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  • Atmosphere-ocean interaction  (51)
  • Ocean models  (35)
  • Diapycnal mixing
  • Mesoscale processes
  • American Meteorological Society  (139)
  • American Geophysical Union  (2)
  • American Chemical Society
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  • 1
    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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  • 2
    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): 789-801, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4039.1.
    Description: The issue of internal wave–mesoscale eddy interactions is revisited. Previous observational work identified the mesoscale eddy field as a possible source of internal wave energy. Characterization of the coupling as a viscous process provides a smaller horizontal transfer coefficient than previously obtained, with vh 50 m2 s−1 in contrast to νh 200–400 m2 s−1, and a vertical transfer coefficient bounded away from zero, with νυ + (f2/N2)Kh 2.5 ± 0.3 × 10−3 m2 s−1 in contrast to νυ + (f2/N2)Kh = 0 ± 2 × 10−2 m2 s−1. Current meter data from the Local Dynamics Experiment of the PolyMode field program indicate mesoscale eddy–internal wave coupling through horizontal interactions (i) is a significant sink of eddy energy and (ii) plays an O(1) role in the energy budget of the internal wave field.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 3
    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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  • 4
    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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  • 5
    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): 1524–1547, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0117.1.
    Description: Evidence is presented for the transfer of energy from low-frequency inertial–diurnal internal waves to high-frequency waves in the band between 6 cpd and the buoyancy frequency. This transfer links the most energetic waves in the spectrum, those receiving energy directly from the winds, barotropic tides, and parametric subharmonic instability, with those most directly involved in the breaking process. Transfer estimates are based on month-long records of ocean velocity and temperature obtained continuously over 80–800 m from the research platform (R/P) Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) in the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment (HOME) Nearfield (2002) and Farfield (2001) experiments, in Hawaiian waters. Triple correlations between low-frequency vertical shears and high-frequency Reynolds stresses, uiw∂Ui/∂z, are used to estimate energy transfers. These are supported by bispectral analysis, which show significant energy transfers to pairs of waves with nearly identical frequency. Wavenumber bispectra indicate that the vertical scales of the high-frequency waves are unequal, with one wave of comparable scale to that of the low-frequency parent and the other of much longer scale. The scales of the high-frequency waves contrast with the classical pictures of induced diffusion and elastic scattering interactions and violates the scale-separation assumption of eikonal models of interaction. The possibility that the observed waves are Doppler shifted from intrinsic frequencies near f or N is explored. Peak transfer rates in the Nearfield, an energetic tidal conversion site, are on the order of 2 × 10−7 W kg−1 and are of similar magnitude to estimates of turbulent dissipation that were made near the ridge during HOME. Transfer rates in the Farfield are found to be about half the Nearfield values.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2013-03-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Energy transport ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ship observations ; Spectral analysis/models/distribution
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
    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): 17–28, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0108.1.
    Description: Observational evidence is presented for transfer of energy from the internal tide to near-inertial motions near 29°N in the Pacific Ocean. The transfer is accomplished via parametric subharmonic instability (PSI), which involves interaction between a primary wave (the internal tide in this case) and two smaller-scale waves of nearly half the frequency. The internal tide at this location is a complex superposition of a low-mode waves propagating north from Hawaii and higher-mode waves generated at local seamounts, making application of PSI theory challenging. Nevertheless, a statistically significant phase locking is documented between the internal tide and upward- and downward-propagating near-inertial waves. The phase between those three waves is consistent with that expected from PSI theory. Calculated energy transfer rates from the tide to near-inertial motions are modest, consistent with local dissipation rate estimates. The conclusion is that while PSI does befall the tide near a critical latitude of 29°N, it does not do so catastrophically.
    Description: This work was sponsored by NSF OCE 04-25283.
    Description: 2013-07-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics
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  • 7
    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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  • 8
    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): 1589–1610, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0173.1.
    Description: This study investigates the exchange of momentum between the atmosphere and ocean using data collected from four oceanic field experiments. Direct covariance estimates of momentum fluxes were collected in all four experiments and wind profiles were collected during three of them. The objective of the investigation is to improve parameterizations of the surface roughness and drag coefficient used to estimate the surface stress from bulk formulas. Specifically, the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) 3.0 bulk flux algorithm is refined to create COARE 3.5. Oversea measurements of dimensionless shear are used to investigate the stability function under stable and convective conditions. The behavior of surface roughness is then investigated over a wider range of wind speeds (up to 25 m s−1) and wave conditions than have been available from previous oversea field studies. The wind speed dependence of the Charnock coefficient α in the COARE algorithm is modified to , where m = 0.017 m−1 s and b = −0.005. When combined with a parameterization for smooth flow, this formulation gives better agreement with the stress estimates from all of the field programs at all winds speeds with significant improvement for wind speeds over 13 m s−1. Wave age– and wave slope–dependent parameterizations of the surface roughness are also investigated, but the COARE 3.5 wind speed–dependent formulation matches the observations well without any wave information. The available data provide a simple reason for why wind speed–, wave age–, and wave slope–dependent formulations give similar results—the inverse wave age varies nearly linearly with wind speed in long-fetch conditions for wind speeds up to 25 m s−1.
    Description: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE04-24536 as part of the CLIVAR Mode Water Dynamics Experiment (CLIMODE) and the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-05-1-0139 as part of the CBLAST-LOW program.
    Description: 2014-02-01
    Keywords: Wind shear ; Wind stress ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Fluxes ; Momentum ; Algorithms
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  • 9
    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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  • 10
    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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  • 11
    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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  • 12
    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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  • 13
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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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  • 14
    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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  • 15
    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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  • 16
    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): 2622–2651, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00301.1.
    Description: This study presents an overview of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon and Pacific decadal variability (PDV) simulated in a multicentury preindustrial control integration of the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) at nominal 1° latitude–longitude resolution. Several aspects of ENSO are improved in CCSM4 compared to its predecessor CCSM3, including the lengthened period (3–6 yr), the larger range of amplitude and frequency of events, and the longer duration of La Niña compared to El Niño. However, the overall magnitude of ENSO in CCSM4 is overestimated by ~30%. The simulated ENSO exhibits characteristics consistent with the delayed/recharge oscillator paradigm, including correspondence between the lengthened period and increased latitudinal width of the anomalous equatorial zonal wind stress. Global seasonal atmospheric teleconnections with accompanying impacts on precipitation and temperature are generally well simulated, although the wintertime deepening of the Aleutian low erroneously persists into spring. The vertical structure of the upper-ocean temperature response to ENSO in the north and south Pacific displays a realistic seasonal evolution, with notable asymmetries between warm and cold events. The model shows evidence of atmospheric circulation precursors over the North Pacific associated with the “seasonal footprinting mechanism,” similar to observations. Simulated PDV exhibits a significant spectral peak around 15 yr, with generally realistic spatial pattern and magnitude. However, PDV linkages between the tropics and extratropics are weaker than observed.
    Description: M. Alexander, A. Capotondi, and J. Scott’s participation was supported by a grant from the NSF Climate and Large-scale Dynamics Program. Y.-O. Kwon gratefully acknowledges support from a WHOI Heyman fellowship and a grant from the NSF Climate and Largescale Dynamics Program. The CESM project is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Science (BER) of the U.S. Department of Energy.
    Description: 2012-10-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; El Nino ; ENSO ; La Nina ; Pacific decadal oscillation ; Climate models
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  • 17
    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): 3515–3531, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00028.1.
    Description: The study examined global variability of air–sea sensible heat flux (SHF) from 1980 to 2009 and the large-scale atmospheric and ocean circulations that gave rise to this variability. The contribution of high-latitude wintertime SHF was identified, and the relative importance of the effect of the sea–air temperature difference versus the effect of wind on decadal SHF variability was analyzed using an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) approach. The study showed that global SHF anomalies are strongly modulated by SHF at high latitudes (poleward of 45°) during winter seasons. Decadal variability of global wintertime SHF can be reasonably represented by the sum of two leading EOF modes, namely, the boreal wintertime SHF in the northern oceans and the austral wintertime SHF in the southern oceans. The study also showed that global wintertime SHF is modulated by the prominent modes of the large-scale atmospheric circulation at high latitudes. The increase of global SHF in the 1990s is attributable to the strengthening of the Southern Hemisphere annular mode index, while the decrease of global SHF after 2000 is due primarily to the downward trend of the Arctic Oscillation index. This study identified the important effects of wind direction and speed on SHF variability. Changes in winds modify the sea–air temperature gradient by advecting cold and dry air from continents and by imposing changes in wind-driven oceanic processes that affect sea surface temperature (SST). The pattern of air temperature anomalies dominates over the pattern of SST anomalies and dictates the pattern of decadal SHF variability.
    Description: The study is supported by the NOAA Office of Climate Observations (OCO) and the WHOI Arctic Climate Initiative. X. Song acknowledges the support from the China Scholarship Council, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (40930844, 40976004, and 40921004) and the Ministry of Education’s 111 Project (B07036).
    Description: 2012-11-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction
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  • 18
    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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  • 19
    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
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  • 20
    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): 2143–2152, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-027.1.
    Description: Direct measurements of turbulence levels in the Drake Passage region of the Southern Ocean show a marked enhancement over the Phoenix Ridge. At this site, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is constricted in its flow between the southern tip of South America and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Observed turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates are enhanced in the regions corresponding to the ACC frontal zones where strong flow reaches the bottom. In these areas, turbulent dissipation levels reach 10−8 W kg−1 at abyssal and middepths. The mixing enhancement in the frontal regions is sufficient to elevate the diapycnal turbulent diffusivity acting in the deep water above the axis of the ridge to 1 × 10−4 m2 s−1. This level is an order of magnitude larger than the mixing levels observed upstream in the ACC above smoother bathymetry. Outside of the frontal regions, dissipation rates are O(10−10) W kg−1, comparable to the background levels of turbulence found throughout most mid- and low-latitude regions of the global ocean.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and by the Natural Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom.
    Description: 2013-06-01
    Keywords: Southern Ocean ; Turbulence ; Diapycnal mixing
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  • 21
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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): 698–705, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0119.1.
    Description: Owing to the larger thermal expansion coefficient at higher temperatures, more buoyancy is put into the ocean by heating than is removed by cooling at low temperatures. The authors show that, even with globally balanced thermal and haline surface forcing at the ocean surface, there is a negative density flux and hence a positive buoyancy flux. As shown by McDougall and Garrett, this must be compensated by interior densification on mixing due to the nonlinearity of the equation of state (cabbeling). Three issues that arise from this are addressed: the estimation of the annual input of density forcing, the effects of the seasonal cycle, and the total cabbeling potential of the ocean upon complete mixing. The annual expansion through surface density forcing in a steady-state ocean driven by balanced evaporation–precipitation–runoff (E–P–R) and net radiative budget at the surface Qnet is estimated as 74 000 m3 s−1 (0.07 Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), which would be equivalent to a sea level rise of 6.3 mm yr−1. This is equivalent to approximately 3 times the estimated rate of sea level rise or 450% of the average Mississippi River discharge. When seasonal variations are included, this density forcing increases by 35% relative to the time-mean case to 101 000 m3 s−1 (0.1 Sv). Likely bounds are established on these numbers by using different Qnet and E–P–R datasets and the estimates are found to be robust to a factor of ~2. These values compare well with the cabbeling-induced contraction inferred from independent thermal dissipation rate estimates. The potential sea level decrease upon complete vertical mixing of the ocean is estimated as 230 mm. When horizontal mixing is included, the sea level drop is estimated as 300 mm.
    Description: The authors would like to acknowledge support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Grant NNX12AF59G and the National Science Foundation, Grant OCE-0647949.
    Description: 2013-10-01
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Conservation equations ; Diapycnal mixing ; Heating ; Mixing ; Heat budgets/fluxes
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  • 22
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 2405–2416, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00359.1.
    Description: Several recent studies utilizing global climate models predict that the Pacific Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) will strengthen over the twenty-first century. Here, historical changes in the tropical Pacific are investigated using the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) reanalysis toward understanding the dynamics and mechanisms that may dictate such a change. Although SODA does not assimilate velocity observations, the seasonal-to-interannual variability of the EUC estimated by SODA corresponds well with moored observations over a ~20-yr common period. Long-term trends in SODA indicate that the EUC core velocity has increased by 16% century−1 and as much as 47% century−1 at fixed locations since the mid-1800s. Diagnosis of the zonal momentum budget in the equatorial Pacific reveals two distinct seasonal mechanisms that explain the EUC strengthening. The first is characterized by strengthening of the western Pacific trade winds and hence oceanic zonal pressure gradient during boreal spring. The second entails weakening of eastern Pacific trade winds during boreal summer, which weakens the surface current and reduces EUC deceleration through vertical friction. EUC strengthening has important ecological implications as upwelling affects the thermal and biogeochemical environment. Furthermore, given the potential large-scale influence of EUC strength and depth on the heat budget in the eastern Pacific, the seasonal strengthening of the EUC may help reconcile paradoxical observations of Walker circulation slowdown and zonal SST gradient strengthening. Such a process would represent a new dynamical “thermostat” on CO2-forced warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, emphasizing the importance of ocean dynamics and seasonality in understanding climate change projections.
    Description: EJDis supported by NSFGrantsOCE-1031971 and OCE-1233282. KBK is supported by NSF Grant OCE-1233282.
    Description: 2014-09-15
    Keywords: Tropics ; Currents ; Ocean dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Climate variability ; Reanalysis data
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  • 23
    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): 9839–9859, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00647.1.
    Description: Spatial and temporal covariability between the atmospheric transient eddy heat fluxes (i.e., υ′T′ and υ′q′) in the Northern Hemisphere winter (January–March) and the paths of the Gulf Stream (GS), Kuroshio Extension (KE), and Oyashio Extension (OE) are examined based on an atmospheric reanalyses and ocean observations for 1979–2009. For the climatological winter mean, the northward heat fluxes by the synoptic (2–8 days) transient eddies exhibit canonical storm tracks with their maxima collocated with the GS and KE/OE. The intraseasonal (8 days–3 months) counterpart, while having overall similar amplitude, shows a spatial pattern with more localized maxima near the major orography and blocking regions. Lateral heat flux divergence by transient eddies as the sum of the two frequency bands exhibits very close coupling with the exact locations of the ocean fronts. Linear regression is used to examine the lead–lag relationship between interannual changes in the northward heat fluxes by the transient eddies and the meridional changes in the paths of the GS, KE, and OE, respectively. One to three years prior to the northward shifts of each ocean front, the atmospheric storm tracks shift northward and intensify, which is consistent with wind-driven changes of the ocean. Following the northward shifts of the ocean fronts, the synoptic storm tracks weaken in all three cases. The zonally integrated northward heat transport by the synoptic transient eddies increases by ~5% of its maximum mean value prior to the northward shift of each ocean front and decreases to a similar amplitude afterward.
