duration, wind speed, and formation-latitude thresholds. After homogenisation in these thresholds, agreement between different tracking methods is improved. However, much disagreement remains, accountable for by more fundamental differences between the tracking schemes. Our results indicate that sensitivity testing and selection of objective thresholds are the key factors in obtaining meaningful, reproducible results when tracking tropical cyclones in climate model data at these resolutions, but that more fundamental differences between tracking methods can also have a significant impact on the responses in activity detected.

Description: Published

Description: 9197–9213

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

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 Climate 30 (2017): 3829-3852, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0479.1.

Description: This study provides an assessment of the uncertainty in ocean surface (OS) freshwater budgets and variability using evaporation E and precipitation P from 10 atmospheric reanalyses, two combined satellite-based E − P products, and two observation-based salinity products. Three issues are examined: the uncertainty level in the OS freshwater budget in atmospheric reanalyses, the uncertainty structure and association with the global ocean wet/dry zones, and the potential of salinity in ascribing the uncertainty in E − P. The products agree on the global mean pattern but differ considerably in magnitude. The OS freshwater budgets are 129 ± 10 (8%) cm yr−1 for E, 118 ± 11 (9%) cm yr−1 for P, and 11 ± 4 (36%) cm yr−1 for E − P, where the mean and error represent the ensemble mean and one standard deviation of the ensemble spread. The E − P uncertainty exceeds the uncertainty in E and P by a factor of 4 or more. The large uncertainty is attributed to P in the tropical wet zone. Most reanalyses tend to produce a wider tropical rainband when compared to satellite products, with the exception of two recent reanalyses that implement an observation-based correction for the model-generated P over land. The disparity in the width and the extent of seasonal migrations of the tropical wet zone causes a large spread in P, implying that the tropical moist physics and the realism of tropical rainfall remain a key challenge. Satellite salinity appears feasible to evaluate the fidelity of E − P variability in three tropical areas, where the uncertainty diagnosis has a global indication.

Description: Primary support for the study is provided by the NOAAModeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) Program’s Climate Reanalysis Task Force (CRTF) through Grant NA13OAR4310106.

Description: 2017-11-02

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): 133–145, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3782.1.

Description: Five ice-tethered profilers (ITPs), deployed between 2004 and 2006, have provided detailed potential temperature θ and salinity S profiles from 21 anticyclonic eddy encounters in the central Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The 12–35-m-thick eddies have center depths between 42 and 69 m in the Arctic halocline, and are shallower and less dense than the majority of eddies observed previously in the central Canada Basin. They are characterized by anomalously cold θ and low stratification, and have horizontal scales on the order of, or less than, the Rossby radius of deformation (about 10 km). Maximum azimuthal speeds estimated from dynamic heights (assuming cyclogeostrophic balance) are between 9 and 26 cm s−1, an order of magnitude larger than typical ambient flow speeds in the central basin. Eddy θ–S and potential vorticity properties, as well as horizontal and vertical scales, are consistent with their formation by instability of a surface front at about 80°N that appears in historical CTD and expendable CTD (XCTD) measurements. This would suggest eddy lifetimes longer than 6 months. While the baroclinic instability of boundary currents cannot be ruled out as a generation mechanism, it is less likely since deeper eddies that would originate from the deeper-reaching boundary flows are not observed in the survey region.

Description: The engineering design work for the ITP was initiated by the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Technology Innovation Program (an internal program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Prototype development and construction were funded jointly by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Oceanographic Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination Program and Office of Polar Programs (OPP) under Award OCE-0324233. Continued support has been provided by the OPP Arctic Sciences Section under Award ARC-0519899 and internal WHOI funding.

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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 24 (2007): 1117-1130, doi:10.1175/JTECH2016.1.

