ALBERT

Description: We study the quasi-geostrophic merging dynamics of axisymmetric baroclinic vortices to understand how baroclinicity affects merging rates and the development of the nonlinear cascade of enstrophy. The initial vortices are taken to simulate closely the horizontal' and vertical structure of Gulf Stream rings. A quasigeostrophic model is set with a horizontal resolution of 9 km and 6 vertical levels to resolve the mean stratification of the Gulf Stream region. The results show that the baroclinic merging is slower than the purely barotropic process, The merging is shown to occur in two phases: the tirst, which produces clove-shaped vortices and diffusive mixing of vorticity contours; and the second, which consists of the sliding of the remaining vorticity cores with a second diffusive mixing of the intemal vorticity field. Comparison among Nof, Cushman-Roisin, Polvani et al, and Dewar and Killworth merging events indicates a substantial agreement in the kinematics of the DYOCRSS. Parameter sensitivity experiments show that the decrease of the baroclinicity parameter of the system, Γ^2, [defined as Γ^2 = (D^2 fo^2)/ (No^2 H^2)], increases the speed of merging while its increase slows down the merging. However, the halting elfect of baroclinicity (large Γ^2 or small Rossby radii of deformation) reaches a saturation level where the merging becomes insensitive to larger F2 values. Furthermore, we show that a regime of small Γ^2 exists at which the merged baroclinic vortex is unstable (metastable) and breaks again into two new vortices, Thus, in the baroelinic case the range of Γ^2 detemines the stability of the merged vortex. We analyze these results by local energy and vorticity balances, showing that the horizontal divergence of pressure work term [∇ *(pv)] and the relative-vorticity advection term (v * ∇ (∇ ^2 φ) trigger the merging during the first phase. Due to this horizontal redistribution process, a net kinetic to gravitational energy conversion occurs via buoyancy work in the region external to the cores of the vortices. The second phase of merging is dominated by a direct baroclinic conversion of available gravitational energy into kinetic energy, which in tum triggers a horizontal energy redistribution producing the final fusion of the vortex centers. This energy and vorticity analysis supports the hypothesis that merging is an internal mixing process triggered by a horizontal redistribution of kinetic energy.

Description: The work has been financed by a grant from the Progetto Finalizzato "Calcolo Parallelo"

Description: Published

Description: 1618/1637

Description: 4A. Clima e Oceani

Description: JCR Journal

Description: restricted

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Description: Two years of moored oceanographic and automatic weather station data which span the winter ice seasons of 2001-2003 within Marguerite Bay on the western Antarctic Peninsula (wAP) shelf were collected as part of the Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics program. In order to characterize the ice environment in the region, a novel methodology is developed for determining ice coverage, draft and velocity from moored upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profiler data. A linear momentum balance shows the importance of internal ice stresses in the observed motion of the ice pack. Strong inertial, not tidal, motions were observed in both the sea ice and upper ocean. Estimates of upward diapycnal fluxes of heat and salt from the Upper Circumpolar Deep Water to the surface mixed layer indicate almost no contribution from double diffusive convection. A one-dimensional vertical mixed layer model adapted for investigation of mixing beneath an ice-covered ocean indicates that the initial wind event, rather than subsequent inertial shear, causes the majority of the mixing. This work points towards episodic wind-forced shear at the base of the mixed layer coupled with static instability from brine rejection due to ice production as a major factor in mixing on the wAP shelf.

Description: The work described in this thesis was funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs grant # 99-100092. Additional funding came from the MIT Houghton Fund, the WHOI Ocean Venture Fund and the WHOI Education Office.

Description: Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Ocean Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Description: This thesis introduces an algorithm for inverting for the geoacoustic properties of the seafloor in shallow water. The input data required by the algorithm are estimates of the amplitudes of the normal modes excited by a low-frequency pure-tone sound source, and estimates of the water column sound speed profiles at the source and receiver positions. The algorithm makes use of perturbation results, and computes the small correction to an estimated background profile that is necessary to reproduce the measured mode amplitudes. Range-dependent waveguide properties can be inverted for so long as they vary slowly enough in range that the adiabatic approximation is valid. The thesis also presents an estimator which can be used to obtain the input data for the inversion algorithm from pressure measurements made on a vertical line array (VLA). The estimator is an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), which treats the mode amplitudes and eigenvalues as state variables. Numerous synthetic and real-data examples of both the inversion algorithm and the EKF estimator are provided. The inversion algorithm is similar to eigenvalue perturbation methods, and the thesis also presents a combination mode amplitude/eigenvalue inversion algorithm, which combines the advantages of the two techniques.

Description: The funding that made this research possible came from the Office of Naval Research, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September, 2005

Description: Minor and trace element records from planktic and benthic foraminifera from Atlantic sediment cores, as well as outputfrom a coupled OA·GCM, were used to investigate the magnitude and distribution of the oceanic response to abrupt Climate events.of the past 20,000 years. The study addressed three major questions: 1) What is the magnitude of high-latitude sea surface temperature and salinity variability during abrupt climate events? 2) Does intermediate depth ventilation change in conjunction with high-latitude climate variability? 3) Are the paleoclimate data consistent with the response of a coupled OAGCM to a freshwater perturbation? To address these questions, analytical methods were implemented for the simultaneous measurement of Mg/Ca, Zn/Ca, Cd/Ca, Mn/Ca and All Ca in foraminiferal samples using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Paired records of planktic foraminiferal ()IRO and Mg/Ca from the subpolar North Atlantic reveal trends of increasing temperatures (-3°C) and salinities over the course of the Holocene. The records provide the first evidence of open':'ocean cooling (nearly 2°C) and freshening during the 8.2 kyr event, and suggest similar conditions at 9.3 ka. Benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca results from an intermediate depth, western South Atlantic core (l,268 ni) are consistent with reduced export into the South Atlantic of North Atlantic Intermediate Water during the Younger Dryas. Paired records. of benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and bIRO from two intermediate depth low latitude western Atlantic sites - one from the Florida Current (751 m) and one from the Little Bahama Bank (l,057 m) - provicie insights into the spatial distribution of intermediate depth temperature and sii!.inity variability during" the Younger Dryas. The intermediate depth paleoceanographic temperature and salinity data are consistent with the results of a GFDL R30 freshwater forced model simulation, suggesting that freshwater forcing is a possible driver or amplifier for B011ing-Aller0d to Younger Dryas climate variability. Benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca results from an intermediate depth Florida Current core (751 m) are consistent with a decrease in the northward penetration of southern source waters within the return flow of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and an increase in the influence of intermediate depth northern source waters during the Younger Dryas.

Description: This work was funded by a John Lyons Fellowship and a WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute Fellowship. Analyses were funded by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute and the following grants from the National Science Foundation: OCE98-86748, OCE02- 20776, OCE96-33499,ATM05-01391, and OCE04-02565.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution March, 1980

Description: The Southern Ocean as defined here is the body of water between the Antarctic Continent and the Antarctic Polar Front, (APF). This ocean is considered important in the global thermodynamic balance of the ocean-atmosphere system because large planetary heat losses are believed to occur at high latitudes. The ocean and atmosphere must transport heat poleward to balance these losses. In the Southern Hemisphere, the oceanic contribution to this flux involves a southward transport of heat across the APF into the Southern Ocean where it is given up to the atmosphere through air-sea interactions. In Part I, the air-sea interactions and structure of the near surface waters of the Southern Ocean are investigated with a three dimensional time dependent numerical model. The surface waters in this region in summer are characterized by a relatively warm surface mixed layer with low salinity. Below this layer, a cold temperature extremum is usually observed in vertical profiles which is believed to be the remnant of a deep surface mixed layer produced in winter. The characteristics of this layer, the surface mixed layer and the observed distribution of wintertime sea ice are reproduced well by this model. Unlike some other sea-ice models the air-sea heat exchange is a free variable. Model estimates of the annual heat loss by the Southern Ocean exhibit the observed meridional variation of heat gained by the ocean along the APF with heat lost further south. The model's area average heat loss is much smaller than that estimated with direct observations. While several model parameterizations were made which could be in error, the model results suggest that the Southern Ocean does give up vast amounts of heat to the atmosphere away from the continental margins. The model results and direct calculations of air-sea exchanges suggest a southward heat flux must occur across the APF. The lateral water mass transition across the front is not discontinuous but occurs over a finite sized zone of fluid which is dominated by intrusive finestructure. The characteristics and dynamics of these features are investigated in Part II to try and assess their importance in the meridional heat budget. Observations made on two cruises to the APF are presented and the space-time scales of the features and thermohaline characteristics are discussed. It is suggested that double diffusive processes dominated by salt fingering are active within the intrusions. An extension of Stern's (1967) model of the stability of a thermohaline front to intrusive finestructure driven by saltfingering where small scale viscous processes are included, is presented to explain why intrusions are observed in frontal zones. The model successfully predicts vertical scales of intrusions observed in the ocean and the observed dependence of the intrusions' slopes across density surfaces on the vertical scale. Since the fastest growing intrusion is not strongly determined by the model, though, it is likely that finite amplitude effects determine the dominant scale of interleaving in the ocean. The analysis predicts that intrusions transport heat, salt and density down the mean gradients of the front. For the APF, this heat flux is poleward which is the direction required by the global heat budget. This model does not describe intrusions at finite amplitude or in steady state and so cannot be used to estimate the magnitude of the poleward heat flux due to intrusions in the APF.

Description: The research reported on here, and my support as a graduate student was provided by the National Science Foundation through grants OCE 75 14056. OCE 76 82036 and OCE 77 28355.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February, 2006

Description: Benthic and planktonic foraminiferal δ18O (δ18Oc) from a suite of well-dated, high-resolution cores spanning the depth and width of the Straits of Florida reveal significant changes in Gulf Stream cross-current density gradient during the last millennium. These data imply that Gulf Stream transport during the Little Ice Age (LIA: 1200-1850 A.D.) was 2-3 Sv lower than today. The timing of reduced flow is consistent with cold conditions in Northern Hemisphere paleoclimate archives, implicating Gulf Stream heat transport in centennial-scale climate variability of the last 1,000 years. The pattern of flow anomalies with depth suggests reduced LIA transport was due to weaker subtropical gyre wind stress curl. The oxygen isotopic composition of Florida Current surface water (δ18O w) near Dry Tortugas increased 0.4% during the course of the Little Ice Age (LIA: ~1200-1850 A.D.), equivalent to a salinity increase of 0.8-1.5 psu. On the Great Bahama Bank, where smface waters are influenced by the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, δ18Ow increased by 0.3% during the last 200 years. Although a portion (~0.1%) of this shift may be an artifact of anthropogenically-driven changes in surface water ΣCO2, the remaining δl8Ow signal implies a 0.4 to 1 psu increase in salinity after 200 yr BP. The simplest explanation of the δ18Ow data is southward migration of the Atlantic Hadley circulation during the LIA. Scaling of the δ18Ow records to salinity using the modern low-latitude δ18Ow-S slope produces an unrealistic reversal in the salinity gradient between the two sites. Only if C180 w is scaled to salinity using a high-latitude δ18Ow-S slope can the records be reconciled. Changes in atmospheric 14C paralleled shifts in Dry Tortugas δ18Ow , suggesting that variable solar irradiance paced centennial-scale Hadley cell migration and changes in Florida Current salinity during the last millennium.