    Description: Support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Physical Oceanography Program (NNX09AF35G to TJ and Y-OK) and the Department of Energy (DOE) Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (DE-SC0007052 to Y-OK) is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2014-06-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Eddies ; Energy transport ; Storm tracks ; Heat budgets/fluxes
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  • 24
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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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  • 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 Climate 28 (2015): 1126–1147, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00285.1.
    Description: The local atmospheric response to a realistic shift of the Oyashio Extension SST front in the western North Pacific is analyzed using a high-resolution (HR; 0.25°) version of the global Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5). A northward shift in the SST front causes an atmospheric response consisting of a weak surface wind anomaly but a strong vertical circulation extending throughout the troposphere. In the lower troposphere, most of the SST anomaly–induced diabatic heating is balanced by poleward transient eddy heat and moisture fluxes. Collectively, this response differs from the circulation suggested by linear dynamics, where extratropical SST forcing produces shallow anomalous heating balanced by strong equatorward cold air advection driven by an anomalous, stationary surface low to the east. This latter response, however, is obtained by repeating the same experiment except using a relatively low-resolution (LR; 1°) version of CAM5. Comparison to observations suggests that the HR response is closer to nature than the LR response. Strikingly, HR and LR experiments have almost identical vertical profiles of . However, diagnosis of the diabatic quasigeostrophic vertical pressure velocity (ω) budget reveals that HR has a substantially stronger response, which together with upper-level mean differential thermal advection balances stronger vertical motion. The results herein suggest that changes in transient eddy heat and moisture fluxes are critical to the overall local atmospheric response to Oyashio Front anomalies, which may consequently yield a stronger downstream response. These changes may require the high resolution to be fully reproduced, warranting further experiments of this type with other high-resolution atmosphere-only and fully coupled GCMs.
    Description: We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by NSF to DS and MN (AGS CLD 1035325) and Y-OK and CF (AGS CLD 1035423) and by DOE to Y-OK (DE-SC0007052).
    Description: 2015-08-01
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Atmospheric circulation ; Boundary layer ; Cyclogenesis/cyclolysis ; Diabatic heating ; Extratropical cyclones
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  • 26
    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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  • 27
    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 the Atmospheric Sciences 72 (2015): 2786–2805, doi:10.1175/JAS-D-14-0257.1.
    Description: In Ammassalik, in southeast Greenland, downslope winds can reach hurricane intensity and represent a hazard for the local population and environment. They advect cold air down the ice sheet and over the Irminger Sea, where they drive large ocean–atmosphere heat fluxes over an important ocean convection region. Earlier studies have found them to be associated with a strong katabatic acceleration over the steep coastal slopes, flow convergence inside the valley of Ammassalik, and—in one instance—mountain wave breaking. Yet, for the general occurrence of strong downslope wind events, the importance of mesoscale processes is largely unknown. Here, two wind events—one weak and one strong—are simulated with the atmospheric Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model with different model and topography resolutions, ranging from 1.67 to 60 km. For both events, but especially for the strong one, it is found that lower resolutions underestimate the wind speed because they misrepresent the steepness of the topography and do not account for the underlying wave dynamics. If a 5-km model instead of a 60-km model resolution in Ammassalik is used, the flow associated with the strong wind event is faster by up to 20 m s−1. The effects extend far downstream over the Irminger Sea, resulting in a diverging spatial distribution and temporal evolution of the heat fluxes. Local differences in the heat fluxes amount to 20%, with potential implications for ocean convection.
    Description: This study was supported by grants of the National Science Foundation (OCE- 0751554 and OCE-1130008) as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
    Description: 2016-01-01
    Keywords: Katabatic winds ; Severe storms ; Air-sea interaction ; Mesoscale processes ; Orographic effects ; Model evaluation/performance
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  • 28
    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 Climate 28 (2015): 5885–5907, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00635.1.
    Description: The structure, variability, and regional connectivity of the Tokar Gap jet (TGJ) are described using WRF Model analyses and supporting atmospheric datasets from the East African–Red Sea–Arabian Peninsula (EARSAP) region during summer 2008. Sources of the TGJ’s unique quasi-diurnal nature and association with atypically high atmospheric moisture transport are traced back to larger-scale atmospheric dynamics influencing its forcing. These include seasonal shifts in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), variability of the monsoon and North African wind regimes, and ties to other orographic flow patterns. Strong modulation of the TGJ by regional processes such as the desert heating cycle, wind convergence at the ITCZ surface front, and the local land–sea breeze cycle are described. Two case studies present the interplay of these influences in detail. The first of these was an “extreme” gap wind event on 12 July, in which horizontal velocities in the Tokar Gap exceeded 26 m s−1 and the flow from the jet extended the full width of the Red Sea basin. This event coincided with development of a large mesoscale convective complex (MCC) and precipitation at the entrance of the Tokar Gap as well as smaller gaps downstream along the Arabian Peninsula. More typical behavior of the TGJ during the 2008 summer is discussed using a second case study on 19 July. Downwind impact of the TGJ is evaluated using Lagrangian model trajectories and analysis of the lateral moisture fluxes (LMFs) during jet events. These results suggest means by which TGJ contributes to large LMFs and has potential bearing upon Sahelian rainfall and MCC development.
    Description: This work was supported by a grant from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as well as National Science Foundation Grant OCE0927017 and from DOD (MURI) Grant N000141110087, administered by the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2016-02-01
    Keywords: Africa ; Orographic effects ; Monsoons ; Atmosphere-land interaction ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Hydrometeorology
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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): 2820–2835, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0101.1.
    Description: The response of a convective ocean basin to variations in atmospheric temperature is explored using numerical models and theory. The results indicate that the general behavior depends strongly on the frequency at which the atmosphere changes relative to the local response time to air–sea heat flux. For high-frequency forcing, the convective region in the basin interior is essentially one-dimensional and responds to the integrated local surface heat flux anomalies. For low-frequency forcing, eddy fluxes from the boundary current into the basin interior become important and act to suppress variability forced by the atmosphere. A theory is developed to quantify this time-dependent response and its influence on various oceanic quantities. The amplitude and phase of the temperature and salinity of the convective water mass, the meridional overturning circulation, the meridional heat flux, and the air–sea heat flux predicted by the theory compare well with that diagnosed from a series of numerical model calculations in both strongly eddying and weakly eddying regimes. Linearized analytic solutions provide direct estimates of each of these quantities and demonstrate their dependence on the nondimensional numbers that characterize the domain and atmospheric forcing. These results highlight the importance of mesoscale eddies in modulating the mean and time-dependent ocean response to atmospheric variability and provide a dynamical framework with which to connect ocean observations with changes in the atmosphere and surface heat flux.
    Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1232389.
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Deep convection ; Eddies ; Meridional overturning circulation
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  • 30
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    American Meteorological Society
    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): 3139-3154, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0042.1.
    Description: Downfront, or downwelling favorable, winds are commonly found over buoyant coastal plumes. It is known that these winds can result in mixing of the plume with the ambient water and that the winds influence the transport, spatial extent, and stability of the plumes. In the present study, the interaction of the Ekman velocity in the surface layer and baroclinic instability supported by the strong horizontal density gradient of the plume is explored with the objective of understanding the potential vorticity and buoyancy budgets. The approach makes use of an idealized numerical model and scaling theory. It is shown that when winds are present the weak stratification resulting from vertical mixing and the strong baroclinicity of the front results in near-zero average potential vorticity q. For weak to moderate winds, the reduction of q by diapycnal mixing is balanced by the generation of q through the geostrophic stress term in the regions of strong horizontal density gradients and stable stratification. However, for very strong winds the wind stress overwhelms the geostrophic stress and leads to a reduction in q, which is balanced by the vertical mixing term. In the absence of winds, the geostrophic stress dominates mixing and the flow rapidly restratifies. Nonlinearity, extremes of relative vorticity and vertical velocity, and mixing are all enhanced by the presence of a coast. Scaling estimates developed for the eddy buoyancy flux, the surface potential vorticity flux, and the diapycnal mixing rate compare well with results diagnosed from a series of numerical model calculations.
    Description: This study was supported by NSF Grants OCE-1433170 (MAS) and OCE-1459677 (LNT).
    Description: 2017-04-07
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Wind stress
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  • 31
    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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  • 32
    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): 633-647, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0089.1.
    Description: Interannual variability in the volumetric water mass distribution within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre is described in relation to variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The relative roles of diabatic and adiabatic processes in the volume and heat budgets of the subtropical gyre are investigated by projecting data into temperature coordinates as volumes of water using an Argo-based climatology and an ocean state estimate (ECCO version 4). This highlights that variations in the subtropical gyre volume budget are predominantly set by transport divergence in the gyre. A strong correlation between the volume anomaly due to transport divergence and the variability of both thermocline depth and Ekman pumping over the gyre suggests that wind-driven heave drives transport anomalies at the gyre boundaries. This wind-driven heaving contributes significantly to variations in the heat content of the gyre, as do anomalies in the air–sea fluxes. The analysis presented suggests that wind forcing plays an important role in driving interannual variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and that this variability can be unraveled from spatially distributed hydrographic observations using the framework presented here.
    Description: DGE was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council studentship award at the University of Southampton. JMT’s contribution was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE-1332667). GF’s contribution was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-0961713 and by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through Grant NA10OAR4310135. The contributions of JDZ and AJGN were supported by the NERC Grant ‘‘Climate scale analysis of air and water masses’’ (NE/ K012932/1). ACNG gratefully acknowledges support from the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society, and the Wolfson Foundation. LY was supported by NASA Ocean Vector Wind Science Team (OVWST) activities under Grant NNA10AO86G.
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Water masses ; Inverse methods
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  • 33
    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): 573-590, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0206.1.
    Description: Motivated by the proximity of the Northern Recirculation Gyre and the deep western boundary current in the North Atlantic, an idealized model is used to investigate how recirculation gyres and a deep flow along a topographic slope interact. In this two-layer quasigeostrophic model, an unstable jet imposed in the upper layer generates barotropic recirculation gyres. These are maintained by an eddy-mean balance of potential vorticity (PV) in steady state. The authors show that the topographic slope can constrain the northern recirculation gyre meridionally and that the gyre’s adjustment to the slope leads to increased eddy PV fluxes at the base of the slope. When a deep current is present along the topographic slope in the lower layer, these eddy PV fluxes stir the deep current and recirculation gyre waters. Increased proximity to the slope dampens the eddy growth rate within the unstable jet, altering the geometry of recirculation gyre forcing and leading to a decrease in overall eddy PV fluxes. These mechanisms may shape the circulation in the western North Atlantic, with potential feedbacks on the climate system.
    Description: We gratefully acknowledge an AMS graduate fellowship (IALB) and U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1332667 and 1332834 (IALB and JMT).
    Description: 2018-09-06
    Keywords: Boundary currents ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation ; Potential vorticity ; Quasigeostrophic models
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  • 34
    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): 739-748, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0089.1.
    Description: McDougall and Ferrari have estimated the global deep upward diapycnal flow in the boundary layer overlying continental slopes that must balance both downward diapycnal flow in the deep interior and the formation of bottom water around Antarctica. The decrease of perimeter of isopycnal surfaces with depth and the observed decay with height above bottom of turbulent dissipation in the deep ocean play a key role in their estimate. They argue that because the perimeter of seamounts increases with depth, the net effect of mixing around seamounts is to produce net downward diapycnal flow. While this is true along much of a seamount, it is shown here that diapycnal flow of the densest water around the seamount is upward, with buoyancy being transferred from water just above. The same is true for midocean ridges, whose perimeter is constant with depth. It is argued that mixing around seamounts and especially midocean ridges contributes positively to the global deep overturning circulation, reducing the amount of turbulence demanded over the continental slopes to balance the buoyancy budget for the bottom and deep water.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OCE- 1232962.
    Description: 2018-09-29
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Boundary currents ; Buoyancy ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Ocean circulation
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  • 35
    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): 6245-6261, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0513.1.
    Description: Reconstructions of sea surface temperature (SST) based on instrumental observations suggest that the equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient has increased over the twentieth century. While this increase is suggestive of the ocean dynamical thermostat mechanism of Clement et al., observations of a concurrent weakening of the zonal atmospheric (Walker) circulation are not. Here we show, using heat and momentum budget calculations on an ocean reanalysis dataset, that a seasonal weakening of the zonal atmospheric circulation is in fact consistent with cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) and thus an increase in the zonal SST gradient. This cooling is driven by a strengthening Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) in response to decreased upper-ocean westward momentum associated with weakening equatorial zonal wind stress. This process can help to reconcile the seemingly contradictory twentieth-century trends in the tropical Pacific atmosphere and ocean. Moreover, it is shown that coupled general circulation models (CGCMs) do not correctly simulate this process; we identify a systematic bias in the relationship between changes in equatorial surface zonal wind stress in the EEP and EUC strength that may help to explain why observations and CGCMs have opposing trends in the zonal SST gradient over the twentieth century.
    Description: 2019-01-11
    Keywords: Tropics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Climate change ; Climate models ; Trends
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  • 36
    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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  • 37
    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): 2363-2386, doi:10.1175/jpo3118.1.
    Description: Intrinsic low-frequency variability is studied in the idealized, quasigeostrophic, midlatitude, wind-driven ocean gyres operating at large Reynolds number. A robust decadal variability mode driven by the transient mesoscale eddies is found and analyzed. The variability is a turbulent phenomenon, which is driven by the competition between the eddy rectification process and the potential vorticity anomalies induced by changes of the intergyre transport
    Description: Funding for Pavel Berloff was provided by NSF Grants OCE-0091836 and OCE- 0344094, by the U.K. Royal Society Fellowship, and by the Newton Trust Award, A. M. Hogg was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (DP0449851) during this work, and William K. Dewar was supported by NSF Grants OCE-0424227 and OCE-0550139.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Gyres ; Transport ; Potential vorticity ; Mesoscale processes
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  • 38
    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): 2768–2777, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4461.1.