Description: Sensor response corrections for two models of Sea-Bird Electronics, Inc., conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) instruments (the SBE-41CP and SBE-41) designed for low-energy profiling applications were estimated and applied to oceanographic data. Three SBE-41CP CTDs mounted on prototype ice-tethered profilers deployed in the Arctic Ocean sampled diffusive thermohaline staircases and telemetered data to shore at their full 1-Hz resolution. Estimations of and corrections for finite thermistor time response, time shifts between when a parcel of water was sampled by the thermistor and when it was sampled by the conductivity cell, and the errors in salinity induced by the thermal inertia of the conductivity cell are developed with these data. In addition, thousands of profiles from Argo profiling floats equipped with SBE-41 CTDs were screened to select examples where thermally well-mixed surface layers overlaid strong thermoclines for which standard processing often yields spuriously fresh salinity estimates. Hundreds of profiles so identified are used to estimate and correct for the conductivity cell thermal mass error in SBE-41 CTDs.

Description: The National Ocean Partnership Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research funded this analysis. The ITP data were acquired under National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant OCE0324233.

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 Climate 28 (2015): 6489–6502, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0143.1.

Description: The global water cycle is predicted to intensify under various greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Here the nature and strength of the expected changes for the ocean in the coming century are assessed by examining the output of several CMIP5 model runs for the periods 1990–2000 and 2090–2100 and comparing them to a dataset built from modern observations. Key elements of the water cycle, such as the atmospheric vapor transport, the evaporation minus precipitation over the ocean, and the surface salinity, show significant changes over the coming century. The intensification of the water cycle leads to increased salinity contrasts in the ocean, both within and between basins. Regional projections for several areas important to large-scale ocean circulation are presented, including the export of atmospheric moisture across the tropical Americas from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean, the freshwater gain of high-latitude deep water formation sites, and the basin averaged evaporation minus precipitation with implications for interbasin mass transports.

Description: This research was supported by NASA Grant NNX12AF59GS03.

Description: 2016-02-15

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 46 (2010): 85-102, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4168.1.

Description: The existence of a cool and salty sea surface skin under evaporation was first proposed by Saunders in 1967, but few efforts have since been made to perceive the salt component of the skin layer. With two salinity missions scheduled to launch in the coming years, this study attempted to revisit the Saunders concept and to utilize presently available air–sea forcing datasets to analyze, understand, and interpret the effect of the salty skin and its implication for remote sensing of ocean salinity. Similar to surface cooling, the skin salinification would occur primarily at low and midlatitudes in regions that are characterized by low winds or high evaporation. On average, the skin is saltier than the interior water by 0.05–0.15 psu and cooler by 0.2°–0.5°C. The cooler and saltier skin at the top is always statically unstable, and the tendency to overturn is controlled by cooling. Once the skin layer overturns, the time to reestablish the full increase of skin salinity was reported to be on the order of 15 min, which is approximately 90 times slower than that for skin temperature. Because the radiation received from a footprint is averaged over an area to give a single pixel value, the slow recovery by the salt diffusion process might cause a slight reduction in area-averaged skin salinity and thus obscure the salty skin effect on radiometer retrievals. In the presence of many geophysical error sources in remote sensing of ocean salinity, the salt enrichment at the surface skin does not appear to be a concern.

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): 1231-1243, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4087.1.

Description: As a driving parameter is slowly altered, thermohaline ocean circulation models show either a smooth evolution of a mode of flow or an abrupt transition of temperature and salinity fields from one mode to another. An abrupt transition might occur at one value or over a range of the driving parameter. The latter has hysteresis because the mode in this range depends on the history of the driving parameter. Although assorted ocean circulation models exhibit abrupt transitions, such transitions have not been directly observed in the ocean. Therefore, laboratory experiments have been conducted to seek and observe actual (physical) abrupt thermohaline transitions. An experiment closely duplicating Stommel’s box model possessed abrupt transitions in temperature and salinity with distinct hysteresis. Two subsequent experiments with more latitude for internal circulation in the containers possessed abrupt transitions over a much smaller range of hysteresis. Therefore, a new experiment with even more latitude for internal circulation was designed and conducted. A large tank of constantly renewed freshwater at room temperature had a smaller cavity in the bottom heated from below with saltwater steadily pumped in. The cavity had either a salt mode, consisting of the cavity filled with heated salty water with an interface at the cavity top, or a temperature mode, in which the heat and saltwater were removed from the cavity by convection. There was no measurable hysteresis between the two modes. Possible reasons for such small hysteresis are discussed.