Description: I would also like to thank the National Science Foundation (NSF grant OCE-0096469) and WHOI Academic Programs for supporting this work.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007.

Description: The water circulation and evolution of water temperature over the inner continental shelf are investigated using observations of water velocity, temperature, density, and bottom pressure; surface gravity waves; wind stress; and heat flux between the ocean and atmosphere during 2001-2007. When waves are small, cross-shelf wind stress is the dominant mechanism driving cross-shelf circulation. The along-shelf wind stress does not drive a substantial cross-shelf circulation. The response to a given wind stress is stronger in summer than winter. The cross-shelf transport in the surface layer during winter agrees with a two-dimensional, unstratified model. During large waves and onshore winds the cross-shelf velocity is nearly vertically uniform, because the wind- and wave-driven shears cancel. During large waves and offshore winds the velocity is strongly vertically sheared because the wind- and wave-driven shears have the same sign. The subtidal, depth-average cross-shelf momentum balance is a combination of geostrophic balance and a coastal set-up and set-down balance driven by the cross-shelf wind stress. The estimated wave radiation stress gradient is also large. The dominant along-shelf momentum balance is between the wind stress and pressure gradient, but the bottom stress, acceleration, Coriolis, Hasselmann wave stress, and nonlinear advection are not negligible. The fluctuating along-shelf pressure gradient is a local sea level response to wind forcing, not a remotely generated pressure gradient. In summer, the water is persistently cooled due to a mean upwelling circulation. The cross-shelf heat flux nearly balances the strong surface heating throughout midsummer, so the water temperature is almost constant. The along-shelf heat flux divergence is apparently small. In winter, the change in water temperature is closer to that expected due to the surface cooling. Heat transport due to surface gravity waves is substantial.

Description: My last three years of thesis work were supported by National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters under the Earth System Science Fellowship Grant NNG04GQ14H, and by WHOI Academic Programs Fellowship Funds. I also benefited from the freedom of a Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship during my first year in the Joint Program, which allowed me more time than is usual to explore different research topics before choosing an advisor. This research was also funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant NNG04GL03G and the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under grants OCE-0241292 and OCE-0548961. The Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory is partly funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Jewett/EDUC/Harrison Foundation. The ADCP deployments at CBLAST site F were funded by National Science Foundation Small Grant for Exploratory Research OCE-0337892. Ship time for deployment and recovery of the F ADCP was provided by Robert Weller through Office of Naval Research contracts N00014-01-1-0029 and N00014-05-10090 for the Low-Wind Component of the Coupled Boundary Layers Air-Sea Transfer Experiment.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Description: In this thesis I have endeavored to determine the factors and physical processes that controlled SST and thermocline depth at 10°N, 125°W during the Pan American Climate Study (PACS) field program. Analysis based on the PACS data set, TOPEX/Poseidon sea surface height data, European Remote Sensing satellite wind data, and model simulations and experiments reveals that the dominant mechanisms affecting the thermocline depth and SST at the mooring site during the measurement period were local surface fluxes, Ekman pumping, and vertical mixing associated with enhancement of the vertical shear by strong near-inertial waves in the upper ocean superimposed upon intra-seasonal baroclinic Rossby waves and the large scale zonal flow.

Description: This work was funded under NOAA Grant NA17RJ1223 and I also gratefully acknowledge receipt of an MIT Presidential Fellowship in 2000-2001.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2003

Description: Inertial terms dominate the single-gyre ocean model and prevent western-intensification when the viscosity is small. This occurs long before the oceanically-appropriate parameter range. It is demonstrated here that the circulation is controlled if a mechanism for ultimate removal of vorticity exists, even if it is active only in a narrow region near the boundary. Vorticity removal is modeled here as a viscosity enhanced very near the solid boundaries to roughly parameterize missing boundary physics like topographic interaction and three dimensional turbulence over the shelf. This boundary-enhanced viscosity allows western-intensified mean flows even when the inertial boundary width, is much wider than the frictional region because eddies flux vorticity from within the interior streamlines to the frictional region for removal. Using boundary-enhanced viscosity, western-intensified calculations are possible with lower interior viscosity than in previous studies. Interesting behaviors result: a boundary-layer balance novel to the model, calculations with promise for eddy parameterization, eddy-driven gyres rotating opposite the wind, and temporal complexity including basin resonances. I also demonstrate that multiple-gyre calculations have weaker mean circulation than single-gyres with the same viscosity and subtropical forcing. Despite traditional understanding, almost no inter-gyre flux occurs if no-slip boundary conditions are used. The inter-gyre eddy flux is in control only with exactly symmetric gyres and free slip boundaries. Even without the inter-gyre flux, the multiple-gyre circulation is weak because of sinuous instabilities on the jet which are not present in the single-gyre model. These modes efficiently flux vorticity to the boundary and reduce the circulation without an inter-gyre flux, postponing inertial domination to much smaller viscosities. Then sinuous modes in combination with boundary-enhanced viscosity can control the circulation.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008

Description: The work was motivated by studies of Austin and Lentz (2002) and Pedlosky (2007). The above mentioned works considered two different responses of the stratified flow to a downwelling favorable wind forcing. The first study investigated a time dependent flow with a formation of a constantly expanding relatively well mixed region near the shore and the second considered a steady flow that arises when an offshore varying wind is applied. In my thesis I use ROMS to determine which type of response will take place based on the wind amplitude near the coast. It was demonstrated that if the value of the wind is much smaller than the critical value (determined by the stratification, the rotation rate and the horizontal diffusivity) then the flow is steady (the bbl case) and similar to the one investigated by Pedlosky. If the wind is of the order, or larger than, the critical value then the response is time dependent (the pool case) and similar to the one described by Austin and Lentz. The resulting flow structure of each response was also investigated. I examined the sensitivity of the bbl response to variations in the background vertical diffusivity, the initial stratification and the bottom slope. It was shown that a higher background vertical diffusivity, a higher stratification and a shallower bottom slope correspond to thinner (vertically) and narrower (horizontally) bbl. For the pool case the time dependent structure was also examined, using a number of idealized models. It was shown that the rate of the pool region expansion is a complex function of the local wind stress amplitude and the local depth.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008

Description: Coupled ocean/atmosphere simulations exhibit systematicwarm biases over the SouthWest African (SWA) coastal region. Recent investigations indicate that coastal ocean dynamics may play an important role in determining the SST patterns, but none of them provide a detailed analysis. In this study, I analyze simulations produced both by coupled models and by idealized models. Then results are interpreted on the basis of a theoretical framework. Finally the conclusion is reached that the insufficient resolution of the ocean component in the coupled model is responsible for the warm biases over the SWA coastal region. The coarse resolution used in the ocean model has an artificially stretched coastal side-wall boundary layer, which induces a smaller upwelling velocity in the boundary layer. The vertical heat transport decreases even when the volume transport is unchanged because of its nonlinear relationship with the magnitude of the upwelling velocity. Based on the scaling of the idealized model simulations, a simplified calculation shows that the vertical heat transport is inversely proportional to the zonal resolution over the coastal region. Therefore, increasing the horizontal resolution can considerably improve the coastal SST simulation, and better resolve the coastal dynamics.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 2001

Description: A comparison of monthly biogeochemical measurements made from 1993 to 1995, combined with hydrography and satellite altimetry, was used to observe the impacts of nine eddy events on primary productivity and particle flux in the Sargasso Sea. Measurements of primary production, thorium-234 flux, nitrate+nitrite, and photosynthetic pigments made at the US JGOFS Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site were used. During the three years of this study, four out of six high thorium- 234 flux events over 1000 dpm/m2/d occurred during the passage of an eddy. Primary production nearly as high as the spring bloom maximum was observed in two modewater eddies (May 1993 and July 1995). The 1994 spring bloom at BATS was suppressed by the passage of an anticyclone. Distinct phytoplankton community shifts were observed in mode-water eddies, which had an increased percentage diatoms and dinoflagelletes, and in cyclones, which had an increased percentage cyanobacteria (excluding Prochlorococcus). The difference in the observations of mode-water eddies and cyclones may result from the age of the eddy, which was very important to the biological response. In general, eddies that were one to two months old elicited a large biological response; eddies that were three months old may show a biological response and were accompanied by high thorium flux measurements; eddies that were four months old or older did not show a biological response or high thorium flux. Our conceptual model depicting the importance of temporal changes during eddy upwelling and decay fit the observations well in all 7 upwelling eddies. Additional information is needed to determine the importance of deeper mixed layers and winter mixing to the magnitude of the eddy impacts. Also, sampling generally captured only the beginning, end, and lor edge of an eddy due to the monthly to semi-monthly frequency of the measurements made at BATS. Lagrangian studies, higher resolution time-series, and/or more spatial coverage is needed to provide additional information for improved C and N budgets in the Sargasso Sea and to complete our understanding of the temporal changes that occur in an eddy.

Description: Funding for this work was provided by NASA and NSF through the JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Program.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Description: Estimates of natural climate variability during the past millennium provide a frame of reference in which to assess the significance of recent changes. This thesis investigates new methods of reconstructing low-latitude sea surface temperature (SST) and hydrography, and combines these methods with traditional techniques to improve the present understanding of western North Atlantic climate variability. A new strontium/calcium (Sr/Ca) - SST calibration is derived for Atlantic Montastrea corals. This calibration shows that Montastrea Sr/Ca is a promising SST proxy if the effect of coral growth is considered. Further analyses of coral growth using Computed Axial Tomography (CAT) imaging indicate growth in Siderastrea corals varies inversely with SST on interannual timescales. A 440-year reconstruction of low-latitude western North Atlantic SST based on this relationship suggests the largest cooling of the last few centuries occurred from ~1650-1730 A.D., and was ~1ºC cooler than today. Sporadic multidecadal variability in this record is inconsistent with evidence for a persistent 65-80 year North Atlantic SST oscillation. Volcanic and anthropogenic radiative forcing are identified as important sources of externally-forced SST variability, with the latter accounting for most of the 20th century warming trend. An 1800-year reconstruction of SST and hydrography near the Gulf Stream also suggests SSTs remained within about 1ºC of modern values. This cooling is small relative to other regional proxy records and may reflect the influence of internal oceanic and atmospheric circulation. Simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) indicate that the magnitude of cooling estimated by proxy records is consistent with tropical hydrologic proxy records.