    Description: Although sustained observations yield a description of the mean equatorial current system from the western Pacific to the eastern terminus of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array, a comprehensive observational dataset suitable for describing the structure and pathways of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) east of 95°W does not exist and therefore climate models are unconstrained in a region that plays a critical role in ocean–atmosphere coupling. Furthermore, ocean models suggest that the interaction between the EUC and the Galápagos Islands (92°W) has a striking effect on the basic state and coupled variability of the tropical Pacific. To this end, the authors interpret historical measurements beginning with those made in conjunction with the discovery of the Pacific EUC in the 1950s, analyze velocity measurements from an equatorial TAO mooring at 85°W, and analyze a new dataset from archived shipboard ADCP measurements. Together, the observations yield a possible composite description of the EUC structure and pathways in the eastern equatorial Pacific that may be useful for model validation and guiding future observation.
    Description: Karnauskas acknowledges the WHOI Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists.
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Currents ; In situ observations ; Model evaluation/performance ; Pacific Ocean ; Tropics
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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): 259–282, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0194.1.
    Description: This study reports on observations of turbulent dissipation and internal wave-scale flow properties in a standing meander of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) north of the Kerguelen Plateau. The authors characterize the intensity and spatial distribution of the observed turbulent dissipation and the derived turbulent mixing, and consider underpinning mechanisms in the context of the internal wave field and the processes governing the waves’ generation and evolution. The turbulent dissipation rate and the derived diapycnal diffusivity are highly variable with systematic depth dependence. The dissipation rate is generally enhanced in the upper 1000–1500 m of the water column, and both the dissipation rate and diapycnal diffusivity are enhanced in some places near the seafloor, commonly in regions of rough topography and in the vicinity of strong bottom flows associated with the ACC jets. Turbulent dissipation is high in regions where internal wave energy is high, consistent with the idea that interior dissipation is related to a breaking internal wave field. Elevated turbulence occurs in association with downward-propagating near-inertial waves within 1–2 km of the surface, as well as with upward-propagating, relatively high-frequency waves within 1–2 km of the seafloor. While an interpretation of these near-bottom waves as lee waves generated by ACC jets flowing over small-scale topographic roughness is supported by the qualitative match between the spatial patterns in predicted lee wave radiation and observed near-bottom dissipation, the observed dissipation is found to be only a small percentage of the energy flux predicted by theory. The mismatch suggests an alternative fate to local dissipation for a significant fraction of the radiated energy.
    Description: SW acknowledges the support of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London. ACNG acknowledges the support of a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship (Grant NE/C517633/1). KLP acknowledges support from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Turbulence
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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 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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  • 41
    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): 2833–2844, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00181.1.
    Description: The Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) is used to assess the climate impact of wind-generated near-inertial waves (NIWs). Even with high-frequency coupling, CCSM4 underestimates the strength of NIWs, so that a parameterization for NIWs is developed and included into CCSM4. Numerous assumptions enter this parameterization, the core of which is that the NIW velocity signal is detected during the model integration, and amplified in the shear computation of the ocean surface boundary layer module. It is found that NIWs deepen the ocean mixed layer by up to 30%, but they contribute little to the ventilation and mixing of the ocean below the thermocline. However, the deepening of the tropical mixed layer by NIWs leads to a change in tropical sea surface temperature and precipitation. Atmospheric teleconnections then change the global sea level pressure fields so that the midlatitude westerlies become weaker. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the real air-sea flux of NIW energy is poorly constrained by observations; this makes the quantitative assessment of their climate impact rather uncertain. Thus, a major result of the present study is that because of its importance for global climate the uncertainty in the observed tropical NIW energy has to be reduced.
    Description: This research was funded as part of the Climate Process Team on internal wave-driven mixing with NSF Grant Nr E0968771 at NCAR.
    Description: 2013-11-01
    Keywords: Fronts ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Mesoscale processes ; Mixing ; Nonlinear dynamics
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  • 42
    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): 9774–9790, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00862.1.
    Description: The influence of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variability on the atmospheric circulation is investigated in a control simulation of the NCAR Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3), where the AMOC evolves from an oscillatory regime into a red noise regime. In the latter, an AMOC intensification is followed during winter by a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The atmospheric response is robust and controlled by AMOC-driven SST anomalies, which shift the heat release to the atmosphere northward near the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current. This alters the low-level atmospheric baroclinicity and shifts the maximum eddy growth northward, affecting the storm track and favoring a positive NAO. The AMOC influence is detected in the relation between seasonal upper-ocean heat content or SST anomalies and winter sea level pressure. In the oscillatory regime, no direct AMOC influence is detected in winter. However, an upper-ocean heat content anomaly resembling the AMOC footprint precedes a negative NAO. This opposite NAO polarity seems due to the southward shift of the Gulf Stream during AMOC intensification, displacing the maximum baroclinicity southward near the jet exit. As the mode has somewhat different patterns when using SST, the wintertime impact of the AMOC lacks robustness in this regime. However, none of the signals compares well with the observed influence of North Atlantic SST anomalies on the NAO because SST is dominated in CCSM3 by the meridional shifts of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current that covary with the AMOC. Hence, although there is some potential climate predictability in CCSM3, it is not realistic.
    Description: Support from the NOAA Climate Program Office (Grant Number NA10OAR4310202) and the European Community 7th Framework Programme (FP7 2007-2013) under Grant Agreements GA212643 (THOR) and n.308299 (NACLIM) is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2014-06-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; North Atlantic Oscillation ; Thermohaline circulation ; Decadal variability
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  • 43
    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): 8476–8494, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00860.1.
    Description: Characteristics of atmospheric blocking in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) are explored in atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations with the Community Atmosphere Model, version 3, with a particular focus on the Australia–New Zealand sector. Preferred locations of blocking in SH observations and the associated seasonal cycle are well represented in the AGCM simulations, but the observed magnitude of blocking is underestimated throughout the year, particularly in late winter and spring. This is related to overly zonal flow due to an enhanced meridional pressure gradient in the model, which results in a decreased amplitude of the longwave trough/ridge pattern. A range of AGCM sensitivity experiments explores the effect on SH blocking of tropical heating, midlatitude sea surface temperatures, and land–sea temperature gradients created over the Australian continent during austral winter. The combined effects of tropical heating and extratropical temperature gradients are further explored in a configuration that is favorable for blocking in the Australia–New Zealand sector with warm SST anomalies to the north of Australia, cold to the southwest of Australia, warm to the southeast, and cool Australian land temperatures. The blocking-favorable configuration indicates a significant strengthening of the subtropical jet and a reduction in midlatitude flow, which results from changes in the thermal wind. While these overall changes in mean climate, predominantly forced by the tropical heating, enhance blocking activity, the magnitude of atmospheric blocking compared to observations is still underestimated. The blocking-unfavorable configuration with surface forcing anomalies of opposite sign results in a weakening subtropical jet, enhanced midlatitude flow, and significantly reduced blocking.
    Description: C.C.U. received support from the Australian Research Council through funding awarded to the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and the Penzance Endowed Fund at WHOI. P.C.M., M.J.P., and J.S.R. were funded by the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship and the Managing Climate Variability R&D Program.
    Description: 2014-05-01
    Keywords: Australia ; Southern Hemisphere ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Atmospheric circulation ; Blocking ; General circulation models
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  • 44
    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): 427–444, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-070.1.
    Description: Between 25 September 2007 and 28 September 2009, a heavily instrumented mooring was deployed in the Labrador Sea, offshore of the location where warm-core, anticyclonic Irminger rings are formed. The 2-year time series offers insight into the vertical and horizontal structure of newly formed Irminger rings and their heat and salt transport into the interior basin. In 2 years, 12 Irminger rings passed by the mooring. Of these, 11 had distinct properties, while 1 anticyclone likely passed the mooring twice. Eddy radii (11–35 km) were estimated using the dynamic height signal of the anticyclones (8–18 cm) together with the observed velocities. The anticyclones show a seasonal cycle in core properties when observed (1.9°C in temperature and 0.07 in salinity at middepth) that has not been described before. The temperature and salinity are highest in fall and lowest in spring. Cold, fresh caps, suggested to be an important source of freshwater, were seen in spring but were almost nonexistent in fall. The heat and freshwater contributions by the Irminger rings show a large spread (from 12 to 108 MJ m−2 and from −0.5 to −4.7 cm, respectively) for two reasons. First, the large range of radii leads to large differences in transported volume. Second, the seasonal cycle leads to changes in heat and salt content per unit volume. This implies that estimates of heat and freshwater transport by eddies should take the distribution of eddy properties into account in order to accurately assess their contribution to the restratification.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Devonshire Foundation.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Anticyclones ; Boundary currents ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Variability ; Seasonal cycle
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  • 45
    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): 2773–2789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0031.1.
    Description: Tidal oscillatory salt transport, induced by the correlation between tidal variations in salinity and velocity, is an important term for the subtidal salt balance under the commonly used Eulerian method of salt transport decomposition. In this paper, its mechanisms in a partially stratified estuary are investigated with a numerical model of the Hudson estuary. During neap tides, when the estuary is strongly stratified, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to the hydraulic response of the halocline to the longitudinal variation of topography. This mechanism does not involve vertical mixing, so it should not be regarded as oscillatory shear dispersion, but instead it should be regarded as advective transport of salt, which results from the vertical distortion of exchange flow obtained in the Eulerian decomposition by vertical fluctuations of the halocline. During spring tides, the estuary is weakly stratified, and vertical mixing plays a significant role in the tidal variation of salinity. In the spring tide regime, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to oscillatory shear dispersion. In addition, the transient lateral circulation near large channel curvature causes the transverse tilt of the halocline. This mechanism has little effect on the cross-sectionally integrated tidal oscillatory salt transport, but it results in an apparent left–right cross-channel asymmetry of tidal oscillatory salt transport. With the isohaline framework, tidal oscillatory salt transport can be regarded as a part of the net estuarine salt transport, and the Lagrangian advective mechanism and dispersive mechanism can be distinguished.
    Description: Tao Wang was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (Grant SKLEC-KF201509) and Chinese Scholarship Council. Geyer was supported by by NSF Grant OCE 0926427. Wensheng Jiang was supported by NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (Grant U1406401).
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Dispersion ; Shear structure/flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Models and modeling ; Regional models
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  • 46
    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): 1705-1716, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0221.1.
    Description: A rapid and broadband (1 h, 1 〈 f 〈 400 Hz) increase in pressure and vertical velocity on the deep ocean floor was observed on seven instruments comprising a 20-km array in the northeastern subtropical Pacific. The authors associate the jump with the passage of a cold front and focus on the 4- and 400-Hz spectra. At every station, the time of the jump is consistent with the front coming from the northwest. The apparent rate of progress, 10–20 km h−1 (2.8–5.6 m s−1), agrees with meteorological observations. The acoustic radiation below the front is modeled as arising from a moving half-plane of uncorrelated acoustic dipoles. The half-plane is preceded by a 10-km transition zone, over which the radiator strength increases linearly from zero. With this model, the time derivative of the jump at a station yields a second and independent estimate of the front’s speed, 8.5 km h−1 (2.4 m s−1). For the 4-Hz spectra, the source physics is taken to be Longuet-Higgins radiation. Its strength depends on the quantity , where Fζ is the wave amplitude power spectrum and I the overlap integral. Thus, the 1-h time constant observed in the bottom data implies a similar time constant for the growth of the wave field quantity behind the front. The spectra at 400 Hz have a similar time constant, but the jump occurs 25 min later. The implications of this difference for the source physics are uncertain.
    Description: The OBSANP cruise was funded by the Office of Naval Research under Grants N00014-10-1-0987, N00014-14-1-0324, N00014-10-1-0510, and N00014-10-1-0990.
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Cold fronts ; Marine boundary layer ; Sea state
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  • 47
    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): 1533-1541, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0267.1.
    Description: Our study analyzes measurements primarily from two Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) field programs and from the Air–Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT) site to examine the relationship between the wind and sea surface stress for contrasting conditions. The direct relationship of the surface momentum flux to U2 is found to be better posed than the relationship between and U, where U is the wind speed and is the friction velocity. Our datasets indicate that the stress magnitude often decreases significantly with height near the surface due to thin marine boundary layers and/or enhanced stress divergence close to the sea surface. Our study attempts to correct the surface stress estimated from traditional observational levels by using multiple observational levels near the surface and extrapolating to the surface. The effect of stability on the surface stress appears to be generally smaller than errors due to the stress divergence. Definite conclusions require more extensive measurements close to the sea surface.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research through Award N00014-16-1-2600. We
    Description: 2019-01-10
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Marine boundary layer
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  • 48
    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): 3146–3154, doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3310.1.
    Description: The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) simulated in various ocean-only and coupled atmosphere–ocean numerical models often varies in time because of either forced or internal variability. The path of the Gulf Stream (GS) is one diagnostic variable that seems to be sensitive to the amplitude of the AMOC, yet previous modeling studies show a diametrically opposed relationship between the two variables. In this note this issue is revisited, bringing together ocean observations and comparisons with the GFDL Climate Model version 2.1 (CM2.1), both of which suggest a more southerly (northerly) GS path when the AMOC is relatively strong (weak). Also shown are some examples of possible diagnostics to compare various models and observations on the relationship between shifts in GS path and changes in AMOC strength in future studies.
    Description: We wish to acknowledge support (TJ) from WHOI’s Paul Fye Chair and NASA (NNXZX09AF35G) and to NOAA/OAR (RZ) for this work.
    Keywords: Sea surface temperature ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Gyres ; Coupled models ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction
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  • 49
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    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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  • 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 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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  • 51
    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 Climate 22 (2009): 4066–4082, doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2629.1.
    Description: Small-scale variation in wind stress due to ocean–atmosphere interaction within the atmospheric boundary layer alters the temporal and spatial scale of Ekman pumping driving the double-gyre circulation of the ocean. A high-resolution quasigeostrophic (QG) ocean model, coupled to a dynamic atmospheric mixed layer, is used to demonstrate that, despite the small spatial scale of the Ekman-pumping anomalies, this phenomenon significantly modifies the large-scale ocean circulation. The primary effect is to decrease the strength of the nonlinear component of the gyre circulation by approximately 30%–40%. This result is due to the highest transient Ekman-pumping anomalies destabilizing the flow in a dynamically sensitive region close to the western boundary current separation. The instability of the jet produces a flux of potential vorticity between the two gyres that acts to weaken both gyres.