Description: Support is gratefully acknowledged from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Climate Change Institute, the National Science Foundation, Physical Oceanography Section under Grant OCE-0081179, and the Paul M. Fye Chair of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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): 753-770, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3808.1.

Description: A tidally and cross-sectionally averaged model based on the temporal evolution of the quasi-steady Hansen and Rattray equations is applied to simulate the salinity distribution and vertical exchange flow along the Hudson River estuary. The model achieves high skill at hindcasting salinity and residual velocity variation during a 110-day period in 2004 covering a wide range of river discharges and tidal forcing. The approach is based on an existing model framework that has been modified to improve model skill relative to observations. The external forcing has been modified to capture meteorological time-scale variability in salinity, stratification, and residual velocity due to sea level fluctuations at the open boundary and along-estuary wind stress. To reflect changes in vertical mixing due to stratification, the vertical mixing coefficients have been modified to use the bottom boundary layer height rather than the water depth as an effective mixing length scale. The boundary layer parameterization depends on the tidal amplitude and the local baroclinic pressure gradient through the longitudinal Richardson number, and improves the model response to spring–neap variability in tidal amplitude during periods of high river discharge. Finally, steady-state model solutions are evaluated for both the Hudson River and northern San Francisco Bay over a range of forcing conditions. Agreement between the model and scaling of equilibrium salinity intrusions lends confidence that the approach is transferable to other estuaries, despite significant differences in bathymetry. Discrepancies between the model results and observations at high river discharge are indicative of limits at which the formulation begins to fail, and where an alternative approach that captures two-layer dynamics would be more appropriate.

Description: This research was supported by the Hudson River Foundation Grant 005/03A, NSF Grant OCE-0452054, and by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the J. Seward Johnson Fund.

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): 2680-2682, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4069.1.

Description: Some (not all) of the oceanographic literature slightly miscalculates the vertical velocity (w) and diffusive salt flux induced by evaporation (E) and precipitation (P) at the sea surface. Short, simple, physical derivations are presented to show that, for a sea surface h = h(x, y, t) varying in space and time, 1) w = VH · h + ∂h/∂t + ρF(E − P)/ρ, where VH is the horizontal component of the aggregate parcel velocity, and ρF and ρ are the densities of freshwater and surface seawater, respectively; and 2) the vertical diffusive salt flux at the sea surface (whether molecular or turbulent) is −ρFS(E − P), where S is the surface salinity.

Description: Ensembles of retrospective 2-month dynamical forecasts initiated on 1May are used to predict the onset of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) for the period 1989–2005. The subseasonal predictions (SSPs) are based on a coupled general circulation model and recently they have been upgraded by the realistic initialization of the atmosphere with initial conditions taken from reanalysis. Two objective large-scale methods based on dynamical circulation and hydrological indices are applied to detect the ISM onset. The SSPs show some skill in forecasting earlier-than-normal ISM onsets, while they have difficulty in predicting late onsets. It is shown that significant contribution to the skill in forecasting early ISM onsets comes from the newly developed initialization of the atmosphere from reanalysis. On one hand, atmospheric initialization produces a better representation of the atmospheric mean state in the initial conditions, leading to a systematically improved monsoon onset sequence. On the other hand, the initialization of the atmosphere allows some skill in forecasting the northward propagating intraseasonal wind and precipitation anomalies over the tropical Indian Ocean. The northward propagating intraseasonal modes trigger the monsoon in some early-onset years. The realistic phase initialization of these modes improves the forecasts of the associated earlier-than-normal monsoon onsets. The prediction of late onsets is not noticeably improved by the initialization of the atmosphere. It is suggested that late onsets of the monsoon are too far away from the start date of the forecasts to conserve enough memory of the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) anomalies and of the improved representation of the mean state in the initial conditions.

Description: Published

Description: 778-793

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

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 the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 37(5), (2020): 789-806, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-18-0244.1.