Description: Funding for this research was provided by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, National Science Foundation grants OCE-0402728, OCE-0623364, ATM-033746, the WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute, the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund, the WHOI Ocean Life Institute, the MIT Student Assistance Fund, award number USA-0002, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1984

Description: This thesis addresses several aspects of the problem of determining the effect of the low-frequency eddy variability on the mean circulation of the Western North Atlantic. A framework for this study is first established by scale analysis of the eddy and mean terms in the mean momentum, vorticity, and heat balances in three regions of the Western North Atlantic -- the northern recirculation, the southern recirculation, and the mid-ocean. The data from the last decade of field experiments suggest somewhat different conclusions from the earlier analysis of Harrison (1980). In the momentum balance we confirm that the eddy terms are negligible compared to the lowest order mean geostrophic balance. The eddy term may be an 0(1) term in the vorticity balance only in the northern recirculation region where the mean flow is anisotropic. In the mean heat balance, if the mean temperature advection is scaled using the thermal wind relation, then the eddy heat flux is negligible in the mid-ocean, but it may be important in the recirculation areas. For all the balances the eddy terms are comparable to or an order of magnitude larger than the mean advective terms. We conclude from the scale analysis that the eddy field is most likely to be important in the Gulf Stream recirculation region. These balances are subsequently examined in more detail using data from the Local Dynamics Experiment (LDE). Several inconsistencies are first shown in McWilliams' (1983) model for the mean dynamical balances in the LDE. The sampling uncertainties do not allow us to draw conclusions about the long-term dynamical balances. However, it is shown that if we assume that the linear vorticity balance holds between the surface and the thermocline for a finite record, then the vertical velocity induced by the eddy heat flux divergence is non-zero. The local effect of the mesoscale eddy field on the mean potential vorticity distribution of the Gulf Stream recirculation region is determined from the quasigeostrophic eddy potential vorticity flux. This flux is calculated by finite difference of current and temperature time series from the Local Dynamics Experiment. This long-term array of moorings is the only experimental data from which the complete eddy flux can be calculated. The total eddy flux is dominated by the term due to the time variation in the thickness of isopycnal layers. This thickness flux is an order of magnitude larger than the relative vorticity flux. The total flux is statistically significant and directed 217° T to the southwest with a magnitude of 1.57 x 10 -5 cm/2s. The direction of the eddy flux with respect to the mean large scale potential vorticity gradient from hydrographic data indicates that eddies in this region tend to reduce the mean potential vorticity gradient. The results are qualitatively consistent with numerical model results and with other data from the Gulf Stream recirculation region. We find that the strength of the eddy transfer in the enstrophy cascade is comparable to the source terms in the mean enstrophy balance. The Austauch coefficient for potential vorticity mixing is estimated to be 0(107cm2/sec). An order of magnitude estimate of the enstrophy dissipation due only to the internal wave field shows that other processes must be important in enstrophy dissipation. The measured eddy potential vorticity fluxes are compared to the linear stability model of Gill, Green, and Simmons (1974). An earlier study (Hogg, 1984) has shown agreement between the empirical orthogonal modes of the data and the predicted wavenumbers, growth rates, and phase speeds of the most unstable waves. However, we show substantial disagreement in a comparison of the higher moments the eddy heat and potential vorticity fluxes. Because the critical layer of the model is located near the surface, the model predicts that most of the eddy potential vorticity and eddy heat flux should occur within about 300 meters of the surface. The data show much greater deep eddy heat flux than predicted by the model. It is suggested that the unstable modes in the ocean have a longer vertical scale because of the reduction in the buoyancy frequency near the surface. The evidence for in situ instability is also examined in the decay region of the Gulf Stream from an array of current and temperature recorders. Although there is vertical phase propagation in the empirical orthogonal modes for some of the variables at some of the moorings, there is not much evidence for a strong ongoing process of wave generation.

Description: This research has been conducted under NSF contract numbers OCE 77-19403, ATM 79-21431, and OCE 82-00154.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1987

Description: Several problems connected by the theme of thermal forcing are addressed herein. The main topic is the stratification and flow field resulting from imposing a specified heat flux on a fluid that is otherwise confined to a rigid insulating basin. In addition to the traditional eddy viscosity and diffusivity, turbulent processes are also included by a convective overturning adjustment at locations where the local density field is unstable. Two classes of problems are treated. The first is the large scale meridional pattern of a fluid in an annulus. The detailed treatment is carried out in two steps. In the beginning (chapter 2) it is assumed that the fluid is very diffusive, hence, to first approximation no flow field is present. It is found that the convective overturning adjustment changes the character of the stratification in all the regions that are cooled from the top, resulting in a temperature field that is nearly depth independent in the northernmost latitudes. The response to a seasonal cycle in the forcing, and the differences between averaging the results from the end of each season compared to driving the fluid by a mean forcing are analyzed. In particular, the resulting sea surface temperature is warmer in the former procedure. This observation is important in models where the heat flux is sensitive to the gradient of air to sea surface temperatures. The analysis of the problem continues in chapter 5 where the contribution of the flow field is included in the same configuration. The dimensionless parameter controlling the circulation is now the Rayleigh number, which is a measure of the relative importance of gravitational and viscous forces. The effects of the convective overturning adjustment is investigated at different Rayleigh numbers. It is shown that not only is the stratification now always stable, but also that the vigorous vertical mixing reduces the effective Rayleigh number; thereby the flow field is more moderate, the thermocline deepens, and the horizontal surface temperature gradients are weaker. The interior of the fluid is colder compared to cases without convective overturning, and, because the amount of heat in the system is assumed to be fixed, the surface temperature is warmer. The fluid is not only forced by a mean heat flux, or a seasonally varying one, but its behavior under permanent winter and summer conditions is also investigated. A steady state for the experiments where the net heat flux does not vanish is defined as that state where the flow field and temperature structure are not changing with time except for an almost uniform temperature decrease or increase everywhere. It is found that when winter conditions prevail the circulation is very strong, while it is rather weak for continuous summer forcing. In contrast to those results, if a yearly cycle is imposed, the circulation tends to reach a minimum in the winter time and a maximum in the summer. This suggests that, depending on the Rayleigh number, there is a phase leg of several months between the response of the ocean and the imposed forcing. Differences between the two averaging procedures mentioned before are also observed when the flow field is present, especially for large Rayleigh numbers. The circulation is found to be weaker and the sea surface temperature colder in the mean of the seasonal realizations compared to the steady state derived by the mean forcing. As an extension to the numerical results, an analytic model is presented in chapter 4 for a similar annular configuration. The assumed dynamics is a bit different, with a mixed layer on top of a potential vorticity conserving interior. It is demonstrated that the addition of the thermal wind balance to the conservation of potential vorticity in the axially symmetric problem leads to the result that typical fluid trajectories in the interior are straight lines pointing downward going north to south. The passage of information in the system is surprisingly in the opposite sense to the clockwise direction of the flow. A model for water mass formation by buoyancy loss in the absence of a flow field is introduced in chapter 3. The idea behind it is to use the turbulent mixing parameterization to generate chimney-like structures in open water, followed by along-isopycnal advection and diffusion. This model can be applied to many observations of mode water. In particular, in this work it is related to the chimneys observed by the MEDOC Group (1970), and the Levantine Intermediate Water in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. An analytic prediction of the depth of the water mass is derived and depends on the forcing and initial stratification. It suggests that the depth of shallow mode water like the 18°C water or the Levantine Intermediate Water would not be very sensitive to reasonable changes in atmospheric forcing. Similar conclusions were also reached by Warren (1972) by assuming that the temperature in the thermocline decreases linearly with depth, and by approximating the energy balance in a water column by a Newtonian cooling law.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2010

Description: Observational and modeling techniques are employed to investigate the thermal and inertial upper ocean response to wind and buoyancy forcing in the North Atlantic Ocean. First, the seasonal kinetic energy variability of near-inertial motions observed with a moored profiler is described. Observed wintertime enhancement and surface intensification of near-inertial kinetic energy support previous work suggesting that near-inertial motions are predominantly driven by surface forcing. The wind energy input into surface ocean near-inertial motions is estimated using the Price-Weller- Pinkel (PWP) one-dimensional mixed layer model. A localized depth-integrated model consisting of a wind forcing term and a dissipation parameterization is developed and shown to have skill capturing the seasonal cycle and order of magnitude of the near-inertial kinetic energy. Focusing in on wintertime storm passage, velocity and density records from drifting profiling floats (EM-APEX) and a meteorological spar buoy/tethered profiler system (ASIS/FILIS) deployed in the Gulf Stream in February 2007 as part of the CLIvar MOde water Dynamics Experiment (CLIMODE) were analyzed. Despite large surface heat loss during cold air outbreaks and the drifting nature of the instruments, changes in the upper ocean heat content were found in a mixed layer heat balance to be controlled primarily by the relative advection of temperature associated with the strong vertical shear of the Gulf Stream. Velocity records from the Gulf Stream exhibited energetic near-inertial oscillations with frequency that was shifted below the local resting inertial frequency. This depression of frequency was linked to the presence of the negative vorticity of the background horizontal current shear, implying the potential for near-inertial wave trapping in the Gulf Stream region through the mechanism described by Kunze and Sanford (1984). Three-dimensional PWP model simulations show evidence of near-inertial wave trapping in the Gulf Stream jet, and are used to quantify the resulting mixing and the effect on the stratification in the Eighteen Degree Water formation region.

Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation grants OCE-0241354 and OCE-0424865, as well as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Ocean and Cli- mate Change Institute. Funding to initiate the McLane Moored Pro ler observations at Line W were provided by grants from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation and the Comer Charitable Fund to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions Ocean and Climate Change Institute.

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.

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): 2556-2574, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3666.1.

Description: Vertical profiles of horizontal velocity obtained during the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE) provided the first published estimates of the high vertical wavenumber structure of horizontal velocity. The data were interpreted as being representative of the background internal wave field, and thus, despite some evidence of excess downward energy propagation associated with coherent near-inertial features that was interpreted in terms of atmospheric generation, these data provided the basis for a revision to the Garrett and Munk spectral model. These data are reinterpreted through the lens of 30 years of research. Rather than representing the background wave field, atmospheric generation, or even near-inertial wave trapping, the coherent high wavenumber features are characteristic of internal wave capture in a mesoscale strain field. Wave capture represents a generalization of critical layer events for flows lacking the spatial symmetry inherent in a parallel shear flow or isolated vortex.