    Description: AH and WD were supported by an ARC Linkage International Grant (LX0668781). WD was also supported by NSF Grants OCE 0424227 and OCE 0550139. Funding for PB was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0344094 and OCE 0725796 and by the research grant from the Newton Trust of the University of Cambridge. SK was supported by U.S. DOE Grant DE-FG02–02ER63413 and NASA Grant NNG-06- AG66G-1.
    Keywords: Airndashsea interaction ; Coupled models ; Mesoscale processes ; Wind stress ; Ekman pumping/transport
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  • 52
    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): 6743–6755, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00549.1.
    Description: From 1969 to 1971 convection in the Labrador Sea shut down, thus interrupting the formation of the intermediate/dense water masses. The shutdown has been attributed to the surface freshening induced by the Great Salinity Anomaly (GSA), a freshwater anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic. The abrupt resumption of convection in 1972, in contrast, is attributed to the extreme atmospheric forcing of that winter. Here oceanic and atmospheric data collected in the Labrador Sea at Ocean Weather Station Bravo and a one-dimensional mixed layer model are used to examine the causes of the shutdown and resumption of convection in detail. These results highlight the tight coupling of the ocean and atmosphere in convection regions and the need to resolve both components to correctly represent convective processes in the ocean. They are also relevant to present-day conditions given the increased ice melt in the Arctic Ocean and from the Greenland Ice Sheet. The analysis herein shows that the shutdown was initiated by the GSA-induced freshening as well as the mild 1968/69 winter. After the shutdown had begun, however, the continuing lateral freshwater flux as well as two positive feedbacks [both associated with the sea surface temperature (SST) decrease due to lack of convective mixing with warmer subsurface water] further inhibited convection. First, the SST decrease reduced the heat flux to the atmosphere by reducing the air–sea temperature gradient. Second, it further reduced the surface buoyancy loss by reducing the thermal expansion coefficient of the surface water. In 1972 convection resumed because of both the extreme atmospheric forcing and advection of saltier waters into the convection region.
    Description: This research was funded by a grant from the NWO/SRON User Support Programme Space Research. FS acknowledges support from OCE- 0850416 and NOAA NA08OAR4310569.
    Description: 2013-04-01
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Intermediate waters ; Oceanic variability
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  • 53
    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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  • 54
    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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  • 55
    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): 1356–1375, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0259.1.
    Description: Eddy–mean flow interactions along the Kuroshio Extension (KE) jet are investigated using a vorticity budget of a high-resolution ocean model simulation, averaged over a 13-yr period. The simulation explicitly resolves mesoscale eddies in the KE and is forced with air–sea fluxes representing the years 1995–2007. A mean-eddy decomposition in a jet-following coordinate system removes the variability of the jet path from the eddy components of velocity; thus, eddy kinetic energy in the jet reference frame is substantially lower than in geographic coordinates and exhibits a cross-jet asymmetry that is consistent with the baroclinic instability criterion of the long-term mean field. The vorticity budget is computed in both geographic (i.e., Eulerian) and jet reference frames; the jet frame budget reveals several patterns of eddy forcing that are largely attributed to varicose modes of variability. Eddies tend to diffuse the relative vorticity minima/maxima that flank the jet, removing momentum from the fast-moving jet core and reinforcing the quasi-permanent meridional meanders in the mean jet. A pattern associated with the vertical stretching of relative vorticity in eddies indicates a deceleration (acceleration) of the jet coincident with northward (southward) quasi-permanent meanders. Eddy relative vorticity advection outside of the eastward jet core is balanced mostly by vertical stretching of the mean flow, which through baroclinic adjustment helps to drive the flanking recirculation gyres. The jet frame vorticity budget presents a well-defined picture of eddy activity, illustrating along-jet variations in eddy–mean flow interaction that may have implications for the jet’s dynamics and cross-frontal tracer fluxes.
    Description: A. S. Delman (ASD) and J. L. McClean (JLM) were supported by NSF Grant OCE-0850463 and Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DE-FG02-05ER64119. ASD and J. Sprintall were also supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF), Grant NNX13AM93H. JLM was also supported by U.S. DOE Office of Science grant entitled “Ultra-High Resolution Global Climate Simulation” via a Los Alamos National Laboratory subcontract. S. R. Jayne was supported by NSF Grant OCE-0849808. Computational resources for the model run were provided by NSF Resource Grants TG-OCE110013 and TG-OCE130010.
    Description: 2015-11-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Pacific Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Forcing ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Jets ; Models and modeling ; General circulation models
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  • 56
    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): 1735–1756, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0238.1.
    Description: The Lofoten basin of the Nordic Seas is recognized as a crucial component of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic because of the large horizontal extent of Atlantic Water and winter surface buoyancy loss. In this study, hydrographic and current measurements collected from a mooring deployed in the Lofoten basin from July 2010 to September 2012 are used to describe water mass transformation and the mesoscale eddy field. Winter mixed layer depths (MLDs) are observed to reach approximately 400 m, with larger MLDs and denser properties resulting from the colder 2010 winter. A heat budget of the upper water column requires lateral input, which balances the net annual heat loss of ~80 W m−2. The lateral flux is a result of mesoscale eddies, which dominate the velocity variability. Eddy velocities are enhanced in the upper 1000 m, with a barotropic component that reaches the bottom. Detailed examination of two eddies, from April and August 2012, highlights the variability of the eddy field and eddy properties. Temperature and salinity properties of the April eddy suggest that it originated from the slope current but was ventilated by surface fluxes. The properties within the eddy were similar to those of the mode water, indicating that convection within the eddies may make an important contribution to water mass transformation. A rough estimate of eddy flux per unit boundary current length suggests that fluxes in the Lofoten basin are larger than in the Labrador Sea because of the enhanced boundary current–interior density difference.
    Description: The work was supported by NSF OCE 0850416.
    Description: 2015-12-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary currents ; Eddies ; Fluxes ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Thermohaline circulation
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  • 57
    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): 2497–2521, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0128.1.
    Description: Oceanic density overturns are commonly used to parameterize the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy. This method assumes a linear scaling between the Thorpe length scale LT and the Ozmidov length scale LO. Historic evidence supporting LT ~ LO has been shown for relatively weak shear-driven turbulence of the thermocline; however, little support for the method exists in regions of turbulence driven by the convective collapse of topographically influenced overturns that are large by open-ocean standards. This study presents a direct comparison of LT and LO, using vertical profiles of temperature and microstructure shear collected in the Luzon Strait—a site characterized by topographically influenced overturns up to O(100) m in scale. The comparison is also done for open-ocean sites in the Brazil basin and North Atlantic where overturns are generally smaller and due to different processes. A key result is that LT/LO increases with overturn size in a fashion similar to that observed in numerical studies of Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instabilities for all sites but is most clear in data from the Luzon Strait. Resultant bias in parameterized dissipation is mitigated by ensemble averaging; however, a positive bias appears when instantaneous observations are depth and time integrated. For a series of profiles taken during a spring tidal period in the Luzon Strait, the integrated value is nearly an order of magnitude larger than that based on the microstructure observations. Physical arguments supporting LT ~ LO are revisited, and conceptual regimes explaining the relationship between LT/LO and a nondimensional overturn size are proposed. In a companion paper, Scotti obtains similar conclusions from energetics arguments and simulations.
    Description: B.D.M. and S.K.V. gratefully acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research under Grants N00014-12-1-0279, N00014-12-1-0282, and N00014-12-1-0938 (Program Manager: Dr. Terri Paluszkiewicz). S.K.V. also acknowledges support of the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1151838. L.S.L. acknowledges support for BBTRE by the National Science Foundation by Contract OCE94-15589 and NATRE and IWISE by the Office of Naval Research by Contracts N00014-92-1323 and N00014-10-10315. J.N.M. was supported through Grant 1256620 from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research (IWISE Project).
    Description: 2016-04-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixing ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic ; Models and modeling ; Parameterization
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  • 58
    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 Climate 29 (2016): 6201-6221, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0694.1.
    Description: Anomalous conditions in the tropical oceans, such as those related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean dipole, have been previously blamed for extended droughts and wet periods in Australia. Yet the extent to which Australian wet and dry spells can be driven by internal atmospheric variability remains unclear. Natural variability experiments are examined to determine whether prolonged extreme wet and dry periods can arise from internal atmospheric and land variability alone. Results reveal that this is indeed the case; however, these dry and wet events are found to be less severe than in simulations incorporating coupled oceanic variability. Overall, ocean feedback processes increase the magnitude of Australian rainfall variability by about 30% and give rise to more spatially coherent rainfall impacts. Over mainland Australia, ocean interactions lead to more frequent extreme events, particularly during the rainy season. Over Tasmania, in contrast, ocean–atmosphere coupling increases mean rainfall throughout the year. While ocean variability makes Australian rainfall anomalies more severe, droughts and wet spells of duration longer than three years are equally likely to occur in both atmospheric- and ocean-driven simulations. Moreover, they are essentially indistinguishable from what one expects from a Gaussian white noise distribution. Internal atmosphere–land-driven megadroughts and megapluvials that last as long as ocean-driven events are also identified in the simulations. This suggests that oceanic variability may be less important than previously assumed for the long-term persistence of Australian rainfall anomalies. This poses a challenge to accurate prediction of long-term dry and wet spells for Australia.
    Description: This study was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) under ARC-DP1094784, ARC-DP-150101331, ARC-FL100100214, and funding for C.C.U. from the National Science Foundation under AGS-1602455 and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.
    Description: 2017-02-19
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Drought ; Precipitation ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Climate variability ; Forecasting ; Climate prediction ; Variability
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  • 59
    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): 4157-4174, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0654.1.
    Description: Decadal variabilities in Indian Ocean subsurface ocean heat content (OHC; 50–300 m) since the 1950s are examined using ocean reanalyses. This study elaborates on how Pacific variability modulates the Indian Ocean on decadal time scales through both oceanic and atmospheric pathways. High correlations between OHC and thermocline depth variations across the entire Indian Ocean Basin suggest that OHC variability is primarily driven by thermocline fluctuations. The spatial pattern of the leading mode of decadal Indian Ocean OHC variability closely matches the regression pattern of OHC on the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), emphasizing the role of the Pacific Ocean in determining Indian Ocean OHC decadal variability. Further analyses identify different mechanisms by which the Pacific influences the eastern and western Indian Ocean. IPO-related anomalies from the Pacific propagate mainly through oceanic pathways in the Maritime Continent to impact the eastern Indian Ocean. By contrast, in the western Indian Ocean, the IPO induces wind-driven Ekman pumping in the central Indian Ocean via the atmospheric bridge, which in turn modifies conditions in the southwestern Indian Ocean via westward-propagating Rossby waves. To confirm this, a linear Rossby wave model is forced with wind stresses and eastern boundary conditions based on reanalyses. This linear model skillfully reproduces observed sea surface height anomalies and highlights both the oceanic connection in the eastern Indian Ocean and the role of wind-driven Ekman pumping in the west. These findings are also reproduced by OGCM hindcast experiments forced by interannual atmospheric boundary conditions applied only over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, respectively.
    Description: This research was supported by a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (CSC) to X. J., a research fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to C. C. U., an NSF OCE PO Grant (OCE- 1242989) to Y.-O. K., the ONR Young Investigator Award (N00014-15-1-2588) to H. S., and a research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China to Tsinghua University (2017YFA0603902).
    Description: 2018-10-30
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction
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  • 60
    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): 2771-2796, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0061.1.
    Description: The Generalized Equilibrium Feedback Analysis (GEFA) is used to distinguish the influence of the Oyashio Extension (OE) and the Kuroshio Extension (KE) variability on the atmosphere from 1979 to 2014 from that of the main SST variability modes, using seasonal mean anomalies. Remote SST anomalies are associated with each single oceanic regressor, but the multivariate approach efficiently confines their SST footprints. In autumn [October–December (OND)], the OE meridional shifts are followed by a North Pacific Oscillation (NPO)-like signal. The OE influence is not investigated in winter [December–February (DJF)] because of multicollinearity, but a robust response with a strong signal over the Bering Sea is found in late winter/early spring [February–April (FMA)], a northeastward strengthening of the Aleutian low following a northward OE shift. A robust response to the KE variability is found in autumn, but not in winter and late winter when the KE SST footprint becomes increasingly small and noisy as regressors are added in GEFA. In autumn, a positive PDO is followed by a northward strengthening of the Aleutian low and a southward shift of the storm track in the central Pacific, reflecting the surface heat flux footprint in the central Pacific. In winter, the PDO shifts the maximum baroclinicity and storm track southward, the response strongly tilts westward with height in the North Pacific, and there is a negative NAO-like teleconnection. In late winter, the North Pacific NPO-like response to the PDO interferes negatively with the response to the OE and is only detected when the OE is represented in GEFA. A different PDO influence on the atmospheric circulation is found from 1958 to 1977.
    Description: This research has received funding from the European Union 7th Framework Program (FP7 2007-2013) under Grant Agreement 308299 (NACLIM) and from NSF Grants AGS CLD 1035423 and OCE PO 1242989.
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary currents ; Pacific decadal oscillation ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Empirical orthogonal functions ; Regression analysis
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  • 61
    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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  • 62
    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): 1375-1384, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0266.1.
    Description: The relationship between net mixing and the estuarine exchange flow may be quantified using a salinity variance budget. Here “mixing” is defined as the rate of destruction of volume-integrated salinity variance, and the exchange flow is quantified using the total exchange flow. These concepts are explored using an idealized 3D model estuary. It is shown that in steady state (e.g., averaging over the spring–neap cycle) the volume-integrated mixing is approximately given by Mixing ≅ SinSoutQr, where Sin and Sout are the representative salinities of in- and outflowing layers at the mouth and Qr is the river volume flux. This relationship provides an extension of the familiar Knudsen relation, in which the exchange flow is diagnosed based on knowledge of these same three quantities, quantitatively linking mixing to the exchange flow.