Description: Realistic ocean state prediction and its validation rely on the availability of high quality in situ observations. To detect data errors, adequate quality check procedures must be designed. This paper presents procedures that take advantage of the ever-growing observation databases that provide climatological knowledge of the ocean variability in the neighborhood of an observation location. Local validity intervals are used to estimate binarily whether the observed values are considered as good or erroneous. Whereas a classical approach estimates validity bounds from first- and second-order moments of the climatological parameter distribution, that is, mean and variance, this work proposes to infer them directly from minimum and maximum observed values. Such an approach avoids any assumption of the parameter distribution such as unimodality, symmetry around the mean, peakedness, or homogeneous distribution tail height relative to distribution peak. To reach adequate statistical robustness, an extensive manual quality control of the reference dataset is critical. Once the data have been quality checked, the local minima and maxima reference fields are derived and the method is compared with the classical mean/variance-based approach. Performance is assessed in terms of statistics of good and bad detections. It is shown that the present size of the reference datasets allows the parameter estimates to reach a satisfactory robustness level to always make the method more efficient than the classical one. As expected, insufficient robustness persists in areas with an especially low number of samples and high variability.

Description: This study has been conducted using EU Copernicus Marine Service Information and was supported by the European Union within the EU Copernicus Marine Service In Situ phase-I and phase-II contracts led by Ifremer. The publication was also supported by SOERE CTDO2 in France. The Argo data were collected and made freely available by the International Argo Program and the national programs that contribute to it (see http://www.argo.ucsd.edu, http://argo.jcommops.org). The Argo Program is part of the Global Ocean Observing System (http://doi.org/10.17882/42182). The marine mammal data were collected and made freely available by the International MEOP Consortium and the national programs that contribute to it (see http://www.meop.net; https://doi.org/10.17882/45461). Aleix Gelabert and Dídac Costa were the skippers of the OPOO, sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO) and Pharmaton. The BWR is a periodic oceanic race organized by the Fundació Navegació Oceànica de Barcelona (FNOB). Reviewer D. Briand provided some useful comments on the final version of the draft paper before submission.

Description: 2020-11-04

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 Climate 35(11), (2022): 3445-3457, https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-21-0656.1.

Description: Unlike greenhouse gases (GHGs), anthropogenic aerosol (AA) concentrations have increased and then decreased over the past century or so, with the timing of the peak concentration varying in different regions. To date, it has been challenging to separate the climate impact of AAs from that due to GHGs and background internal variability. We use a pattern recognition method, taking advantage of spatiotemporal covariance information, to isolate the forced patterns for the surface ocean and associated atmospheric variables from the all-but-one forcing Community Earth System Model ensembles. We find that the aerosol-forced responses are dominated by two leading modes, with one associated with the historical increase and future decrease of global mean aerosol concentrations (dominated by the Northern Hemisphere sources) and the other due to the transition of the primary sources of AA from the west to the east and also from Northern Hemisphere extratropical regions to tropical regions. In particular, the aerosol transition effect, to some extent compensating the global mean effect, exhibits a zonal asymmetry in the surface temperature and salinity responses. We also show that this transition effect dominates the total AA effect during recent decades, e.g., 1967–2007.

Description: All three authors are supported by U.S. National Science Foundation (OCE-2048336). The Community Earth System Model project is supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/projects/community-projects/LENS/data-sets.html and https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/working_groups/CVC/simulations/cesm1-single_forcing_le.html).