Description: Salary support for this analysis was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1997

Description: In order to constrain the processes controlling the cycles of biogeochemically important gases such as 02 and C02, and thereby infer rates of biological activity in the upper ocean or the uptake of radiatively important "greenhouse" gases, the noble gases are used to characterize and quantify the physical processes affecting the dissolved gases in aquatic environments. The processes of vertical mixing, gas exchange, air injection, and radiative heating are investigated using a 2 year time-series of the noble gases, temperature, and meteorological data from Station S near Bermuda, coupled with a 1- dimensional upper ocean mixing model to simulate the physical processes in the upper ocean. The rate of vertical mixing that best simulates the thermal cycle is 1.1±0.1 x104 m The gas exchange rate required to simulate the data is consistent with the formulation of Wanninkhof (1992) to ± 40%, while the formulation of Liss and Merlivat 1986 must be increased by a factor of 1.7± 0.6. The air injection rate is consistent with the formulation of Monahan and Torgersen (1991) using an air entrainment velocity of 3±1 cm s1. Gas flux from bubbles is dominated on yearly time-scales by larger bubbles that do not dissolve completely, while the bubble flux is dominated by complete dissolution of bubbles in the winter at Bermuda. In order to obtain a high-frequency time-series of the noble gases to better parameterize the gas flux from bubbles, a moorable, sequential noble gas sampler was developed. Preliminary results indicate that the sampler is capable of obtaining the necessary data. Dissolved gas concentrations can be significantly modified by ice formation and melting, and due to the solubility of He and Ne in ice, the noble gases are shown to be unique tracers of these interactions. A three-phase equilibrium partitioning model was constructed to quantify these interactions in perennially ice-covered Lake Fryxell, and this work was extended to oceanic environments. Preliminary surveys indicate that the noble gases may provide useful and unique information about interactions between water and ice.

Description: This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation - OCE 9302812 and DPP 9118363, the Ocean Ventures Fund Ditty Bag Fund and Westcott Fund and the WHOI Education Office.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 889–910, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4496.1.

Description: This paper examines interaction between a barotropic point vortex and a steplike topography with a bay-shaped shelf. The interaction is governed by two mechanisms: propagation of topographic Rossby waves and advection by the forcing vortex. Topographic waves are supported by the potential vorticity (PV) jump across the topography and propagate along the step only in one direction, having higher PV on the right. Near one side boundary of the bay, which is in the wave propagation direction and has a narrow shelf, waves are blocked by the boundary, inducing strong out-of-bay transport in the form of detached crests. The wave–boundary interaction as well as out-of-bay transport is strengthened as the minimum shelf width is decreased. The two control mechanisms are related differently in anticyclone- and cyclone-induced interactions. In anticyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in opposite directions by the point vortex and topographic waves; a topographic cyclone forms out of the balance between the two opposing mechanisms and is advected by the forcing vortex into the deep ocean. In cyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in the same direction by the two mechanisms; a topographic cyclone forms out of the wave–boundary interaction but is confined to the coast. Therefore, anticyclonic vortices are more capable of driving water off the topography. The anticyclone-induced transport is enhanced for smaller vortex–step distance or smaller topography when the vortex advection is relatively strong compared to the wave propagation mechanism.

Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of theMIT-WHOI Joint Programin Physical Oceanography, NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE- 9901654 and OCE-0451086.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2011

Description: Remote sensing and in situ observations are used to investigate the ocean response to the Tokar Wind Jet in the Red Sea. The wind jet blows down the pressure gradient through the Tokar Gap on the Sudanese coast, at about 18°N, during the summer monsoon season. It disturbs the prevailing along-sea (southeastward) winds with strong cross-sea (northeastward) winds that can last from days to weeks and reach amplitudes of 20-25 m/s. By comparing scatterometer winds with along-track and gridded sea level anomaly observations, it is shown that an intense dipolar eddy spins up in less than seven days in response to the wind jet. The eddy pair has a horizontal scale of 140 km. Maximum ocean surface velocities can reach 1 m/s and eddy currents extend at least 200 m into the water column. The eddy currents appear to cover the width of the sea, providing a pathway for rapid transport of marine organisms and other drifting material from one coast to the other. Interannual variability in the strength of the dipole is closely matched with variability in the strength of the wind jet. The dipole is observed to be quasi-stationary, although there is some evidence for slow eastward propagation—simulation of the dipole in an idealized high-resolution numerical model suggests that this is the result of self-advection. These and other recent in situ observations in the Red Sea show that the upper ocean currents are dominated by mesoscale eddies rather than by a slow overturning circulation.

Description: This work is supported by Award Nos. USA 00002, KSA 00011 and KSA 00011/02 made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

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 Climate 24 (2011): 4844–4858, doi:10.1175/2011JCLI4130.1.

Description: The factors that determine the heat transport and overturning circulation in marginal seas subject to wind forcing and heat loss to the atmosphere are explored using a combination of a high-resolution ocean circulation model and a simple conceptual model. The study is motivated by the exchange between the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean and the Nordic Seas, a region that is of central importance to the oceanic thermohaline circulation. It is shown that mesoscale eddies formed in the marginal sea play a major role in determining the mean meridional heat transport and meridional overturning circulation across the sill. The balance between the oceanic eddy heat flux and atmospheric cooling, as characterized by a nondimensional number, is shown to be the primary factor in determining the properties of the exchange. Results from a series of eddy-resolving primitive equation model calculations for the meridional heat transport, overturning circulation, density of convective waters, and density of exported waters compare well with predictions from the conceptual model over a wide range of parameter space. Scaling and model results indicate that wind effects are small and the mean exchange is primarily buoyancy forced. These results imply that one must accurately resolve or parameterize eddy fluxes in order to properly represent the mean exchange between the North Atlantic and the Nordic Seas, and thus between the Nordic Seas and the atmosphere, in climate models.

Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0726339 and OCE-0850416.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2012

Description: Observations from a three-year field program on the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, MA and a numerical model are used to describe the effect of stratification on inner shelf circulation, transport, and sediment resuspension height. Thermal stratification above the bottom mixed layer is shown to cap the height to which sediment is resuspended. Stratification increases the transport driven by cross-shelf wind stresses, and this effect is larger in the response to offshore winds than onshore winds. However, a one-dimensional view of the dynamics is not sufficient to explain the relationship between circulation and stratification. An idealized, cross-shelf transect in a numerical model (ROMS) is used to isolate the effects of stratification, wind stress magnitude, surface heat flux, cross-shelf density gradient, and wind direction on the inner shelf response to the cross-shelf component of the wind stress. In well mixed and weakly stratified conditions, the cross-shelf density gradient can be used to predict the transport efficiency of the cross-shelf wind stress. In stratified conditions, the presence of an along-shelf wind stress component makes the inner shelf response to cross-shelf wind stress strongly asymmetric.

Description: This work was supported through National Science Foundation grant no. OCE-0548961, the WHOI Academic Programs Office, and the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1990

Description: An acoustic tomography experiment consisting of a source near Hawaii and seven receivers along the west coast of North America was conducted from November 1987 to May 1988 and from February 1989 to July 1989. In this thesis, the acoustic ray travel times are analyzed in order to investigate inter-annual basin-scale thermal variability. These thermal fluctuations may help detect any greenhouse warming and greater understanding of them will increase knowledge of ocean-atmosphere interactions which affect weather and climate. A discussion of the program for finding the travel times is included along with a comparison of two methods of measuring travel times.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 1990

Description: A recently developed technique for determining past sea surface temperatures (SST), based on an analysis of the unsaturation ratio of long chain C37 methyl alkenones (Uk37) produced by Prymnesiophyceae phytoplankton, has been applied to late Quaternary sediment cores. Previous studies have shown that the Uk37 ratio of these alkenones is linearly proportional to the sea-water temperature in which the plankton grow, both in culture and water column samples. Furthermore, a reasonable correlation has been found between open ocean paleo-SST estimates based on Uk37 values and those derived from δ180, for the period spanning approximately the last 100,000 years (Brassell, 1986b). These results indicate this technique has potential for determining paleo-SST from analysis of alkenones extracted from marine sediments. In order to apply the Uk37 method quantitatively, it is necessary to calibrate the method for sediment samples, and to assess how well the alkenones maintain their temperature signal under some common conditions of sediment deposition and sample handling. It is also necessary to determine the method's usefulness downcore, that is, back in time, by comparing it to established methods. This study examined the effect on Uk37 of conditions that cause dissolution of carbonates in the sediment, and methods of storage and 'sample handling. These are two problems that must be resolved before the method can be applied rigorously and quantitatively to sediments for paleotemperature estimations. A comparison of duplicate samples collected and stored frozen versus those stored at room temperature for up to four years showed no resolvable differences in Uk37. Laboratory experiments of carbonate dissolution indicated there is no effect on Uk37 values under the acidic conditions that dissolve carbonates. Initial field results support this, but indicate more studies are necessary. The Uk37 "thermometer" was calibrated by analyzing Uk37 in coretops from widely varying open ocean sites. Sediment values of Uk37 reflected overlying SST for the appropriate season of the phytoplankton bloom, which for this study was assumed to be summer in high latitudes. These results fall on the same regression line for culture and water column samples derived by Prahl and Wakeham (1987), indicating that their equation (Uk37 = 0.033 T + 0.043) is suitable for use in converting Uk37 values in sediments to overlying SST for the season of coccolith bloom. Using this calibration for sediments, the Uk37 paleotemperature method can be quantitatively applied down core to open ocean sediments. In the Equatorial Atlantic, Uk37 temperature estimates were compared to those obtained from δ18O of the planktonic foraminifer Globigerinoides sacculifer, and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages for the last glacial cycle. The alkenone method showed ~1.56°C cooling at the last glacial maximum. This is about half the decrease shown by both the isotopic method ( ~3.40°C) and foraminiferal assemblages (~3.75°C), implying that, if Uk37 estimates are correct, SST in the equatorial Atlantic was only reduced slightly in the last glaciation. In the Northeast Atlantic, Uk37 temperature estimates show a profile downcore which is similar to the estimates from foram assemblages but with a constant offset toward warmer values throughout the core. Uk37 SST estimates are substantially warmer than foraminiferal estimates at all times, which may indicate inaccuracy in Uk37 temperatures at this site. Uk37 indicates a SST of 12°C for the late glacial and 18°C for the Recent, whereas assemblages give estimates of 9°C and 13°C, respectively. At 12,700 yrs BP, the Uk37 and foram assemblage methods indicate a 2°C warming. A temperature change of 2°C can account for only 0.44°/oo of the observed 1.2°/oo δ18O signal, indicating that the additional 0.8°/oo change in δ18O must result from changes in surface salinity most likely due to a meltwater lid. Uk37 estimates show the major temperature shift from glacial to interglacial temperatures occured at about 9,000 yrs BP disagreeing with assemblage data which shows the shift to Holocene values at about 12,700 yrs BP. If Uk37 temperature estimates are accurate, this disagreement may reflect differing habitats of flora and fauna under the unusual sea surface conditions in this area during the deglaciation.