    Description: The work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grants OCE-1736242 to PM and OCE-1736539 to WRG and by the German Research Foundation through Grants TRR 181 and GRK 2000 to HB.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ocean dynamics ; Streamflow ; Diagnostics ; Isopycnal coordinates
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  • 63
    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): 2703-2719, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0245.1.
    Description: A new set of deep float trajectory data collected in the Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2015 at 1500- and 2500-m depths is analyzed to describe mesoscale processes, with particular attention paid to the western Gulf. Wavelet analysis is used to identify coherent eddies in the float trajectories, leading to a census of the basinwide coherent eddy population and statistics of the eddies’ kinematic properties. The eddy census reveals a new formation region for anticyclones off the Campeche Escarpment, located northwest of the Yucatan Peninsula. These eddies appear to form locally, with no apparent direct connection to the upper layer. Once formed, the eddies drift westward along the northern edge of the Sigsbee Abyssal Gyre, located in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico over the abyssal plain. The formation mechanism and upstream sources for the Campeche Escarpment eddies are explored: the observational data suggest that eddy formation may be linked to the collision of a Loop Current eddy with the western boundary of the Gulf. Specifically, the disintegration of a deep dipole traveling under the Loop Current eddy Kraken, caused by the interaction with the northwestern continental slope, may lead to the acceleration of the abyssal gyre and the boundary current in the Bay of Campeche region.
    Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M10PC00112 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina.
    Description: 2019-05-07
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Currents ; Eddies ; Mesoscale processes ; Trajectories ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 64
    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): 9881-9901, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0889.1.
    Description: The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and associated poleward heat transport are balanced by northern heat loss to the atmosphere and corresponding water-mass transformation. The circulation of northward-flowing Atlantic Water at the surface and returning overflow water at depth is particularly manifested—and observed—at the Greenland–Scotland Ridge where the water masses are guided through narrow straits. There is, however, a rich variability in the exchange of water masses across the ridge on all time scales. Focusing on seasonal and interannual time scales, and particularly the gateways of the Denmark Strait and between the Faroe Islands and Shetland, we specifically assess to what extent the exchanges of water masses across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge relate to wind forcing. On seasonal time scales, the variance explained of the observed exchanges can largely be related to large-scale wind patterns, and a conceptual model shows how this wind forcing can manifest via a barotropic, cyclonic circulation. On interannual time scales, the wind stress impact is less direct as baroclinic mechanisms gain importance and observations indicate a shift in the overflows from being more barotropically to more baroclinically forced during the observation period. Overall, the observed Greenland–Scotland Ridge exchanges reflect a horizontal (cyclonic) circulation on seasonal time scales, while the interannual variability more represents an overturning circulation.
    Description: This research was supported by the Research Council of Norway project NORTH (Grant 229763). Additional support for M. A. Spall was provided by National Science Foundation Grant OCE- 1558742, for T. Eldevik and S. Østerhus by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program project Blue-Action (Grant 727852), and for S. Østerhus by the European Framework Programs under Grant Agreement 308299 (NACLIM).
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Thermocline circulation ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; North Atlantic Oscillation ; Statistical techniques ; Time series
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  • 65
    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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  • 66
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 1343–1363, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00148.1.
    Description: The climate of West Antarctica is strongly influenced by remote forcing from the tropical Pacific. For example, recent surface warming over West Antarctica reflects atmospheric circulation changes over the Amundsen Sea, driven by an atmospheric Rossby wave response to tropical sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Here, it is demonstrated that tropical Pacific SST anomalies also influence the source and transport of marine-derived aerosols to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Using records from four firn cores collected along the Amundsen coast of West Antarctica, the relationship between sea ice–modulated chemical species and large-scale atmospheric variability in the tropical Pacific from 1979 to 2010 is investigated. Significant correlations are found between marine biogenic aerosols and sea salts, and SST and sea level pressure in the tropical Pacific. In particular, La Niña–like conditions generate an atmospheric Rossby wave response that influences atmospheric circulation over Pine Island Bay. Seasonal regression of atmospheric fields on methanesulfonic acid (MSA) reveals a reduction in onshore wind velocities in summer at Pine Island Bay, consistent with enhanced katabatic flow, polynya opening, and coastal dimethyl sulfide production. Seasonal regression of atmospheric fields on chloride (Cl−) reveals an intensification in onshore wind velocities in winter, consistent with sea salt transport from offshore source regions. Both the source and transport of marine aerosols to West Antarctica are found to be modulated by similar atmospheric dynamics in response to remote forcing. Finally, the regional ice-core array suggests that there is both a temporally and a spatially varying response to remote tropical forcing.
    Description: This research was supported by an award from the Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Fellowship Program (DOE SCGF) to ASC, a James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Research Fellowship to SBD, and grants from NSF-OPP (ANT- 0632031 and ANT-0631973), NSF-MRI (EAR- 1126217), and the NASA Cryosphere Program (NNX10AP09G), and a WHOI Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award for Innovative Research.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Antarctica ; Sea ice ; Teleconnections ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Climate records ; Interannual variability
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  • 67
    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): 1466–1492, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0154.1.
    Description: Simultaneous full-depth microstructure measurements of turbulence and finestructure measurements of velocity and density are analyzed to investigate the relationship between turbulence and the internal wave field in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. These data reveal a systematic near-bottom overprediction of the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate by finescale parameterization methods in select locations. Sites of near-bottom overprediction are typically characterized by large near-bottom flow speeds and elevated topographic roughness. Further, lower-than-average shear-to-strain ratios indicative of a less near-inertial wave field, rotary spectra suggesting a predominance of upward internal wave energy propagation, and enhanced narrowband variance at vertical wavelengths on the order of 100 m are found at these locations. Finally, finescale overprediction is typically associated with elevated Froude numbers based on the near-bottom shear of the background flow, and a background flow with a systematic backing tendency. Agreement of microstructure- and finestructure-based estimates within the expected uncertainty of the parameterization away from these special sites, the reproducibility of the overprediction signal across various parameterization implementations, and an absence of indications of atypical instrument noise at sites of parameterization overprediction, all suggest that physics not encapsulated by the parameterization play a role in the fate of bottom-generated waves at these locations. Several plausible underpinning mechanisms based on the limited available evidence are discussed that offer guidance for future studies.
    Description: The SOFine project is funded by the United Kingdom’s Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) (Grant NE/G001510/1). SW acknowledges the support of anARCDiscovery Early CareerResearchAward (Grant DE120102927), as well as the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (Grant CE110001028). ACNG acknowledges the support of a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship (Grant NE/C517633/1).KLP acknowledges support fromWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2014-11-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 68
    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): 1854–1872, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0104.1.
    Description: The authors present inferences of diapycnal diffusivity from a compilation of over 5200 microstructure profiles. As microstructure observations are sparse, these are supplemented with indirect measurements of mixing obtained from (i) Thorpe-scale overturns from moored profilers, a finescale parameterization applied to (ii) shipboard observations of upper-ocean shear, (iii) strain as measured by profiling floats, and (iv) shear and strain from full-depth lowered acoustic Doppler current profilers (LADCP) and CTD profiles. Vertical profiles of the turbulent dissipation rate are bottom enhanced over rough topography and abrupt, isolated ridges. The geography of depth-integrated dissipation rate shows spatial variability related to internal wave generation, suggesting one direct energy pathway to turbulence. The global-averaged diapycnal diffusivity below 1000-m depth is O(10−4) m2 s−1 and above 1000-m depth is O(10−5) m2 s−1. The compiled microstructure observations sample a wide range of internal wave power inputs and topographic roughness, providing a dataset with which to estimate a representative global-averaged dissipation rate and diffusivity. However, there is strong regional variability in the ratio between local internal wave generation and local dissipation. In some regions, the depth-integrated dissipation rate is comparable to the estimated power input into the local internal wave field. In a few cases, more internal wave power is dissipated than locally generated, suggesting remote internal wave sources. However, at most locations the total power lost through turbulent dissipation is less than the input into the local internal wave field. This suggests dissipation elsewhere, such as continental margins.
    Description: This research was funded by the Climate Process Team (CPT) on internal wave–driven mixing throughNSF GrantOCE-0968721. GSC acknowledges support from NSF Grants OCE-0825266 (EXITS), OCE-1029483 (SPAM), and OCE-1029722 (MIXET). LDT and CBW acknowledge support from NSF Grant OCE-0927650. SWand ACNG acknowledge support from NERC Grant NE/G001510/1 (SOFine).
    Description: 2015-01-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves
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  • 69
    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): 1309-1321, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0068.1.
    Description: Direct measurements of oceanic turbulent parameters were taken upstream of and across Drake Passage, in the region of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts. Values of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate ε estimated by microstructure are up to two orders of magnitude lower than previously published estimates in the upper 1000 m. Turbulence levels in Drake Passage are systematically higher than values upstream, regardless of season. The dissipation of thermal variance χ is enhanced at middepth throughout the surveys, with the highest values found in northern Drake Passage, where water mass variability is the most pronounced. Using the density ratio, evidence for double-diffusive instability is presented. Subject to double-diffusive physics, the estimates of diffusivity using the Osborn–Cox method are larger than ensemble statistics based on ε and the buoyancy frequency.
    Description: This work was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
    Description: 2016-10-05
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mixing ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Fronts ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 70
    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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  • 71
    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): 3127-3143, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-19-0011.1.
    Description: The Intermediate Western Boundary Current (IWBC) transports Antarctic Intermediate Water across the Vitória–Trindade Ridge (VTR), a seamount chain at ~20°S off Brazil. Recent studies suggest that the IWBC develops a strong cyclonic recirculation in Tubarão Bight, upstream of the VTR, with weak time dependency. We herein use new quasi-synoptic observations, data from the Argo array, and a regional numerical model to describe the structure and variability of the IWBC and to investigate its dynamics. Both shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data and trajectories of Argo floats confirm the existence of the IWBC recirculation, which is also captured by our Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) simulation. An “intermediate-layer” quasigeostrophic (QG) model indicates that the ROMS time-mean flow is a good proxy for the IWBC steady state, as revealed by largely parallel isolines of streamfunction ψ⎯ and potential vorticity Q⎯; a ψ⎯−Q⎯ scatter diagram also shows that the IWBC is potentially unstable. Further analysis of the ROMS simulation reveals that remotely generated, westward-propagating nonlinear eddies are the main source of variability in the region. These eddies enter the domain through the Tubarão Bight eastern edge and strongly interact with the IWBC. As they are advected downstream and negotiate the local topography, the eddies grow explosively through horizontal shear production.
    Description: We thank Frank O. Smith for copy editing and proofreading this manuscript. This study was financed in part by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—CAPES, Brazil—Finance Code 001 and by Projeto REMARSUL (Processo CAPES 88882.158621/2014-01), Projeto VT-Dyn (Processo FAPESP 2015/21729-4) and Projeto SUBMESO (Processo CNPq 442926/2015-4). Rocha was supported by a WHOI Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Description: 2020-06-06
    Keywords: South Atlantic Ocean ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Intermediate waters ; In situ oceanic observations ; Quasigeostrophic models
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  • 72
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Kwon, Y., Seo, H., Ummenhofer, C. C., & Joyce, T. M. Impact of multidecadal variability in Atlantic SST on winter atmospheric blocking. Journal of Climate, 33(3), (2020): 867-892, doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0324.1.
    Description: Recent studies have suggested that coherent multidecadal variability exists between North Atlantic atmospheric blocking frequency and the Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV). However, the role of AMV in modulating blocking variability on multidecadal times scales is not fully understood. This study examines this issue primarily using the NOAA Twentieth Century Reanalysis for 1901–2010. The second mode of the empirical orthogonal function for winter (December–March) atmospheric blocking variability in the North Atlantic exhibits oppositely signed anomalies of blocking frequency over Greenland and the Azores. Furthermore, its principal component time series shows a dominant multidecadal variability lagging AMV by several years. Composite analyses show that this lag is due to the slow evolution of the AMV sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies, which is likely driven by the ocean circulation. Following the warm phase of AMV, the warm SST anomalies emerge in the western subpolar gyre over 3–7 years. The ocean–atmosphere interaction over these 3–7-yr periods is characterized by the damping of the warm SST anomalies by the surface heat flux anomalies, which in turn reduce the overall meridional gradient of the air temperature and thus weaken the meridional transient eddy heat flux in the lower troposphere. The anomalous transient eddy forcing then shifts the eddy-driven jet equatorward, resulting in enhanced Rossby wave breaking and blocking on the northern flank of the jet over Greenland. The opposite is true with the AMV cold phases but with much shorter lags, as the evolution of SST anomalies differs in the warm and cold phases.
    Description: We gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF Climate and Large-scale Dynamics Program (AGS-1355339) to Y-OK, HS, CCU, and TMJ, the NASA Physical Oceanography Program (NNX13AM59G) to Y-OK, HS, and TMJ, NOAA CPO Climate Variability and Predictability Program (NA13OAR4310139) and DOE CESD Regional and Global Model Analysis Program (DE-SC0019492) to Y-OK, and NSF Physical Oceanography Program (OCE-1419235) to HS. We are very grateful to the three anonymous reviewers and editor Dr. Mingfang Ting, for their thorough and insightful suggestions. The NOAA 20CR dataset was downloaded from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Science Division webpage (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/20thC_Rean/). Support for the 20CR Project version 2c dataset is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER), and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Program Office. The HadISST dataset was downloaded from the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre webpage (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/). The ERA-20C dataset was downloaded from the ECMWF webpage (https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/era20c-daily/). The ERSST5 dataset was provided by the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Science Division (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html).
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Blocking ; Climate variability ; Multidecadal variability ; North Atlantic Oscillation
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  • 73
    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(2), (2020): 415-437, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0019.1.
    Description: Results are presented from two dye release experiments conducted in the seasonal thermocline of the Sargasso Sea, one in a region of low horizontal strain rate (~10−6 s−1), the second in a region of intermediate horizontal strain rate (~10−5 s−1). Both experiments lasted ~6 days, covering spatial scales of 1–10 and 1–50 km for the low and intermediate strain rate regimes, respectively. Diapycnal diffusivities estimated from the two experiments were κz = (2–5) × 10−6 m2 s−1, while isopycnal diffusivities were κH = (0.2–3) m2 s−1, with the range in κH being less a reflection of site-to-site variability, and more due to uncertainties in the background strain rate acting on the patch combined with uncertain time dependence. The Site I (low strain) experiment exhibited minimal stretching, elongating to approximately 10 km over 6 days while maintaining a width of ~5 km, and with a notable vertical tilt in the meridional direction. By contrast, the Site II (intermediate strain) experiment exhibited significant stretching, elongating to more than 50 km in length and advecting more than 150 km while still maintaining a width of order 3–5 km. Early surveys from both experiments showed patchy distributions indicative of small-scale stirring at scales of order a few hundred meters. Later surveys show relatively smooth, coherent distributions with only occasional patchiness, suggestive of a diffusive rather than stirring process at the scales of the now larger patches. Together the two experiments provide important clues as to the rates and underlying processes driving diapycnal and isopycnal mixing at these scales.