Description: This report summarizes the work, under the auspices of the WOCE Hydrographic Programme (WHP), which took place on the R/V Akademik Vernadsky in June-July 1991. The goal of the exercise was an international comparison/training cruise to obtain comparisons of water sampling methods and analytical techniques employed by several groups for the oceanographic measurement of salinity and oxygen in seawater. The training aspect was formalized in a pre-cruise practicum held on board the vessel by Dr. Fred Culkin and Mr. Paul Ridout of Ocean Scientific International, the manufacturer of IAPSO Standard Seawater, At-sea comparisons of Russian Reference Water, manufactured in Moscow, were made with IAPSO water. Further work involved comparisons of a Guildline and a pair of SOKOL salinometers using reference water and natural seawater collected on the cruise. While the agreement among the salnometers was quite good and at the level of acceptability for the WHP, it was discovered that lack of thermal equilbration of the salinity samples run on the SOKOLs led to substantial "errors" at large depths (or for cold water samples). This could not have been anticipated before the cruise and would have been missed in a shore-based or laboratory exercise. All five groups making oxygen comparisons benefitted from the technical exchange afforded by the cruise and, as a result of reconciling inter-group differences, have identified procedural changes they wil make in the future in order to achieve the high standards required by the WHP, The technical interaction, which amounted to "training" for all groups, was greatly facilitated by the cooperation of Captain Malnovsky, Chief Scientist Panteleyev, the scientists from MHI, Sevastopol, and the crew of the Vernadsky. On the Vernadsky comparison cruise, a shore-based practicum was held prior to sailing in order to review the theory and measurement of salinity. The cruise itself, which took place between 27 June and 8 July 1991, was in the NE Atlantic to the west of Madeira. An international group of experts in salnity and oxygen measurements was drawn from the United Kingdom (UK), Spain, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States (US). Except for one of the five groups, measured oxygen values in the range of 3-5 mIll (concentration units are used throughout) agreed with one another within :11%, which exceeds the WOCE requirements by a factor of 2. Subsequent analyses of the differences by all five groups could account for much of the observed inter-group variations, Intra-group precision was generally in the range of 0,1-0.4%, As a result, of a low oxygen sparging experiment in which sample oxygens 0: 1.2 mIll were generated, substantial inter-group differences of :1.08 mIll were found indicating that oxygen specifications for WOCE need to be expressed as both a percent "error" and a low oxygen bias. The salinity comparison component of the cruise enabled comparison of various batches of Russian Reference Water (RRW) of various salnities (10, 20, 30, 35 and 40) against IAPSO Standard Seawater (SSW) of various salinities (10, 30, 35 and 38); inferences could then also be drawn on the relative performance of the two types of salinometer (Guildline Autosal 8400 and SOKOL 4602) used during the experiment. Under quasilaboratory conditions, the machines produced mean results different by no more than 0.001 in salinity for salinity 35 RRW, standardizing against salinity 35 SSW. The other salnities produced less conclusive results, but the three salinometers deviated by no more than 0.003 from the expected value over a wide range of salinities. Under operational conditions (analysis of duplicate samples collected from CTD casts) a mean bias emerged between machines of approximately 0.005 in salinity (SOKOL fresher than Guildline), Subsequent investigations tentatively ascribed this bias to non-equilbration of deep (cold) samples in the Russian system.

Description: Prepared for the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE89-07815, and OCE92-06184, T. Joyce, Principal Investigator; Vetlesen Funds, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and with support from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

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 Climate 29 (2016): 3143-3159, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0520.1.

Description: Moisture originating from the subtropical North Atlantic feeds precipitation throughout the Western Hemisphere. This ocean-to-land moisture transport leaves its imprint on sea surface salinity (SSS), enabling SSS over the subtropical oceans to be used as an indicator of terrestrial precipitation. This study demonstrates that springtime SSS over the northwestern portion of the subtropical North Atlantic significantly correlates with summertime precipitation over the U.S. Midwest. The linkage between springtime SSS and the Midwest summer precipitation is established through ocean-to-land moisture transport followed by a soil moisture feedback over the southern United States. In the spring, high SSS over the northwestern subtropical Atlantic coincides with a local increase in moisture flux divergence. The moisture flux is then directed toward and converges over the southern United States, which experiences increased precipitation and soil moisture. The increased soil moisture influences the regional water cycle both thermodynamically and dynamically, leading to excessive summer precipitation in the Midwest. Thermodynamically, the increased soil moisture tends to moisten the lower troposphere and enhances the meridional humidity gradient north of 36°N. Thus, more moisture will be transported and converged into the Midwest by the climatological low-level wind. Dynamically, the increases in soil moisture over the southern United States enhance the west–east soil moisture gradient eastward of the Rocky Mountains, which can help to intensify the Great Plains low-level jet in the summer, converging more moisture into the Midwest. Owing to these robust physical linkages, the springtime SSS outweighs the leading SST modes in predicting the Midwest summer precipitation and significantly improves rainfall prediction in this region.

Description: L. L. is supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), with funding provided by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute (OCCI). R. W. S. is supported by NASA Grant NNX12AF59G S03 and NSF Grant OCE-1129646. C. C. U. is supported by NSF Grant AGS-1355339. K. B. K. is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship administered by the WHOI OCCI.