Description: Primary financial support for this research came from the Ocean Ventures Fund (grant 25/ 85.08), without which this project would not have been possible. Funding supporting the labs of John Farrington (OCE 88-11409) and Lloyd Keigwin (OCE 83-08893 and ATM 84-14335) in which I worked also provided funding for part for this research.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1996

Description: This thesis addresses the question of how a highly energetic eddy field could be generated in the interior of the ocean away from the swift boundary currents. The energy radiation due to the temporal growth of non-trapped (radiating) disturbances in such a boundary current is thought to be one of the main sources for the described variability. The problem of stability of an energetic current, such as the Gulf Stream, is formulated. The study then focuses on the ability of the current to support radiating instabilities capable of significant penetration into the far-field and their development with time. The conventional model of the Gulf Stream as a zonal current is extended to allow the jet axis to make an angle to a latitude circle. The linear stability of such a nonzonal flow, uniform in the along-jet direction on a beta-plane, is first studied. The stability computations are performed for piece-wise constant and continuous velocity profiles. New stability properties of nonzonal jets are discussed. In particular, the destabilizing effect of the meridional tilt of the jet axis is demonstrated. The radiating properties of nonzonal currents are found to be very different from those of zonal currents. In particular, purely zonal flows do not support radiating instabilities, whereas flows with a meridional component are capable of radiating long and slowly growing waves. The nonlinear terms are then included in the consideration and the effects of the nonlinear interactions on the radiating properties of the solution are studied in detail. For these purposes, the efficient numerical code for solving equation for the QG potential vorticity with open boundary conditions of Orlanski's type is constructed. The results show that even fast growing linear solutions, which are trapped during the linear stage of developement, can radiate energy in the nonlinear regime if the basic current is nonzonal. The radiation starts as soon as the initial fast exponential growth significantly slows. The initial trapping of those solutions is caused by their fast temporal growth. The new mechanism for radiation is related to the nonzonality of a current.

Description: This work was supported by NSF Grant OCE 9301845.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2013

Description: Studying oceanic eddies is important for understanding and predicting ocean circulation and climate variability. The central focus of this dissertation is the energy exchange between eddies and mean flow and banded structures in the low-frequency component of the eddy field. A combination of a realistic eddy-permitting ocean state estimate and simplified theoretical models is used to address the following specific questions. (1) What are the major spatial characteristics of eddy-mean flow interaction from an energy perspective? Is eddy-mean flow interaction a local process in most ocean regions? (2) The banded structures in the low-frequency eddy field are termed striations. How much oceanic variability is associated with striations? How does the time-mean circulation, for example a subtropical gyre or constant mean flow, influence the origin and characteristics of striations? How much do striations contribute to the energy budget and tracer mixing?

Description: This research was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration contracts NNX09AI87G and NNX08AR33G.

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

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. 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 118 (2013): 762–773, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20081.

Description: Laboratory experiments are conducted to investigate the interactions of self-propagating barotropic cyclones and baroclinic anticyclones with an island. Results are interpreted in the context of observations around Okinawa Island, Japan, where ubiquitous arrivals of cyclones and anticyclones on the southeastern side of the island influence the flow around it, thereby impacting both the Ryukyu Current's and the Kuroshio's transport. In the laboratory, baroclinic anticyclones generate a buoyant current that flows clockwise around an island whereas barotropic cyclones generate a counterclockwise current. In both cases, the interaction is governed by conservation of circulation Γ around the island, which establishes a balance between the dissipation along the island in contact with the eddy and the dissipation along the island in contact with the generated current. Laboratory results and scaling analysis suggest that the interaction between an anticyclone (cyclone) and Okinawa Island should result in an instantaneous increase (decrease) of the Ryukyu Current transport and a delayed increase (decrease) of the Kuroshio transport. The estimated delays are in good agreement with those obtained with field measurements suggesting that the dynamics at play in the laboratory may be relevant for the flow around Okinawa Island.

Description: M.A.was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute and by the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists.

Description: 2013-08-13

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2013

Description: Between 2002 and 2011 a single mooring was maintained in the core of the Pacific Water boundary current in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea near 152° W. Using velocity and hydrographic data from six year-long deployments during this time period, we examine the interannual variability of the current. It is found that the volume, heat, and freshwater transport have all decreased drastically over the decade, by more than 80%. The most striking changes have occurred during the summer months. Using a combination of weather station data, atmospheric reanalysis fields, and concurrent shipboard and mooring data from the Chukchi Sea, we investigate the physical drivers responsible for these changes. It is demonstrated that an increase in summertime easterly winds along the Beaufort slope is the primary reason for the drop in transport. The intensification of the local winds has in turn been driven by a strengthening of the summer Beaufort High in conjunction with a deepening of the summer Aleutian Low. Since the fluxes of mass, heat, and freshwater through Bering Strait have increased over the same time period, this raises the question as to the fate of the Pacific water during recent years and its impacts. We present evidence that more heat has been fluxed directly into the interior basin from Barrow Canyon rather than entering the Beaufort shelfbreak jet, and this is responsible for a significant portion of the increased ice melt in the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean.

Description: The majority of the data for this project was funded by grant # ARC-0856244 from the O ce of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation. My time at WHOI was funded by the United States Navy, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the WHOI Academic Programs O ffice.

Description: The series of observations described in this report were planned with the double purpose of measuring the evaporation and transport of water vapor from the ocean into an unstable atmosphere, and of studying the diffusion processes operating in air of this stability class. Measured values of the evaporation from ocean surfaces were conspicuously absent from the meteorological literature until Craig and Montgomery (1949) published values for hydrostatically stable air. The present set of measurements extends our knowledge to include evaporation into a hydrostatically unstable air mass. In addition to evaporation values at the surface, net transports of water vapor at many levels up to 2000 meters have been measured.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August, 1978

Description: A two-layer linear analytic model is used to study the response of the mid-latitude ocean to the seasonal variation of the windstress. The most important component of the response is a barotropic quasi-steady Sverdrup balance. A meridional ridge such as the Antilles Arc is modeled as an infinitely thin meridional barrier that blocks the lower layer but does not protrude into the upper layer. It is found that such a barrier has little effect on the upper layer flow across the barrier. This result is obtained provided the frequency of the motion is low enough so that free short Rossby waves are essentially nondivergent. In this case there is little coupling between the layers for energy propagating to the east away from the barrier. A study of the dynamics of flow over a sloping bottom is made and the results are used to determine the effect on seasonal oscillations of eastern boundary slopes and triangular ridges. It is found that the presence of a slope at the eastern boundary has little effect. A meridional ridge that does not reach the interface may cause substantial scattering of free Rossby waves, but unless the ridge is steep its effect on the quasi-steady Sverdrup balance is minimal. However, if the ridge height is a substantial fraction of the lower layer depth and the width is comparable to the scale of free short Rossby waves, the ridge will tend to block flow in the lower layer, acting like the infinitely thin barrier. The theory suggests that the Antilles Arc should have the effect of a thin barrier, while the Mid-Atlantic Ridge should have little effect on the response of the ocean to seasonal wind variations.

Description: For three and a half years of generous financial support I am grateful to the John and Fannie Hertz Foundation, from which I received a Graduate Fellowship. Research money and other support were provided by the National Science Foundation under contract OCE 77 15600.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution October, 1971

Description: The objective of this study was to describe the mechanics of wind wave generation and spectral development. Intermittency, high frequency microstructure in wind and wave fields, and strong nonlinear coupling involving a wide range of scales are shown to be crucial elements in the transfer of momentum to, from, and within the wave field. None of these elements are included in available theories. Measurements of wave height and of the turbulent atmospheric and subsurface boundary layers were made, from a small surface following platform and from a stable 38.5m spar buoy. The structure of moving gust patterns (cat's paws) is described and related to the generation of surface waves. Results from this and other background studies are then applied to a discussion of spectral growth during a two day period of active wave generation. Cat's paws contain 'bursts' of intense turbulent stress and buoyancy fluctuations separated by quiescent 'intervals'. There is a difference of over three orders of magnitude in fluctuation strength between these features. Rapid growth rate generation of high frequency surface waves and atmospheric turbulence occurs during the bursts. The resultant microscale components aid the growth of lower frequency instabilities by strong nonlinear coupling between scales of motion and by acting as drag or roughness elements. Evidence of strong coupling between frequency bands and of weakly resonant capillary-gravity wave interactions is presented. Thermal stratification has a strong influence on fluctuation magnitude and can delay the onset of surface wave generation. Major spectral growth is highly unsteady. Much of the momentum flux from air to sea occurs during intermittent events that are similar in nature to cat's paws, and goes directly into high frequency waves. The bursts occur predominantly over large groups of surface waves and involve strong nonlinear interactions between media and frequency bands. The long-term equilibrium balance between wind and water is disrupted by variations in surface currents. There are 'critical' wind speeds characterized by anomalous relationships between parameters of the predominantly logarithmic velocity profile.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Description: The impact of the Greenland tip jet on the wintertime mixed-layer of the southwest Irminger Sea is investigated using in-situ moored profiler data and a variety of atmospheric data sets. The mixed-layer was observed to reach 400 m in the spring of 2003, and 300 m in the spring of 2004. Both of these winters were mild and characterized by a low North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. All of the storms that were advected through the region were tracked, and the tip jet events that occurred throughout the two winters were identified. Composite images of the tip jets elucidated the conditions during which tip jets were likely to take place, which led to an objective method of determining tip jet occurrences by taking into account the large-scale pressure gradients. Output from a trajectory model indicates that the air parcels entering a tip jet accelerate and descend as they are deflected around southern Greenland. A heat flux timeseries for the mooring site was constructed that includes the enhancing influence of the tip jet events. This was used to drive a one-dimensional mixed-layer model, which was able to reproduce the observed mixed-layer deepening in both winters. All of the highest heat flux events took place during tip jets, and removal of the tip jets from the heat flux timeseries demonstrated their importance in driving convection east of Greenland. The deeper mixed-layer of the first winter was in large part due to a higher number of robust tip jet events, which in turn was caused by a greater number of storms passing northeast of southern Greenland. This interannual change in storm tracks was attributable to a difference in upper level steering currents. Application of the mixed-layer model to the winter of 1994-l995, during a period characterized by a high NAO index, resulted in convection reaching 1600 m. This predict ion is consistent with concurrent hydrographic data, supporting the notion that deep convection can occur in the Irminger Sea during strong winters.