    Description: Results are presented from two dye release experiments conducted in the seasonal thermocline of the Sargasso Sea, one in a region of low horizontal strain rate (~10−6 s−1), the second in a region of intermediate horizontal strain rate (~10−5 s−1). Both experiments lasted ~6 days, covering spatial scales of 1–10 and 1–50 km for the low and intermediate strain rate regimes, respectively. Diapycnal diffusivities estimated from the two experiments were κz = (2–5) × 10−6 m2 s−1, while isopycnal diffusivities were κH = (0.2–3) m2 s−1, with the range in κH being less a reflection of site-to-site variability, and more due to uncertainties in the background strain rate acting on the patch combined with uncertain time dependence. The Site I (low strain) experiment exhibited minimal stretching, elongating to approximately 10 km over 6 days while maintaining a width of ~5 km, and with a notable vertical tilt in the meridional direction. By contrast, the Site II (intermediate strain) experiment exhibited significant stretching, elongating to more than 50 km in length and advecting more than 150 km while still maintaining a width of order 3–5 km. Early surveys from both experiments showed patchy distributions indicative of small-scale stirring at scales of order a few hundred meters. Later surveys show relatively smooth, coherent distributions with only occasional patchiness, suggestive of a diffusive rather than stirring process at the scales of the now larger patches. Together the two experiments provide important clues as to the rates and underlying processes driving diapycnal and isopycnal mixing at these scales.
    Description: 2020-08-06
    Keywords: Ocean ; Atlantic Ocean ; Diapycnal mixing ; Diffusion ; Dispersion ; Mixing
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  • 74
    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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  • 75
    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): 19-35, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0233.1.
    Description: In the Beaufort Sea in September of 2015, concurrent mooring and microstructure observations were used to assess dissipation rates in the vicinity of 72°35′N, 145°1′W. Microstructure measurements from a free-falling profiler survey showed very low [O(10−10) W kg−1] turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates ε. A finescale parameterization based on both shear and strain measurements was applied to estimate the ratio of shear to strain Rω and ε at the mooring location, and a strain-based parameterization was applied to the microstructure survey (which occurred approximately 100 km away from the mooring site) for direct comparison with microstructure results. The finescale parameterization worked well, with discrepancies ranging from a factor of 1–2.5 depending on depth. The largest discrepancies occurred at depths with high shear. Mean Rω was 17, and Rω showed high variability with values ranging from 3 to 50 over 8 days. Observed ε was slightly elevated (factor of 2–3 compared with a later survey of 11 profiles taken over 3 h) from 25 to 125 m following a wind event which occurred at the beginning of the mooring deployment, reaching a maximum of ε= 6 × 10−10 W kg−1 at 30-m depth. Velocity signals associated with near-inertial waves (NIWs) were observed at depths greater than 200 m, where the Atlantic Water mass represents a reservoir of oceanic heat. However, no evidence of elevated ε or heat fluxes was observed in association with NIWs at these depths in either the microstructure survey or the finescale parameterization estimates.
    Description: This work was supported by NSF Grants PLR 14-56705 and PLR-1303791 and by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Grant DGE-1650112.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Arctic ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Diapycnal mixing
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  • 76
    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): 3267–3294, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0310.1.
    Description: As part of the Flow Encountering Abrupt Topography (FLEAT) program, an array of pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) was deployed north of Palau where the westward-flowing North Equatorial Current encounters the southern end of the Kyushu–Palau Ridge in the tropical North Pacific. Capitalizing on concurrent observations from satellite altimetry, FLEAT Spray gliders, and shipboard hydrography, the PIESs’ 10-month duration hourly bottom pressure p and round-trip acoustic travel time τ records are used to examine the magnitude and predictability of sea level and pycnocline depth changes and to track signal propagations through the array. Sea level and pycnocline depth are found to vary in response to a range of ocean processes, with their magnitude and predictability strongly process dependent. Signals characterized here comprise the barotropic tides, semidiurnal and diurnal internal tides, southeastward-propagating superinertial waves, westward-propagating mesoscale eddies, and a strong signature of sea level increase and pycnocline deepening associated with the region’s relaxation from El Niño to La Niña conditions. The presence of a broad band of superinertial waves just above the inertial frequency was unexpected and the FLEAT observations and output from a numerical model suggest that these waves detected near Palau are forced by remote winds east of the Philippines. The PIES-based estimates of pycnocline displacement are found to have large uncertainties relative to overall variability in pycnocline depth, as localized deep current variations arising from interactions of the large-scale currents with the abrupt topography around Palau have significant travel time variability.
    Description: Support for this research was provided by Office of Naval Research Grants N00014-16-1-2668, N00014-18-1-2406, N00014-15-1-2488, and N00014-15-1-2622. R.C.M. was additionally supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Keywords: Tropics ; Currents ; Eddies ; ENSO ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
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  • 77
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    American Meteorological Society
    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): 3331–3351, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0035.1.
    Description: This study examines the generation of warm spiral structures (referred to as spiral streamers here) over Gulf Stream warm-core rings. Satellite sea surface temperature imagery shows spiral streamers forming after warmer water from the Gulf Stream or newly formed warm-core rings impinges onto old warm-core rings and then intrudes into the old rings. Field measurements in April 2018 capture the vertical structure of a warm spiral streamer as a shallow lens of low-density water winding over an old ring. Observations also show subduction on both sides of the spiral streamer, which carries surface waters downward. Idealized numerical model simulations initialized with observed water-mass densities reproduce spiral streamers over warm-core rings and reveal that their formation is a nonlinear submesoscale process forced by mesoscale dynamics. The negative density anomaly of the intruding water causes a density front at the interface between the intruding water and surface ring water, which, through thermal wind balance, drives a local anticyclonic flow. The pressure gradient and momentum advection of the local interfacial flow push the intruding water toward the ring center. The large-scale anticyclonic flow of the ring and the radial motion of the intruding water together form the spiral streamer. The observed subduction on both sides of the spiral streamer is part of the secondary cross-streamer circulation resulting from frontogenesis on the stretching streamer edges. The surface divergence of the secondary circulation pushes the side edges of the streamer away from each other, widens the warm spiral on the surface, and thus enhances its surface signal.
    Description: Authors W. G. Zhang and D. J. McGillicuddy are both supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE 1657803.
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Eddies ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Mesoscale processes ; Transport ; Vertical motion
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 78
    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 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 102(10), (2021): E1936–E1951, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0113.1.
    Description: In the Bay of Bengal, the warm, dry boreal spring concludes with the onset of the summer monsoon and accompanying southwesterly winds, heavy rains, and variable air–sea fluxes. Here, we summarize the 2018 monsoon onset using observations collected through the multinational Monsoon Intraseasonal Oscillations in the Bay of Bengal (MISO-BoB) program between the United States, India, and Sri Lanka. MISO-BoB aims to improve understanding of monsoon intraseasonal variability, and the 2018 field effort captured the coupled air–sea response during a transition from active-to-break conditions in the central BoB. The active phase of the ∼20-day research cruise was characterized by warm sea surface temperature (SST 〉 30°C), cold atmospheric outflows with intermittent heavy rainfall, and increasing winds (from 2 to 15 m s−1). Accumulated rainfall exceeded 200 mm with 90% of precipitation occurring during the first week. The following break period was both dry and clear, with persistent 10–12 m s−1 wind and evaporation of 0.2 mm h−1. The evolving environmental state included a deepening ocean mixed layer (from ∼20 to 50 m), cooling SST (by ∼1°C), and warming/drying of the lower to midtroposphere. Local atmospheric development was consistent with phasing of the large-scale intraseasonal oscillation. The upper ocean stores significant heat in the BoB, enough to maintain SST above 29°C despite cooling by surface fluxes and ocean mixing. Comparison with reanalysis indicates biases in air–sea fluxes, which may be related to overly cool prescribed SST. Resolution of such biases offers a path toward improved forecasting of transition periods in the monsoon.
    Description: This work was supported through the U.S. Office of Naval Research’s Departmental Research Initiative: Monsoon Intraseasonal Oscillations in the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ministry of Earth Science’s Ocean Mixing and Monsoons Program, and the Sri Lankan National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency. We thank the Captain and crew of the R/V Thompson for their help in data collection. Surface atmospheric fields included fluxes were quality controlled and processed by the Boundary Layer Observations and Processes Team within the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Forecast analysis was completed by India Meteorological Department. Drone image was taken by Shreyas Kamat with annotations by Gualtiero Spiro Jaeger. We also recognize the numerous researchers who supported cruise- and land-based measurements. This work represents Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory contribution number 8503, and PMEL contribution number 5193.
    Description: 2022-04-01
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Monsoons ; In situ atmospheric observations ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 79
    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 Climate 32(2), (2019): 549-573. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0413.1.
    Description: Time series of surface meteorology and air–sea fluxes from the northern Bay of Bengal are analyzed, quantifying annual and seasonal means, variability, and the potential for surface fluxes to contribute significantly to variability in surface temperature and salinity. Strong signals were associated with solar insolation and its modulation by cloud cover, and, in the 5- to 50-day range, with intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs). The northeast (NE) monsoon (DJF) was typically cloud free, with strong latent heat loss and several moderate wind events, and had the only seasonal mean ocean heat loss. The spring intermonsoon (MAM) was cloud free and had light winds and the strongest ocean heating. Strong ISOs and Tropical Cyclone Komen were seen in the southwest (SW) monsoon (JJA), when 65% of the 2.2-m total rain fell, and oceanic mean heating was small. The fall intermonsoon (SON) initially had moderate convective systems and mean ocean heating, with a transition to drier winds and mean ocean heat loss in the last month. Observed surface freshwater flux applied to a layer of the observed thickness produced drops in salinity with timing and magnitude similar to the initial drops in salinity in the summer monsoon, but did not reproduce the salinity variability of the fall intermonsoon. Observed surface heat flux has the potential to cause the temperature trends of the different seasons, but uncertainty in how shortwave radiation is absorbed in the upper ocean limits quantifying the role of surface forcing in the evolution of mixed layer temperature.
    Description: The deployment of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) mooring and RW and JTF were supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Grant N00014-13-1-0453. DS acknowledges support from the Ministry of Earth Sciences under India’s National Monsoon Mission. HS acknowledges support from the Office of Naval Research Grants N00014-13-1-0453 and N00014-17-12398. The deployment of the WHOI mooring was done by RV Sagar Nidhi and the recovery by RV Sagar Kanya; the help of the crew and science parties is gratefully acknowledged as is the ongoing support at NIOT in Chennai and by other colleagues in India of this mooring work. The work of the staff of the WHOI Upper Ocean Process Group in the design, building, deployment, and recovery of the mooring and in processing the data is gratefully acknowledged. The software for the wavelet analysis was provided by Torrence and Compo (1998). Feedback on the paper by Dr. Amit Tandon and two anonymous reviewers is gratefully acknowledged. This paper is dedicated to Dr. Frank Bradley.
    Description: 2019-06-28
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Monsoons ; Air-sea interaction ; Surface fluxes
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  • 80
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Spingys, C. P., Garabato, A. C. N., Legg, S., Polzin, K. L., Abrahamsen, E. P., Buckingham, C. E., Forryan, A., & Frajka-Williams, E. E. Mixing and transformation in a deep western boundary current: a case study. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 51(4), (2021): 1205-1222, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0132.1
    Description: Water-mass transformation by turbulent mixing is a key part of the deep-ocean overturning, as it drives the upwelling of dense waters formed at high latitudes. Here, we quantify this transformation and its underpinning processes in a small Southern Ocean basin: the Orkney Deep. Observations reveal a focusing of the transport in density space as a deep western boundary current (DWBC) flows through the region, associated with lightening and densification of the current’s denser and lighter layers, respectively. These transformations are driven by vigorous turbulent mixing. Comparing this transformation with measurements of the rate of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation indicates that, within the DWBC, turbulence operates with a high mixing efficiency, characterized by a dissipation ratio of 0.6 to 1 that exceeds the common value of 0.2. This result is corroborated by estimates of the dissipation ratio from microstructure observations. The causes of the transformation are unraveled through a decomposition into contributions dependent on the gradients in density space of the: dianeutral mixing rate, isoneutral area, and stratification. The transformation is found to be primarily driven by strong turbulence acting on an abrupt transition from the weakly stratified bottom boundary layer to well-stratified off-boundary waters. The reduced boundary layer stratification is generated by a downslope Ekman flow associated with the DWBC’s flow along sloping topography, and is further regulated by submesoscale instabilities acting to restratify near-boundary waters. Our results provide observational evidence endorsing the importance of near-boundary mixing processes to deep-ocean overturning, and highlight the role of DWBCs as hot spots of dianeutral upwelling.
    Description: CS, ACNG, AF, and EFW were supported by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Grant NE/K013181/1. ACNG was supported by the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation. EPA and CEB were supported by NERC Grant NE/K012843/1. CEB was funded by an MSCA grant (No. 798319) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. EPA was supported by NERC Grant NE/N018095/1. SL and KP were supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1536453 and OCE-1536779. SL acknowledges support of Award NA18OAR4320123 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Diapycnal mixing ; Turbulence ; Southern Ocean
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  • 81
    Publication Date: 2022-08-29
    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): 1593-1611, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0180.1.