Description: 2016-10-19

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 Nezlin, N. P., Dever, M., Halverson, M., Leconte, J., Maze, G., Richards, C., Shkvorets, I., Zhang, R., & Johnson, G. Accuracy and long-term stability assessment of inductive conductivity cell measurements on Argo Floats. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 37(12), (2020): 2209-2223, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0058.1.

Description: This study demonstrates the long-term stability of salinity measurements from Argo floats equipped with inductive conductivity cells, which have extended float lifetimes as compared to electrode-type cells. New Argo float sensor payloads must meet the demands of the Argo governance committees before they are implemented globally. Currently, the use of CTDs with inductive cells designed and manufactured by RBR, Ltd., has been approved as a Global Argo Pilot. One requirement for new sensors is to demonstrate stable measurements over the lifetime of a float. To demonstrate this, data from four Argo floats in the western Pacific Ocean equipped with the RBRargo CTD sensor package are analyzed using the same Owens–Wong–Cabanes (OWC) method and reference datasets as the Argo delayed-mode quality control (DMQC) operators. When run with default settings against the standard DMQC Argo and CTD databases, the OWC analysis reveals no drift in any of the four RBRargo datasets and, in one case, an offset exceeding the Argo target salinity limits. Being a statistical tool, the OWC method cannot strictly determine whether deviations in salinity measurements with respect to a reference hydrographic product (e.g., climatologies) are caused by oceanographic variability or sensor problems. So, this study furthermore investigates anomalous salinity measurements observed when compared with a reference product and demonstrates that anomalous values tend to occur in regions with a high degree of variability and can be better explained by imperfect reference data rather than sensor drift. This study concludes that the RBR inductive cell is a viable option for salinity measurements as part of the Argo program.

Description: Author Dr. G. Maze was supported by the EARISE project, a European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement 824131, Call INFRADEV-03-2018-2019: Individual support to ESFRI and other world-class research infrastructures. We acknowledge Susan Wijffels, who provided advice on reference climatologies, coordinated access to the data from Argo Australia float 5904925, and provided ship CTD data to evaluate the initial accuracy of the float. Toshio Suga and Shigeki Hosoda provided ship CTD data for assessing the initial accuracy of Japan Argo floats 2903005 and 2903327. We thank Zenghong Liu for coordinating access to ship CTD data and continued discussion regarding RBRargo CTD accuracy and stability. We thank IFREMER for providing us access to ADMT-CTD and ADMT-Argo reference datasets.

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(7), (2021): 2473-2490, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0625.1.

Description: This study uses sea surface salinity (SSS) as an additional precursor for improving the prediction of summer [December–February (DJF)] rainfall over northeastern Australia. From a singular value decomposition between SSS of prior seasons and DJF rainfall, we note that SSS of the Indo-Pacific warm pool region [SSSP (150°E–165°W and 10°S–10°N) and SSSI (50°–95°E and 10°S–10°N)] covaries with Australian rainfall, particularly in the northeast region. Composite analysis that is based on high or low SSS events in the SSSP and SSSI regions is performed to understand the physical links between the SSS and the atmospheric moisture originating from the regions of anomalously high or low, respectively, SSS and precipitation over Australia. The composites show the signature of co-occurring La Niña and negative Indian Ocean dipole with anomalously wet conditions over Australia and conversely show the signature of co-occurring El Niño and positive Indian Ocean dipole with anomalously dry conditions there. During the high SSS events of the SSSP and SSSI regions, the convergence of incoming moisture flux results in anomalously wet conditions over Australia with a positive soil moisture anomaly. Conversely, during the low SSS events of the SSSP and SSSI regions, the divergence of incoming moisture flux results in anomalously dry conditions over Australia with a negative soil moisture anomaly. We show from the random-forest regression analysis that the local soil moisture, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and SSSP are the most important precursors for the northeast Australian rainfall whereas for the Brisbane region ENSO, SSSP, and the Indian Ocean dipole are the most important. The prediction of Australian rainfall using random-forest regression shows an improvement by including SSS from the prior season. This evidence suggests that sustained observations of SSS can improve the monitoring of the Australian regional hydrological cycle.