Description: Financial support for this work was provided by National Science Foundation grant OCE-0450658.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2006

Description: The continuous supply of heat and fresh water from the boundaries to the interior of the Labrador Sea plays an important role for the dynamics of the region and in particular, for the Labrador Sea Water formation. Thus, it is necessary to understand the factors governing the exchange of properties between the boundary and interior. A significant fraction of heat and fresh water, needed to balance the annual heat loss and to contribute to the seasonal freshening of the Labrador Sea, is thought to be provided by coherent long-lived anticyclonic eddies shed by the Irminger Current. The population, some properties, rates and direction of propagation of these anomalies are known but the evolution and the mechanism of their decay are still far from obvious. In this work I investigated their water mass properties and evolution under the strong wintertime forcing using hydrographic data from 1990-2004 and a 1-dimensional mixed layer model. There were 50 eddies found in the hydrographic data record, 48 of which were identified as anticyclones. Vertical structure of the eddies was investigated, leading to the categorization of all the anticyclones into three classes: 12 - with a fresh surface layer and no mixed layer, 18 - without a fresh layer and at least one mixed layer, and 18 with ambiguous vertical structure. Four eddies of the second group appeared to have cores extending to as deep as 1500 m vertically and an isopycnal displacement of 400-600 m. A number of eddies without a fresh water cap contained Labrador Sea Water from the previous year at mid-depths.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1980

Description: Observational evidence of seasonal variability below the main thermocline in the eastern North Atlantic is described, and a theoretical model of oceanic response to seasonally varying windstress forcing is constructed to assist in the interpretation of the observations. The observations are historical conductivity-temperature-depth data from the Bay of Biscay region (2° to 20°W, 42° to 52°N), a series of eleven cruises over the three years 1972 through 1974, spaced approximately three months apart. The analysis of the observations utilizes a new technique for identifying the adiabatically leveled density field corresponding to the observed density field. The distribution of salinity anomaly along the leveled surfaces is examined, as are the vertical displacements of observed density surfaces from the leveled reference surfaces, and the available potential energy. Seasonal variations in salinity anomaly and vertical displacement occur as westward propagating disturbances with zonal wavelength 390 (±50) km, phase 71 (±30) days from 1 January, and maximum amplitudes of ±30 ppm and ±20 db respectively. The leveled density field varies seasonally with an amplitude corresponding to a thermocline displacement of ±15 db. The observations are consistent with the predictions of a model in which an ocean of variable stratification with a surface mixed layer and an eastern boundary is forced by seasonal changes in a sinusoidal windstress pattern, when windstress parameters calculated from the observations of Bunker and Worthington (1976) are applied.

Description: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research under contract N00014~76-C-197, NR 083-400.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2000

Description: Estimation of the upper ocean heat budget from one year of observations at a moored array in the north central Arabian Sea shows a rough balance between the horizontal advection and time change in heat when the one-dimensional balance between the surface heat flux and oceanic heat content breaks down. The two major episodes of horizontal advection, during the early northeast (NE) and late southwest (SW) monsoon seasons, are both associated with the propagation of mesoscale eddies. During the NE monsoon, the heat fluxes within the mixed layer are not significantly different from zero, and the large heat flux comes from advected changes in the thermocline depth. During the SW monsoon a coastal filament exports recently upwelled water from the Omani coast to the site of the array, 600 km offshore. Altimetry shows mildly elevated levels of surface eddy kinetic energy along the Arabian coast during the SW monsoon, suggesting that such offshore transport may be an important component of the Arabian Sea heat budget. The sea surface temperature (SST) and mixed layer depth are observed to respond to high frequency (HF, diurnal to atmospheric synoptic time scales) variability in the surface heat flux and wind stress. The rectified effect of this HF forcing is investigated in a three-dimensional reduced gravity thermodynamic model of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Both the HF heat and wind forcing act locally to increase vertical mixing in the model, reducing the SST. Interactions between the local response to the surface forcing, Ekman divergences, and remotely propagated signals in the model can reverse this, generating greater SSTs under HF forcing, particularly at low latitudes. The annual mean SST, however, is lowered under HF forcing, changing the balance between the net surface heat flux (which is dependent on the SST) and the meridional heat flux in the model. A suite of experiments with one-dimensional upper ocean models with different representations of vertical mixing processes suggests that the rectified effect of the diurnal heating cycle is dependent on the model, and overstated in the formulation used in the three-dimensional model.

Description: Funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), grant NOOO14-94-1-0161 and National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and by ONR grant NOOO14-99-1-0090.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 133–145, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3782.1.

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

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

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 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): 1644-1668, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3829.1.

Description: The mean structure and time-dependent behavior of the shelfbreak jet along the southern Beaufort Sea, and its ability to transport properties into the basin interior via eddies are explored using high-resolution mooring data and an idealized numerical model. The analysis focuses on springtime, when weakly stratified winter-transformed Pacific water is being advected out of the Chukchi Sea. When winds are weak, the observed jet is bottom trapped with a low potential vorticity core and has maximum mean velocities of O(25 cm s−1) and an eastward transport of 0.42 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1). Despite the absence of winds, the current is highly time dependent, with relative vorticity and twisting vorticity often important components of the Ertel potential vorticity. An idealized primitive equation model forced by dense, weakly stratified waters flowing off a shelf produces a mean middepth boundary current similar in structure to that observed at the mooring site. The model boundary current is also highly variable, and produces numerous strong, small anticyclonic eddies that transport the shelf water into the basin interior. Analysis of the energy conversion terms in both the mooring data and the numerical model indicates that the eddies are formed via baroclinic instability of the boundary current. The structure of the eddies in the basin interior compares well with observations from drifting ice platforms. The results suggest that eddies shed from the shelfbreak jet contribute significantly to the offshore flux of heat, salt, and other properties, and are likely important for the ventilation of the halocline in the western Arctic Ocean. Interaction with an anticyclonic basin-scale circulation, meant to represent the Beaufort gyre, enhances the offshore transport of shelf water and results in a loss of mass transport from the shelfbreak jet.

Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs under Grants 0421904 and 035268 (MS), and by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-02-1-0317 (RP and PF). Analysis by AJP was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N00014-97-1-0135 and by the National Science Foundation under Grant OPP-9815303.

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): 1992-2002, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3669.1.

Description: This paper extends A. Bracco and J. Pedlosky’s investigation of the eddy-formation mechanism in the eastern Labrador Sea by including a more realistic depiction of the boundary current. The quasigeostrophic model consists of a meridional, coastally trapped current with three vertical layers. The current configuration and topographic domain are chosen to match, as closely as possible, the observations of the boundary current and the varying topographic slope along the West Greenland coast. The role played by the bottom-intensified component of the boundary current on the formation of the Labrador Sea Irminger Rings is explored. Consistent with the earlier study, a short, localized bottom-trapped wave is responsible for most of the perturbation energy growth. However, for the instability to occur in the three-layer model, the deepest component of the boundary current must be sufficiently strong, highlighting the importance of the near-bottom flow. The model is able to reproduce important features of the observed vortices in the eastern Labrador Sea, including the polarity, radius, rate of formation, and vertical structure. At the time of formation, the eddies have a surface signature as well as a strong circulation at depth, possibly allowing for the transport of both surface and near-bottom water from the boundary current into the interior basin. This work also supports the idea that changes in the current structure could be responsible for the observed interannual variability in the number of Irminger Rings formed.

Description: AB is supported by WHOI unrestricted funds, JP by the National Science Foundation OCE 85108600, and RP by 0450658.

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.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1988

Description: Analysis of vertical profiles of absolute horizontal velocity collected in January 1981, February 1982 and April 1982 in the central equatorial Pacific as part of the Pacific Equatorial Ocean Dynamics (PEQUOD) program, revealed two significant narrow band spectral peaks in the zonal velocity records, centered at vertical wavelengths of 560 and 350 stretched meters (sm). Both signals were present in all three cruises, but the 350 sm peak showed a more steady character in amplitude and a higher signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, its vertical scales corresponded to the scales of the conspicuous alternating flows generically called the equatorial deep jets in the past (the same terminology will be used here). Meridional velocity and vertical displacement spectra did not show any such energetic features. Energy in the 560 sm band roughly doubled between January 1981 and April 1982. Time lagged coherence results suggested upward phase propagation at time scales of about 4 years. East-west phase lines computed from zonally lagged coherences, tilted downward towards the west, implying westward phase propagation. Estimates of zonal wavelength (on the order of 10000 km) and period based on these coherence calculations, and the observed energy meridional structure at this vertical wavenumber band, seem consistent, within experimental errors, with the presence of a first meridional mode long Rossby wave packet, weakly modulated in the zonal direction. The equatorial deep jets, identified with the peak centered at 350 sm, are best defined as a finite narrow band process in vertical wavenumber (311-400 sm), accounting for only 20% of the total variance present in the broad band energetic background. At the jets wavenumber band, latitudinal energy scaling compared well with Kelvin wave theoretical values and a general tilt of phase lines downward towards the east yielded estimates of 10000-16000 km for the zonal wavelengths. Time-lagged coherence calculations revealed evidence for vertical shifting of the jets on interannual time scales. Interpretation of results in terms of single frequency linear wave processes led to inconsistencies, but finite bandwidth (in frequency and wavenumber) Kelvin wave processes of periods on the order of three to five years could account for the observations. Thus, the records do not preclude equatorial waves as a reasonable kinematic description of the jets.

Description: This research was supported by grant OCE-8600052 from the National Science Foundation, through the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1999

Description: This thesis addresses the parameterization of the heat and momentum transporting properties of eddy motions for use in three-dimensional, primitive equation, z-coordinate atmosphere and ocean models. Determining the transport characteristics of these eddies is fundamental to understanding their effect on the large-scale ocean circulation and global climate. The approach is to transform the primitive equations to yield the altered 'transformed Eulerian mean' (TEM) equations. The assumption is made that the eddy motions obey quasigeostrophic dynamics while the mean flow obeys the primitive equations. With this assumption, the TEM framework leads to the eddies appearing as one term, which acts as a body force in the momentum equations. This force manifests itself as a flux of potential vorticity (PV) - a quantity that incorporates both eddy momentum and heat transporting properties. Moreover, the dynamic velocities are those of the residual mean circulation, a much more relevant velocity for understanding heat and tracer transport. Closure for the eddy PV flux is achieved through a flux-gradient relationship, which directs the flux down the large scale PV gradient. For zonal flows, care is taken to ensure that the resulting force does not generate any net momentum, acting only to redistribute it. Neglect of relative vorticity fluxes in the PV flux yields the parameterization scheme of Gent and McWilliams. The approach is investigated by comparing a zonally-averaged parameterized model with a three dimensional eddy-resolving calculation of flow in a stress-driven channel. The stress at the upper surface is communicated down the water column to the bottom by eddy form drag. Moreover, lateral eddy momentum fluxes act to strengthen and sharpen the mean flow, transporting eastward momentum up its large scale gradient. Both the vertical momentum transfer and lateral, upgradient momentum transfer by eddies, are captured in the parameterized model. The advantages of this approach are demonstrated in two further zonal cases: 1) the spin-down of a baroclinic zone, and 2) the atmospheric jet stream. The time mean TEM approach and the eddy PV flux closure are explored in the context of an eddy-resolving closed basin flow which breaks the zonal symmetry. Decomposition of eddy PV fluxes into components associated with advective and dissipative effects suggest that the component associated with eddy flux divergence, and therefore forcing of the mean flow, is mainly directed down the large scale gradient and can be parameterized as before. Thus, the approach can be used to capture eddy transport properties for both zonal mean and time mean flows. The PV flux embodies both the eddy heat and momentum fluxes and so presents a more unified picture of their transferring properties. It therefore provides a powerful conceptual and practical framework for representing eddies in numerical models of the atmsophere and ocean.

Description: The work in this thesis was funded by grants from NSF, (OCE-9634331, OCE- 9503895), ONR (NOOOI4-95-1-0967), and by a fellowship from the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT.