    Description: This study presents novel observational estimates of turbulent dissipation and mixing in a standing meander between the Southeast Indian Ridge and the Macquarie Ridge in the Southern Ocean. By applying a finescale parameterization on the temperature, salinity, and velocity profiles collected from Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats in the upper 1600 m, we estimated the intensity and spatial distribution of dissipation rate and diapycnal mixing along the float tracks and investigated the sources. The indirect estimates indicate strong spatial and temporal variability of turbulent mixing varying from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1 in the upper 1600 m. Elevated turbulent mixing is mostly associated with the Subantarctic Front (SAF) and mesoscale eddies. In the upper 500 m, enhanced mixing is associated with downward-propagating wind-generated near-inertial waves as well as the interaction between cyclonic eddies and upward-propagating internal waves. In the study region, the local topography does not play a role in turbulent mixing in the upper part of the water column, which has similar values in profiles over rough and smooth topography. However, both remotely generated internal tides and lee waves could contribute to the upward-propagating energy. Our results point strongly to the generation of turbulent mixing through the interaction of internal waves and the intense mesoscale eddy field.
    Description: The observations were funded through grants from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP170102162) and Australia’s Marine National Facility. Surface drifters were provided by Dr. Shaun Dolk of the Global Drifter Program. AC was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. AC, HEP, and NLB acknowledge support from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy National Environmental Science Program and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes. KP acknowledges the support from the National Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Ocean dynamics
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  • 82
    Publication Date: 2022-09-15
    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(1),(2022): 75–97, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0099.1.
    Description: Mesoscale eddies contain the bulk of the ocean’s kinetic energy (KE), but fundamental questions remain on the cross-scale KE transfers linking eddy generation and dissipation. The role of submesoscale flows represents the key point of discussion, with contrasting views of submesoscales as either a source or a sink of mesoscale KE. Here, the first observational assessment of the annual cycle of the KE transfer between mesoscale and submesoscale motions is performed in the upper layers of a typical open-ocean region. Although these diagnostics have marginal statistical significance and should be regarded cautiously, they are physically plausible and can provide a valuable benchmark for model evaluation. The cross-scale KE transfer exhibits two distinct stages, whereby submesoscales energize mesoscales in winter and drain mesoscales in spring. Despite this seasonal reversal, an inverse KE cascade operates throughout the year across much of the mesoscale range. Our results are not incompatible with recent modeling investigations that place the headwaters of the inverse KE cascade at the submesoscale, and that rationalize the seasonality of mesoscale KE as an inverse cascade-mediated response to the generation of submesoscales in winter. However, our findings may challenge those investigations by suggesting that, in spring, a downscale KE transfer could dampen the inverse KE cascade. An exploratory appraisal of the dynamics governing mesoscale–submesoscale KE exchanges suggests that the upscale KE transfer in winter is underpinned by mixed layer baroclinic instabilities, and that the downscale KE transfer in spring is associated with frontogenesis. Current submesoscale-permitting ocean models may substantially understate this downscale KE transfer, due to the models’ muted representation of frontogenesis.
    Description: The OSMOSIS experiment was funded by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through Grants NE/1019999/1 and NE/101993X/1. ACNG acknowledges the support of the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation, and XY that of a China Scholarship Council PhD studentship.
    Keywords: Ageostrophic circulations ; Dynamics ; Eddies ; Energy transport ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence
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  • 83
    Publication Date: 2022-09-01
    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): 1677-1691, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0269.1.
    Description: Oceanic mesoscale motions including eddies, meanders, fronts, and filaments comprise a dominant fraction of oceanic kinetic energy and contribute to the redistribution of tracers in the ocean such as heat, salt, and nutrients. This reservoir of mesoscale energy is regulated by the conversion of potential energy and transfers of kinetic energy across spatial scales. Whether and under what circumstances mesoscale turbulence precipitates forward or inverse cascades, and the rates of these cascades, remain difficult to directly observe and quantify despite their impacts on physical and biological processes. Here we use global observations to investigate the seasonality of surface kinetic energy and upper-ocean potential energy. We apply spatial filters to along-track satellite measurements of sea surface height to diagnose surface eddy kinetic energy across 60–300-km scales. A geographic and scale-dependent seasonal cycle appears throughout much of the midlatitudes, with eddy kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km peaking 1–4 months before that at 60–300-km scales. Spatial patterns in this lag align with geographic regions where an Argo-derived estimate of the conversion of potential to kinetic energy is seasonally varying. In midlatitudes, the conversion rate peaks 0–2 months prior to kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km. The consistent geographic patterns between the seasonality of potential energy conversion and kinetic energy across spatial scale provide observational evidence for the inverse cascade and demonstrate that some component of it is seasonally modulated. Implications for mesoscale parameterizations and numerical modeling are discussed.
    Description: This work was generously funded by NSF Grants OCE-1912302, OCE-1912125 (Drushka), and OCE-1912325 (Abernathey) as part of the Ocean Energy and Eddy Transport Climate Process Team.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Energy transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Turbulence ; Oceanic mixed layer ; Altimetry ; Seasonal cycle
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  • 84
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    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): 241-246, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4557.1.
    Description: The vertical dispersion of a tracer released on a density surface near 1500-m depth in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current west of Drake Passage indicates that the diapycnal diffusivity, averaged over 1 yr and over tens of thousands of square kilometers, is (1.3 ± 0.2) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Diapycnal diffusivity estimated from turbulent kinetic energy dissipation measurements about the area occupied by the tracer in austral summer 2010 was somewhat less, but still within a factor of 2, at (0.75 ± 0.07) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Turbulent diapycnal mixing of this intensity is characteristic of the midlatitude ocean interior, where the energy for mixing is believed to derive from internal wave breaking. Indeed, despite the frequent and intense atmospheric forcing experienced by the Southern Ocean, the amplitude of finescale velocity shear sampled about the tracer was similar to background amplitudes in the midlatitude ocean, with levels elevated to only 20%–50% above the Garrett–Munk reference spectrum. These results add to a long line of evidence that diapycnal mixing in the interior middepth ocean is weak and is likely too small to dictate the middepth meridional overturning circulation of the ocean.
    Description: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grants OCE-0622825,OCE-0622670, OCE-0622630, and OCE-0623177.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Currents ; Antarctica ; Ocean circulation ; Meridional overturning circulation
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  • 85
    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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39 (2013): 450–469, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-12-00078.1.
    Description: A surface mooring was deployed in the Gulf Stream for 15 months to investigate the role of air–sea interaction in mode water formation and other processes. The accuracies of the near-surface meteorological and oceanographic measurements are investigated. In addition, the impacts of these measurement errors on the estimation and study of the air–sea fluxes in the Gulf Stream are discussed. Pre- and postdeployment calibrations together with in situ comparison between shipboard and moored sensors supported the identification of biases due to sensor drifts, sensor electronics, and calibration errors. A postdeployment field study was used to further investigate the performance of the wind sensors. The use of redundant sensor sets not only supported the filling of data gaps but also allowed an examination of the contribution of random errors. Air–sea fluxes were also analyzed and computed from both Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk parameterization and using direct covariance measurements. The basic conclusion is that the surface buoy deployed in the Gulf Stream to support air–sea interaction research was successful, providing an improved 15-month record of surface meteorology, upper-ocean variability, and air–sea fluxes with known accuracies. At the same time, the coincident deployment of mean meteorological and turbulent flux sensors proved to be a successful strategy to certify the validity of the bulk formula fluxes over the midrange of wind speeds and to support further work to address the present shortcomings of the bulk formula methods at the low and high wind speeds.
    Description: The National Science Foundation (Grant OCE04-24536) funded this work, as part of the CLIVAR Mode Water Dynamics Experiment (CLIMODE). The Vetlesen Foundation is also acknowledged for the early support of S. Bigorre.
    Description: 2013-09-01
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Buoy observations
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  • 86
    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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  • 87
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 2842–2860, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00227.1.
    Description: Mooring measurements from the Kuroshio Extension System Study (June 2004–June 2006) and from the ongoing Kuroshio Extension Observatory (June 2004–present) are combined with float measurements of the Argo network to study the variability of the North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water (STMW) across the entire gyre, on time scales from days, to seasons, to a decade. The top of the STMW follows a seasonal cycle, although observations reveal that it primarily varies in discrete steps associated with episodic wind events. The variations of the STMW bottom depth are tightly related to the sea surface height (SSH), reflecting mesoscale eddies and large-scale variations of the Kuroshio Extension and recirculation gyre systems. Using the observed relationship between SSH and STMW, gridded SSH products and in situ estimates from floats are used to construct weekly maps of STMW thickness, providing nonbiased estimates of STMW total volume, annual formation and erosion volumes, and seasonal and interannual variability for the past decade. Year-to-year variations are detected, particularly a significant decrease of STMW volume in 2007–10 primarily attributable to a smaller volume formed. Variability of the heat content in the mode water region is dominated by the seasonal cycle and mesoscale eddies; there is only a weak link to STMW on interannual time scales, and no long-term trends in heat content and STMW thickness between 2002 and 2011 are detected. Weak lagged correlations among air–sea fluxes, oceanic heat content, and STMW thickness are found when averaged over the northwestern Pacific recirculation gyre region.
    Description: This work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (Grants OCE-0220161, OCE-0825152, and OCE-0827125).
    Description: 2014-10-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Mesoscale processes ; Mesoscale systems ; Ocean dynamics ; Eddies ; Water masses
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  • 88
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 3298–3317, doi:JCLI-D-12-00700.1.
    Description: The subpolar North Atlantic is a center of variability of ocean properties, wind stress curl, and air–sea exchanges. Observations and hindcast simulations suggest that from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s the subpolar gyre became fresher while the gyre and meridional circulations intensified. This is opposite to the relationship of freshening causing a weakened circulation, most often reproduced by climate models. The authors hypothesize that both these configurations exist but dominate on different time scales: a fresher subpolar gyre when the circulation is more intense, at interannual frequencies (configuration A), and a saltier subpolar gyre when the circulation is more intense, at longer periods (configuration B). Rather than going into the detail of the mechanisms sustaining each configuration, the authors’ objective is to identify which configuration dominates and to test whether this depends on frequency, in preindustrial control runs of five climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). To this end, the authors have developed a novel intercomparison method that enables analysis of freshwater budget and circulation changes in a physical perspective that overcomes model specificities. Lag correlations and a cross-spectral analysis between freshwater content changes and circulation indices validate the authors’ hypothesis, as configuration A is only visible at interannual frequencies while configuration B is mostly visible at decadal and longer periods, suggesting that the driving role of salinity on the circulation depends on frequency. Overall, this analysis underscores the large differences among state-of-the-art climate models in their representations of the North Atlantic freshwater budget.
    Description: JD and RC were funded by NSF through Project 0751896. JD was also funded by IFREMER through project RICCO.
    Description: 2014-11-01
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Freshwater ; Climate models ; Model comparison ; Climate variability ; North Atlantic Oscillation
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  • 89
    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): 2475–2489, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-057.1.
    Description: Data from three midlatitude, month-long surveys are examined for evidence of enhanced vertical mixing associated with the transition layer (TL), here defined as the strongly stratified layer that exists between the well mixed layer and the thermocline below. In each survey, microstructure estimates of turbulent dissipation were collected concurrently with fine-structure stratification and shear. Survey-wide averages are formed in a “TL coordinate” zTL, which is referenced around the depth of maximum stratification for each profile. Averaged profiles show characteristic TL structures such as peaks in stratification N2 and shear variance S2, which fall off steeply above zTL = 0 and more gradually below. Turbulent dissipation rates ɛ are 5–10 times larger than those found in the upper thermocline (TC). The gradient Richardson number Ri = N2/S2 becomes unstable (Ri 〈 0.25) within ~10 m of the TL upper boundary, suggesting that shear instability is active in the TL for zTL 〉 0. Ri is stable for zTL ≤ 0. Turbulent dissipation is found to scale exponentially with depth for zTL ≤ 0, but the decay scales are different for the TL and upper TC: ɛ scales well with either N2 or S2. Owing to the strong correlation between S2 and N2, existing TC scalings of the form ɛ ~ |S|p|N|q overpredict variations in ɛ. The scale dependence of shear variance is not found to significantly affect the scalings of ɛ versus N2 and S2 for zTL ≤ 0. However, the onset of unstable Ri at the top of the TL is sensitively dependent to the resolution of the shears.
    Description: This work was funded by NSF Grant OCE-0968787 as part of a Climate Process Team for internal wave-driven mixing.
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mixed layer ; Thermocline ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Heat budgets/fluxes ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 90
    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): 2569–2587, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0026.1.
    Description: This paper describes the occurrence of diurnal restratification events found in the southeast trade wind regime off northern Chile. This is a region where persistent marine stratus clouds are found and where there is a less than complete understanding of the dynamics that govern the maintenance of the sea surface temperature. A surface mooring deployed in the region provides surface meteorological, air–sea flux, and upper-ocean temperature, salinity, and velocity data. In the presence of steady southeast trade winds and strong evaporation, a warm, salty surface mixed layer is found in the upper ocean. During the year, these trade winds, at times, drop dramatically and surface heating leads to the formation of shallow, warm diurnal mixed layers over one to several days. At the end of such a low wind period, mean sea surface temperature is warmer. Though magnitudes of the individual diurnal warming events are consistent with local forcing, as judged by running a one-dimensional model, the net warming at the end of a low wind event is more difficult to predict. This is found to stem from differences between the observed and predicted near-inertial shear and the depths over which the warmed water is distributed. As a result, the evolution of SST has a dependency on these diurnal restratification events and on near-surface processes that govern the depth over which the heat gained during such events is distributed.
    Description: RAW was supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office. SM and AT were supported by NASA Grant NNX12AD47G,ONR Grant N000140910196, and NSF-OCE 0928138 RAW.
    Description: 2015-03-01
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary layer ; Diurnal effects ; Mixed layer
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  • 91
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 3596–3618, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00070.1.
    Description: Estimates of the recent mean and time varying water mass transformation rates associated with North Atlantic surface-forced overturning are presented. The estimates are derived from heat and freshwater surface fluxes and sea surface temperature fields from six atmospheric reanalyses—the Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis (JRA), the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis (NCEP1), the NCEP–U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis (NCEP2), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-I), the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and the Modern-Era Reanalysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)—together with sea surface salinity fields from two globally gridded datasets (World Ocean Atlas and Met Office EN3 datasets). The resulting 12 estimates of the 1979–2007 mean surface-forced streamfunction all depict a subpolar cell, with maxima north of 45°N, near σ = 27.5 kg m−3, and a subtropical cell between 20° and 40°N, near σ = 26.1 kg m−3. The mean magnitude of the subpolar cell varies between 12 and 18 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), consistent with estimates of the overturning circulation from subsurface observations. Analysis of the thermal and haline components of the surface density fluxes indicates that large differences in the inferred low-latitude circulation are largely a result of the biases in reanalysis net heat flux fields, which range in the global mean from −13 to 19 W m−2. The different estimates of temporal variability in the subpolar cell are well correlated with each other. This suggests that the uncertainty associated with the choice of reanalysis product does not critically limit the ability of the method to infer the variability in the subpolar overturning. In contrast, the different estimates of subtropical variability are poorly correlated with each other, and only a subset of them captures a significant fraction of the variability in independently estimated North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water volume.