Description: This research is funded through the Earth System and Climate Change Hub of the Australian government’s National Environmental Science Programme. The assistance of computing resources from the National Computational Infrastructure supported by the Australian Government is acknowledged. Author Ummenhofer acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1663704. Author Feng was supported by the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), which is a joint initiative between the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (QNLM), CSIRO, University of New South Wales, and the University of Tasmania. The authors also acknowledge Dr. Manali Pal for technical discussion on machine learning.

Description: 2021-09-01

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).

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 Climate 33(15), (2020): 6707-6730, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0579.1.

Description: The long-term trend of sea surface salinity (SSS) reveals an intensification of the global hydrological cycle due to human-induced climate change. This study demonstrates that SSS variability can also be used as a measure of terrestrial precipitation on interseasonal to interannual time scales, and to locate the source of moisture. Seasonal composites during El Niño–Southern Oscillation/Indian Ocean dipole (ENSO/IOD) events are used to understand the variations of moisture transport and precipitation over Australia, and their association with SSS variability. As ENSO/IOD events evolve, patterns of positive or negative SSS anomaly emerge in the Indo-Pacific warm pool region and are accompanied by atmospheric moisture transport anomalies toward Australia. During co-occurring La Niña and negative IOD events, salty anomalies around the Maritime Continent (north of Australia) indicate freshwater export and are associated with a significant moisture transport that converges over Australia to create anomalous wet conditions. In contrast, during co-occurring El Niño and positive IOD events, a moisture transport divergence anomaly over Australia results in anomalous dry conditions. The relationship between SSS and atmospheric moisture transport also holds for pure ENSO/IOD events but varies in magnitude and spatial pattern. The significant pattern correlation between the moisture flux divergence and SSS anomaly during the ENSO/IOD events highlights the associated ocean–atmosphere coupling. A case study of the extreme hydroclimatic events of Australia (e.g., the 2010/11 Brisbane flood) demonstrates that the changes in SSS occur before the peak of ENSO/IOD events. This raises the prospect that tracking of SSS variability could aid the prediction of Australian rainfall.

Description: This research is funded through the Earth System and Climate Change Hub of the Australian government’s National Environmental Science Programme. The assistance of computing resources from the National Computational Infrastructure supported by the Australian Government is acknowledged. CCU acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1663704. MF was supported by the by Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), which is a joint initiative between the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (QNLM), CSIRO, University of New South Wales and University of Tasmania. The authors wish to acknowledge PyFerret (https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/) and the Cimate Data Operators (https://code.mpimet.mpg.de/projects/cdo/) for the data analysis and graphical representations in this paper.

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(8), (2022): 1705-1730, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0243.1.

Description: Formation and evolution of barrier layers (BLs) and associated temperature inversions (TIs) were investigated using a 1-yr time series of oceanic and air–sea surface observations from three moorings deployed in the eastern Pacific fresh pool. BL thickness and TI amplitude showed a seasonality with maxima in boreal summer and autumn when BLs were persistently present. Mixed layer salinity (MLS) and mixed layer temperature (MLT) budgets were constructed to investigate the formation mechanism of BLs and TIs. The MLS budget showed that BLs were initially formed in response to horizontal advection of freshwater in boreal summer and then primarily maintained by precipitation. The MLT budget revealed that penetration of shortwave radiation through the mixed layer base is the dominant contributor to TI formation through subsurface warming. Geostrophic advection is a secondary contributor to TI formation through surface cooling. When the BL exists, the cooling effect from entrainment and the warming effect from detrainment are both significantly reduced. In addition, when the BL is associated with the presence of a TI, entrainment works to warm the mixed layer. The presence of BLs makes the shallower mixed layer more sensitive to surface heat and freshwater fluxes, acting to enhance the formation of TIs that increase the subsurface warming via shortwave penetration.

Description: SK is supported by JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships. JS and SK are supported by NASA Grant 80NSSC18K1500. JTF and the mooring deployment were funded by NASA Grants NNX15AG20G and 80NSSC18K1494. DZ is supported by NASA Grant 80NSSC18K1499. This publication is partially funded by the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) under NOAA Cooperative Agreement NA20OAR4320271, Contribution 2021-1152. This is PMEL Contribution 5268.

Description: 2023-01-27