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.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 1996

Description: TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry data are employed in the analysis of the global ocean response to atmospheric forcing. We use two different approaches to test the hypothesis that the global sea surface height variability can be adequately described by linear barotropic ocean models: the multichannel regression and the optimal smoothing techniques. We start with the simplest linear vorticity balance and continue by building a hierarchy of more complicated models by including effects of topography and time dependence. We use auto-regressive external (ARX) time-series models to test the hypothesis in all of the Pacific Ocean. We also test whether any significant residual regression on the atmospheric loading is left after the inverted barometer effect is corrected for. We find that no linear barotropic model is consistent with the data. We provide a check on the results of the multichannel regression by using a Kalman filter and optimal smoother. We use sequential estimation in the form of filteringsmoothing algorithm. We run the estimate for an area of 4000 km by 2000 km in the Northeast Pacific. We analyze model and data error structures by simulating the model without data assimilation. The results show that the model forecast on average explains 33% of the data variability. The Kalman filter updates the model very efficiently and produces an estimate which explains 76% of the data variance. The optimal smoother estimate is very similar to the Kalman filter estimate. Running the model in other regions of the Pacific produced worse fits of the model to the data. This supports the conclusion that the linear barotropic dynamics fails to describe the SSH variability.

Description: This research was partially funded by a NASA Global Change Fellowship.

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): 2206–2228, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0191.1.

Description: This study investigates the anisotropic properties of the eddy-induced material transport in the near-surface North Atlantic from two independent datasets, one simulated from the sea surface height altimetry and one derived from real-ocean surface drifters, and systematically examines the interactions between the mean- and eddy-induced material transport in the region. The Lagrangian particle dispersion, which is widely used to characterize the eddy-induced tracer fluxes, is quantified by constructing the “spreading ellipses.” The analysis consistently demonstrates that this dispersion is spatially inhomogeneous and strongly anisotropic. The spreading is larger and more anisotropic in the subtropical than in the subpolar gyre, and the largest ellipses occur in the Gulf Stream vicinity. Even at times longer than half a year, the spreading exhibits significant nondiffusive behavior in some parts of the domain. The eddies in this study are defined as deviations from the long-term time-mean. The contributions from the climatological annual cycle, interannual, and subannual (shorter than one year) variability are investigated, and the latter is shown to have the strongest effect on the anisotropy of particle spreading. The influence of the mean advection on the eddy-induced particle spreading is investigated using the “eddy-following-full-trajectories” technique and is found to be significant. The role of the Ekman advection is, however, secondary. The pronounced anisotropy of particle dispersion is expected to have important implications for distributing oceanic tracers, and for parameterizing eddy-induced tracer transfer in non-eddy-resolving models.

Description: IR was supported by Grant NSF-OCE-0725796. IK would like to acknowledge support by the National Science foundation Grant OCE-0842834.

Description: 2013-06-01

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): 905–919, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0150.1.

Description: Interactions between vortices and a shelfbreak current are investigated, with particular attention to the exchange of waters between the continental shelf and slope. The nonlinear, three-dimensional interaction between an anticyclonic vortex and the shelfbreak current is studied in the laboratory while varying the ratio ε of the maximum azimuthal velocity in the vortex to the maximum alongshelf velocity in the shelfbreak current. Strong interactions between the shelfbreak current and the vortex are observed when ε 〉 1; weak interactions are found when ε 〈 1. When the anticyclonic vortex comes in contact with the shelfbreak front during a strong interaction, a streamer of shelf water is drawn offshore and wraps anticyclonically around the vortex. Measurements of the offshore transport and identification of the particle trajectories in the shelfbreak current drawn offshore from the vortex allow quantification of the fraction of the shelfbreak current that is deflected onto the slope; this fraction increases for increasing values of ε. Experimental results in the laboratory are strikingly similar to results obtained from observations in the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB); after proper scaling, measurements of offshore transport and offshore displacement of shelf water for vortices in the MAB that span a range of values of ε agree well with laboratory predictions.

Description: Laboratory work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE- 0081756. Glider observations in March–April 2006 were supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-0220769. Glider observations in July– October 2007 were supported by a grant from Raytheon. RET was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region. The REMUS observations were funded by the Office of Naval Research. GGG was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-1129125 for analysis and writing.

Description: 2013-11-01

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

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

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

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): 2645-2662, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0191.1.

Description: The occurrence, drivers, and implications of small-scale O(2–5) km diameter coherent vortices, referred to as submesoscale eddies, over the inner shelf south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, are examined using high-frequency (HF), radar-based, high-resolution (400 m) observations of surface currents. Within the 300 km2 study area, eddies occurred at rates of 1 and 4 day−1 in winter and summer, respectively. Most were less than 5 h in duration, smaller than 4 km in diameter, and rotated less than once over their lifespan; 60% of the eddies formed along the eastern edge of study area, adjacent to Wasque Shoal, and moved westward into the interior, often with relative vorticity greater than f. Eddy generation was linked to vortex stretching on the ebb and flood tide as well as the interaction of the spatially variable tide and the wind-driven currents; however, these features had complex patterns of surface divergence and stretching. Eddies located away from Wasque Shoal were related to the movement of wind-driven surface currents, as wind direction controlled where eddies formed as well as density effects. Using an analysis of particles advected within the radar-based surface currents, the observed eddies were found to be generally leaky, losing 60%–80% of particles over their lifespan, but still more retentive than the background flow. As a result, the combined translation and rotational effects of the observed eddies were an important source of lateral exchange for surface waters over the inner shelf.

Description: The HF radar data utilized here were obtained using internal funding from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The analysis was supported by NSF OCE Grant 1332646.

Description: 2017-02-19

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 122 (2017): 3519–3542, doi:10.1002/2016JC012519.

Description: Observations from two companion field programs—Origins of the Kuroshio and Mindanao Current (OKMC) and Observations of Kuroshio Transport Variability (OKTV)—are used here to examine the Kuroshio's temporal and spatial evolution. Kuroshio strength and velocity structure were measured between June 2012 and November 2014 with pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) and upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) deployed across the current northeast of Luzon, Philippines, and east of Taiwan with an 8 month overlap in the two arrays' deployment periods. The time-mean net (i.e., integrated from the surface to the bottom) absolute transport increases downstream from 7.3 Sv (±4.4 Sv standard error) northeast of Luzon to 13.7 Sv (±3.6 Sv) east of Taiwan. The observed downstream increase is consistent with the return flow predicted by the simple Sverdrup relation and the mean wind stress curl field over the North Pacific (despite the complicated bathymetry and gaps along the North Pacific western boundary). Northeast of Luzon, the Kuroshio—bounded by the 0 m s−1 isotach—is shallower than 750 dbar, while east of Taiwan areas of positive flow reach to the seafloor (3000 m). Both arrays indicate a deep counterflow beneath the poleward-flowing Kuroshio (–10.3 ± 2.3 Sv by Luzon and −12.5 ± 1.2 Sv east of Taiwan). Time-varying transports and velocities indicate the strong influence at both sections of westward propagating eddies from the ocean interior. Topography associated with the ridges east of Taiwan also influences the mean and time-varying velocity structure there.

Description: Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grant Numbers: N00014-15-12593 , N00014-16-13069; Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology Grant Numbers: NSC 101-2611-M-002-018-MY3 , MOST 103-2611-M-002-011 , MOST 105-2119-M-002-042; ONR Grant Numbers: N00014-10-1-0308 , N00015-10-1-0469

Description: 2017-11-02

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1291-1305, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0160.1.

Description: Along-stream variations in the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) impact heat and tracer transport, regulate interbasin exchange, and influence closure of the overturning circulation. Topography is primarily responsible for generating deviations from zonal-mean properties, mainly through standing meanders associated with regions of high eddy kinetic energy. Here, an idealized channel model is used to explore the spatial distribution of energy exchange and its relationship to eddy geometry, as characterized by both eddy momentum and eddy buoyancy fluxes. Variations in energy exchange properties occur not only between standing meander and quasi-zonal jet regions, but throughout the meander itself. Both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties, as well as the magnitude of energy exchange terms, undergo abrupt changes along the path of the ACC. These transitions are captured by diagnosing eddy fluxes of energy and by adopting the eddy geometry framework. The latter, typically applied to barotropic stability properties, is applied here in the depth–along-stream plane to include information about both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties of the flow. These simulations reveal that eddy momentum fluxes, and thus barotropic instability, play a leading role in the energy budget within a standing meander. This result suggests that baroclinic instability alone cannot capture the dynamics of ACC standing meanders, a challenge for models where eddy fluxes are parameterized.

Description: The authors all acknowledge support from NSF OCE-1235488. MKY also acknowledges support from the AMS Graduate Student Fellowship.

Description: 2017-10-12

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Description: The role of ocean dynamics in driving air-sea interaction is examined at two contrasting sites on 125°W in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean using data from the Pan American Climate Study (PACS) field program. Analysis based on the PACS data set and satellite observations of sea surface temperature (SST) reveals marked differences in the role of ocean dynamics in modulating SST. At a near-equatorial site (3°S), the 1997-1998 El Nino event dominated the evolution of SST and surface heat fluxes, and it is found that wind-driven southward Ekman transport was important in the local transition from El Nino to La Nina conditions. At a 10°N site near the summertime position of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone, oceanic mesoscale motions played an important role in modulating SST at intraseasonal (50- to 100-day) timescales, and the buoy observations suggest that there are variations in surface solar radiation coupled to these mesoscale SST variations. This suggests that the mesoscale oceanic variability may influence the occurrence of clouds. The intraseasonal variability in currents, sea surface height, and SST at the northern site is examined within the broader spatial and temporal context afforded by satellite data. The oscillations have zonal wavelengths of 550-1650 km and propagate westward in a manner consistent with the dispersion relation for first baroclinic mode, free Rossby waves in the presence of a mean westward flow. The hypothesis that the intraseasonal variability and its annual cycle are associated with baroclinic instability of the North Equatorial Current is supported by a spatio-temporal correlation between the amplitude of intraseasonal variability and the occurrence of westward zonal flows meeting an approximate necessary condition for baroclinic instability. Focusing on 10°N in the eastern tropical Pacific, the hypothesis that mesoscale oceanic SST variability can systematically influence cloud properties is investigated using several satellite data products. A statistically significant relationship between SST and columnar cloud liquid water (CLW), cloud reflectivity, and surface solar radiation is identified within the wavenumber-frequency band corresponding to oceanic Rossby waves. Analysis of seven years of CLW data and 20 years surface solar radiation data indicates that 10-20% of the variance of these cloud-related properties at intraseasonal periods and wavelengths on the order of 10° longitude can be ascribed to SST signals driven by oceanic Rossby waves.

Description: I gratefully acknowledge support from the following sources: NOAA Grants NA87RJ0445 (2002-2003) and NA17RJ1223 (2005-2006), and an MIT Presidential Fellowship (2000-2001). I also received support from The Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research, a NOAA-WHOI joint institute (NOAA Grant NA17RJ1223).