    Description: JPG is funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council New Investigator Grant NE/I001654/1. Y-OK was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-0424492. RJB is supported by a fellowship from the UK National Centre for Earth Observation.
    Description: 2014-11-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean circulation
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  • 92
    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): 778–791, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0164.1.
    Description: This study examines anisotropic transport properties of the eddying North Atlantic flow, using an idealized model of the double-gyre oceanic circulation and altimetry-derived velocities. The material transport by the time-dependent flow (quantified by the eddy diffusivity tensor) varies geographically and is anisotropic, that is, it has a well-defined direction of the maximum transport. One component of the time-dependent flow, zonally elongated large-scale transients, is particularly important for the anisotropy, as it corresponds to primarily zonal material transport and long correlation time scales. The importance of these large-scale zonal transients in the material distribution is further confirmed with simulations of idealized color dye tracers, which has implications for parameterizations of the eddy transport in non-eddy-resolving models.
    Description: IK would like to acknowledge support through the NSF Grant OCE-1154923. IR was supported by the NSF OCE-1154641 and NASA Grant NNX14AH29G.
    Description: 2015-09-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Eddies ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation ; Models and modeling ; Tracers
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  • 93
    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 Monthly Weather Review 144 (2016): 877-896, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-15-0275.1.
    Description: This paper describes a new model (method) called Satellite-derived North Atlantic Profiles (SNAP) that seeks to provide a high-resolution, near-real-time ocean thermal field to aid tropical cyclone (TC) forecasting. Using about 139 000 observed temperature profiles, a spatially dependent regression model is developed for the North Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season. A new step introduced in this work is that the daily mixed layer depth is derived from the output of a one-dimensional Price–Weller–Pinkel ocean mixed layer model with time-dependent surface forcing. The accuracy of SNAP is assessed by comparison to 19 076 independent Argo profiles from the hurricane seasons of 2011 and 2013. The rms differences of the SNAP-estimated isotherm depths are found to be 10–25 m for upper thermocline isotherms (29°–19°C), 35–55 m for middle isotherms (18°–7°C), and 60–100 m for lower isotherms (6°–4°C). The primary error sources include uncertainty of sea surface height anomaly (SSHA), high-frequency fluctuations of isotherm depths, salinity effects, and the barotropic component of SSHA. These account for roughly 29%, 25%, 19%, and 10% of the estimation error, respectively. The rms differences of TC-related ocean parameters, upper-ocean heat content, and averaged temperature of the upper 100 m, are ~10 kJ cm−2 and ~0.8°C, respectively, over the North Atlantic basin. These errors are typical also of the open ocean underlying the majority of TC tracks. Errors are somewhat larger over regions of greatest mesoscale variability (i.e., the Gulf Stream and the Loop Current within the Gulf of Mexico).
    Description: IFP is supported by Grants NSC 101-2628-M-002-001-MY4 and MOST 103-2111-M-002 -002 -MY3. JFP and SRJ were supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under the project “Impact of Typhoons on the North Pacific, ITOP.”
    Description: 2016-06-08
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Oceanic mixed layer ; Tropical cyclones ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Satellite observations
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  • 94
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 111 (2006): C07S06, doi:10.1029/2005JC003173.
    Description: Climate variability drives significant changes in the physical state of the North Pacific, and thus there may be important impacts of climate variability on the upper ocean carbon balance across the basin. We address this issue by considering the response of seven biogeochemical ocean models to climate variability in the North Pacific. The models’ upper ocean pCO2 and air-sea CO2 flux respond similarly to climate variability on seasonal to decadal timescales. Modeled seasonal cycles of pCO2 and its temperature and non-temperature driven components at three contrasting oceanographic sites capture the basic features found in observations [Takahashi et al., 2002, 2006; Keeling et al., 2004; Brix et al., 2004]. However, particularly in the Western Subarctic Gyre, the models have difficulty representing the temporal structure of the total pCO2 cycle because it results from the difference of these two large and opposing components. In all but one model, the airsea CO2 flux interannual variability (1σ) in the North Pacific is smaller (ranges across models from 0.03 to 0.11 PgC/yr) than in the Tropical Pacific (ranges across models from 0.08 to 0.19 PgC/yr), and the timeseries of the first or second EOF of the air-sea CO2 flux has a significant correlation with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Though air-sea CO2 flux anomalies are correlated with the PDO, their magnitudes are small (up to ±0.025 PgC/yr (1σ)). Flux anomalies are damped because anomalies in the key drivers of pCO2 (temperature, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and alkalinity) are all of similar magnitude and have strongly opposing effects that damp total pCO2 anomalies.
    Description: F. Chai and L. Shi acknowledge grant support from NSF (OCE 0137272) and NASA (NAG5-9348; S. Doney and I. Lima from NSF/ONR NOPP (N000140210370) and NASA (NNG05GG30G); G. McKinley from NASA (NNG05GF94G); and T. Takahashi from NOAA (NA16GP2001).
    Keywords: Ocean carbon cycle ; Ocean models ; PDO
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  • 95
    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 Climate 27 (2014): 2861–2885, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00437.1.
    Description: The representation of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) under historical forcing and future projections is analyzed in 34 models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). Most models realistically simulate the observed intensity and location of maximum sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies during ENSO events. However, there exist systematic biases in the westward extent of ENSO-related SST anomalies, driven by unrealistic westward displacement and enhancement of the equatorial wind stress in the western Pacific. Almost all CMIP5 models capture the observed asymmetry in magnitude between the warm and cold events (i.e., El Niños are stronger than La Niñas) and between the two types of El Niños: that is, cold tongue (CT) El Niños are stronger than warm pool (WP) El Niños. However, most models fail to reproduce the asymmetry between the two types of La Niñas, with CT stronger than WP events, which is opposite to observations. Most models capture the observed peak in ENSO amplitude around December; however, the seasonal evolution of ENSO has a large range of behavior across the models. The CMIP5 models generally reproduce the duration of CT El Niños but have biases in the evolution of the other types of events. The evolution of WP El Niños suggests that the decay of this event occurs through heat content discharge in the models rather than the advection of SST via anomalous zonal currents, as seems to occur in observations. No consistent changes are seen across the models in the location and magnitude of maximum SST anomalies, frequency, or temporal evolution of these events in a warmer world.
    Description: 2014-10-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Climate change ; Climate variability ; ENSO ; Climate models ; Model evaluation/performance
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  • 96
    Publication Date: 2022-06-06
    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(10), (2021): 3235–3252, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0288.1.
    Description: Recent mooring measurements from the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program have revealed abundant cyclonic eddies at both sides of Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. In this study, we present further observational evidence, from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives, of deep cyclonic eddies with intense rotation (ζ/f 〉 1) around southern Greenland and into the Labrador Sea. Most of the observed cyclones exhibit strongest rotation below the surface at 700–1000 dbar, where maximum azimuthal velocities are ~30 cm s−1 at radii of ~10 km, with rotational periods of 2–3 days. The cyclonic rotation can extend to the deep overflow water layer (below 1800 dbar), albeit with weaker azimuthal velocities (~10 cm s−1) and longer rotational periods of about one week. Within the middepth rotation cores, the cyclones are in near solid-body rotation and have the potential to trap and transport water. The first high-resolution hydrographic transect across such a cyclone indicates that it is characterized by a local (both vertically and horizontally) potential vorticity maximum in its middepth core and cold, fresh anomalies in the deep overflow water layer, suggesting its source as the Denmark Strait outflow. Additionally, the propagation and evolution of the cyclonic eddies are illustrated with deep Lagrangian floats, including their detachments from the boundary currents to the basin interior. Taken together, the combined Eulerian and Lagrangian observations have provided new insights on the boundary current variability and boundary–interior exchange over a geographically large scale near southern Greenland, calling for further investigations on the (sub)mesoscale dynamics in the region.
    Description: OOI mooring data are based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement 1743430. S. Zou, A. Bower, and H. Furey gratefully acknowledge the support from the Physical Oceanography Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1756361. R.S. Pickart acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1259618 and OCE-1756361. N. P. Holliday and L. Houpert were supported by NERC programs U.K. OSNAP (NE/K010875) and U.K. OSNAP-Decade (NE/T00858X/1).
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Cyclogenesis/cyclolysis ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation
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  • 97
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-06-06
    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): 3651–3662, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0076.1.
    Description: Ocean striations are composed of alternating quasi-zonal band-like flows; this kind of organized structure of currents can be found in all the world’s oceans and seas. Previous studies have mainly been focused on the mechanisms of their generation and propagation. This study uses the spatial high-pass filtering to obtain the three-dimensional structure of ocean striations in the North Pacific in both the z coordinate and σ coordinate based on 10-yr averaged Simple Ocean Data Assimilation version 3 (SODA3) data. First, we identify an ideal-fluid potential density domain where the striations are undisturbed by the surface forcing and boundary effects. Second, using the isopycnal layer analysis, we show that on isopycnal surfaces the orientations of striations nearly follow the potential vorticity (PV) contours, while in the meridional–vertical plane the central positions of striations are generally aligned with the latitude of zero gradient of the relative PV. Our analysis provides a simple dynamical interpretation and better understanding for the role of ocean striations.
    Description: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42076025, 41676021), the Key Special Project for introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0306), the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (2013CB956201). The numerical simulation is supported by the High Performance Computing Division in the South China Sea Institute of Oceanography. The authors thank Tingjin Guan for the help in enhancing drawing quality.
    Keywords: Currents ; Jets ; Mesoscale processes ; Potential vorticity ; Isopycnal coordinates
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 98
    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
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 99
    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 Zippel, S. F., Farrar, J. T., Zappa, C. J., Miller, U., St Laurent, L., Ijichi, T., Weller, R. A., McRaven, L., Nylund, S., & Le Bel, D. Moored turbulence measurements using pulse-coherent doppler sonar. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38(9), (2021): 1621–1639, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-21-0005.1.
    Description: Upper-ocean turbulence is central to the exchanges of heat, momentum, and gases across the air–sea interface and therefore plays a large role in weather and climate. Current understanding of upper-ocean mixing is lacking, often leading models to misrepresent mixed layer depths and sea surface temperature. In part, progress has been limited by the difficulty of measuring turbulence from fixed moorings that can simultaneously measure surface fluxes and upper-ocean stratification over long time periods. Here we introduce a direct wavenumber method for measuring turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rates ϵ from long-enduring moorings using pulse-coherent ADCPs. We discuss optimal programming of the ADCPs, a robust mechanical design for use on a mooring to maximize data return, and data processing techniques including phase-ambiguity unwrapping, spectral analysis, and a correction for instrument response. The method was used in the Salinity Processes Upper-Ocean Regional Study (SPURS) to collect two year-long datasets. We find that the mooring-derived TKE dissipation rates compare favorably to estimates made nearby from a microstructure shear probe mounted to a glider during its two separate 2-week missions for O(10−8) ≤ ϵ ≤ O(10−5) m2 s−3. Periods of disagreement between turbulence estimates from the two platforms coincide with differences in vertical temperature profiles, which may indicate that barrier layers can substantially modulate upper-ocean turbulence over horizontal scales of 1–10 km. We also find that dissipation estimates from two different moorings at 12.5 and at 7 m are in agreement with the surface buoyancy flux during periods of strong nighttime convection, consistent with classic boundary layer theory.
    Description: This work was funded by NASA as part of the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), supporting field work for SPURS-1 (NASA Grant NNX11AE84G), for SPURS-2 (NASA Grant NNX15AG20G), and for analysis (NASA Grant 80NSSC18K1494). Funding for early iterations of this project associated with the VOCALS project and Stratus 9 mooring was provided by NSF (Awards 0745508 and 0745442). Additional funding was provided by ONR Grant N000141812431 and NSF Award 1756839. The Stratus Ocean Reference Station is funded by the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (CPO FundRef Number 100007298), through the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR) under Cooperative Agreement NA14OAR4320158. Microstructure measurements made from the glider were supported by NSF (Award 1129646).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Turbulence ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary layer ; Oceanic mixed layer ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 100
    Publication Date: 2022-06-17
    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): 9093–9113, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0142.1.
    Description: This study examines the role of the relative wind (RW) effect (wind relative to ocean current) in the regional ocean circulation and extratropical storm track in the south Indian Ocean. Comparison of two high-resolution regional coupled model simulations with and without the RW effect reveals that the most conspicuous ocean circulation response is the significant weakening of the overly energetic anticyclonic standing eddy off Port Elizabeth, South Africa, a biased feature ascribed to upstream retroflection of the Agulhas Current (AC). This opens a pathway through which the AC transports the warm and salty water mass from the subtropics, yielding marked increases in sea surface temperature (SST), upward turbulent heat flux (THF), and meridional SST gradient in the Agulhas retroflection region. These thermodynamic and dynamic changes are accompanied by the robust strengthening of the local low-tropospheric baroclinicity and the baroclinic wave activity in the atmosphere. Examination of the composite life cycle of synoptic-scale storms subjected to the high-THF events indicates a robust strengthening of the extratropical storms far downstream. Energetics calculations for the atmosphere suggest that the baroclinic energy conversion from the basic flow is the chief source of increased eddy available potential energy, which is subsequently converted to eddy kinetic energy, providing for the growth of transient baroclinic waves. Overall, the results suggest that the mechanical and thermal air–sea interactions are inherently and inextricably linked together to substantially influence the extratropical storm tracks in the south Indian Ocean.
    Description: Seo acknowledges the support from the NSF (OCE-2022846), NOAA (NA19OAR4310376), ONR (N00014-17-12398), and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Song is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2019R1C1C1003663). O’Neill was supported by the NASA Grants 80NSSC19K1117 and 80NSSC19K1011.
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Extratropical cyclones ; Wind stress ; Boundary currents ; Storm tracks
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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