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution October 1982

Description: Four different problems concerning Gulf Stream Rings are considered. The first deals with the particle trajectories of, and advection-diffusion by, a dynamic model of a Ring. It is found that the streaklines computed from the assumptions that the Ring is a steadily propagating and permanent form structure accurately describe its Lagrangian trajectories. The dispersion field of the Ring produces east-west asymmetries in the streaklines, not contained in earlier kinematic studies, which are consistent with observed surface patterns. In the second problem, we compute the core mixed layer evolution of both warm and cold Rings, and compare them to the background SST, in an effort to explain observed SST cycles of Rings. We demonstrate that warm Rings retain their anomalous surface identity, while cold Rings do not, because of differences in both the local atmospheric states of the Sargasso and the Slope and the typical mixed layer structures appropriate to each. The third and fourth problems concern the forced evolution of Gulf Stream Rings as effected by atmospheric interactions. First, we compute the forced spin down of a Gulf Stream Ring. The variations in surface stress across the Ring necessary to spin it down are caused by the variations in relative air-sea velocity, of which the stress is a quadratric function. From numerical simulations, we find the forced decay rates are comparable to those inferred from Ring observations. In the final problem, it is suggested that a substantial fraction of meridional Ring migration is a forced response, caused by Ring SST and the temperature dependence of stress. The warm central waters of anticyclonic Rings are regions of enhanced stress, producing upwelling to the north, and downwelling to the south, which shifts the Ring to the south. A similar, southward shift is computed for cyclonic Rings with cold centers, which tends to reconcile their numerically computed propagation with observations.

Description: The present research has been conducted under NOAA contract # NA80AA-D-0057 and NSF contract II OCE-8240455

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2010

Description: Wind waves in the ocean are a product of complex interaction of turbulent air flow with gravity driven water surface. The coupling is strong and the waves are non-stationary, irregular and highly nonlinear, which restricts the ability of traditional phase averaged models to simulate their complex dynamics. We develop a novel phase resolving model for direct simulation of nonlinear broadband wind waves based on the High Order Spectral (HOS) method (Dommermuth and Yue 1987). The original HOS method, which is a nonlinear pseudo-spectral numerical technique for phase resolving simulation of free regular waves, is extended to simulation of wind forced irregular broadband wave fields. Wind forcing is modeled phenomenologically in a linearized framework of weakly interacting spectral components of the wave field. The mechanism of wind forcing is assumed to be primarily form drag acting on the surface through wave-induced distribution of normal stress. The mechanism is parameterized in terms of wave age and its magnitude is adjusted by the observed growth rates. Linear formulation of the forcing is adopted and applied directly to the nonlinear evolution equations. Development of realistic nonlinear wind wave simulation with HOS method required its extension to broadband irregular wave fields. Another challenge was application of the conservative HOS technique to the intermittent non-conservative dynamics of wind waves. These challenges encountered the fundamental limitations of the original method. Apparent deterioration of wind forced simulations and their inevitable crash raised concerns regarding the validity of the proposed modeling approach. The major question involved application of the original HOS low-pass filtering technique to account for the effect of wave breaking. It was found that growing wind waves break more frequently and violently than free waves. Stronger filtering was required for stabilization of wind wave simulations for duration on the time scale of observed ocean evolution. Successful simulations were produced only after significant sacrifice of resolution bandwidth. Despite the difficulties our modeling approach appears to suffice for reproduction of the essential physics of nonlinear wind waves. Phase resolving simulations are shown to capture both - the characteristic irregularity and the observed similarity that emerges from the chaotic motions. Energy growth and frequency downshift satisfy duration limited evolution parameterizations and asymptote Toba similarity law. Our simulations resolve the detailed kinematics and the nonlinear energetics of swell, windsea and their fast transition under wind forcing. We explain the difference between measurements of initial growth driven by a linear instability mechanism and the balanced nonlinear growth. The simulations validate Toba hypothesis of wind-wave nonlinear quasi-equilibrium and confirm its function as a universal bound on combined windsea and swell evolution under steady wind.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1551-1573, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4152.1.

Description: A conceptually simple model is presented for predicting the amplitude and periodicity of eddies generated by a steady poleward outflow in a 1½-layer β-plane formulation. The prediction model is rooted in linear quasigeostrophic dynamics but is capable of predicting the amplitude of the β plume generated by outflows in the nonlinear range. Oscillations in the plume amplitude are seen to represent a near-zero group velocity response to an adjustment process that can be traced back to linear dynamics. When the plume-amplitude oscillations become large enough so that the coherent β plume is replaced by a robust eddy field, the eddy amplitude is still constrained by the plume-amplitude prediction model. The eddy periodicity remains close to that of the predictable, near-zero group-velocity linear oscillations. Striking similarities between the patterns of variability in the model and observations south of Indonesia’s Lombok Strait suggest that the processes investigated in this study may play an important role in the generation of the observed eddy field of the Indo-Australian Basin.

Description: This work was completed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution while TS Durland was supported by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute. MA Spall was supported by NSF Grant OCE-0423975 and J Pedlosky by NSF Grant OCE-0451086. TS Durland acknowledges additional report preparation support from NASA Grant NNG05GN98G.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 2000

Description: The plausibility of local baroclinic instability as a generation mechanism for midocean mesoscale eddies is examined with a two-layer, quasi-geostrophic (QG) model forced by an imposed, horizontally homogeneous, vertically sheared mean flow and dissipated through bottom Ekman friction, Explanations are sought for two observed features of mid-ocean eddies: 1) substantial energy is retained in the baroclinic mode and in the associated deformation radius (Rd) scale, and 2) the ratio of eddy to mean kinetic energy is much larger than one, The tendency of QG to cascade energy into the barotropic mode and into scales larger than Rd can be counteracted when stratification is surface-trapped, for then the baroclinic mode is weakly damped, and hence enhanced, Numerical experiments are performed with both surface-trapped and uniform stratification to quantify this, Experiments with equal Ekman frictions in the two layers are also performed for purposes of contrast, Interpretation is aided with an inequality derived from the energy and enstrophy equations, The inequality forbids the simultaneous retention of substantial energy in the baroclinic mode and in scales near Rd when Ekman friction is symmetric, but points towards surface-trapped stratification and bottomtrapped friction as an environment in which both of these can be achieved, The dissertation also contains a systematic study of geostrophic turbulence forced by nonzonal flows, Narrow zonal jets emerge when shear-induced mean potential vorticity (PV) gradients are small compared to the planetary gradient (β), and energy is a strong function of the angle shear presents to the east-west direction, When shear-induced PV gradients are comparable to β, and the mean shear has a westward component, fields of monopolar vortices form and persist, Energy is asymmetric between fields of cyclones and anticyclones, Such asymmetry was commonly thought not to occur in QG, but is shown here to be introduced by the nonzonal basic state, In both jet and vortex regimes, eddy energy can be much larger than mean kinetic energy, contrary to the expectation that β stabilizes weak shear flows,

Description: My first three years here were funded by an Office of Naval Research/National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship administered by Jeff Jarocz at the American Society for Engineering Education. During the last three years, most of my support has come the National Science Foundation via grant OCE-9617848, with some additional support coming from the Office of Naval Research via grant N00014-95-1-0824.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2012

Description: The purpose of this study is to understand the interactions of tropical cyclones with ocean eddies. In particular we examine the influence of a cold-core eddy on the cold wake formed during the passage of Typhoon Fanapi (2010). The three-dimensional version of the numerical Price–Weller–Pinkel (PWP) vertical mixing model has previously been used to simulate and study the cold wakes of Atlantic hurricanes. The model has not been used in comparison with observations of typhoons in the Western Pacific Ocean. In 2010 several typhoons were studied during the Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) field campaign and Fanapi was particularly well observed. We use these observations and the 3DPWP to understand the ocean cold wake generated by Fanapi. The cold wake of Fanapi was advected by a cyclonic eddy that was south of the typhoon track. The 3DPWP model outputs with and without an eddy are compared with observations made during the field campaign. These observations are compared to model outputs with eddies in a series of positions right and left of the storm track in order to study effects of mesoscale eddies on ocean vertical mixing in the cold wake of typhoons.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2012

Description: This thesis focuses on ocean circulation and atmospheric forcing in the Atlantic Ocean at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 18-21 thousand years before present). Relative to the pre-industrial climate, LGM atmospheric CO2 concentrations were about 90 ppm lower, ice sheets were much more extensive, and many regions experienced significantly colder temperatures. In this thesis a novel approach to dynamical reconstruction is applied to make estimates of LGM Atlantic Ocean state that are consistent with these proxy records and with known ocean dynamics. Ocean dynamics are described with the MIT General Circulation Model in an Atlantic configuration extending from 35°S to 75°N at 1° resolution. Six LGM proxy types are used to constrain the model: four compilations of near sea surface temperatures from the MARGO project, as well as benthic isotope records of δ18O and δ13C compiled byMarchal and Curry; 629 individual proxy records are used. To improve the fit of the model to the data, a least-squares fit is computed using an algorithm based on the model adjoint (the Lagrange multiplier methodology). The adjoint is used to compute improvements to uncertain initial and boundary conditions (the control variables). As compared to previous model-data syntheses of LGM ocean state, this thesis uses a significantly more realistic model of oceanic physics, and is the first to incorporate such a large number and diversity of proxy records. A major finding is that it is possible to find an ocean state that is consistent with all six LGM proxy compilations and with known ocean dynamics, given reasonable uncertainty estimates. Only relatively modest shifts from modern atmospheric forcing are required to fit the LGM data. The estimates presented herein successfully reproduce regional shifts in conditions at the LGM that have been inferred from proxy records, but which have not been captured in the best available LGM coupled model simulations. In addition, LGM benthic δ18O and δ13C records are shown to be consistent with a shallow but robust Atlantic meridional overturning cell, although other circulations cannot be excluded.

Description: Primary support was provided by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and two National Science Foundation awards: Award #OCE-0645936: “Beyond the Instrumental Record: the Case of Circulation at the Last Glacial Maximum” and Award #OCE-1060735: “Collaborative Research: Beyond the Instrumental Record - the Ocean Circulation at the Last Glacial Maximum and the de-Glacial Sequence”. Important secondary support came from the National Ocean Partnership Program and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration via the ECCO effort at MIT.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2014

Description: Recent work has documented dramatic changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) over the past 30 years (e.g., mass loss, glacier acceleration, surface warming) due largely to the influence of the marine environment. WAIS is particularly vulnerable to largescale atmospheric dynamics that remotely influence the transport of marine aerosols to the ice sheet. Understanding seasonal- to decadal-scale changes in the marine influence on WAIS (particularly sea-ice concentration) is vital to our ability to predict future change. In this thesis, I develop tools that enable us to reconstruct the source and transport variability of marine aerosols to West Antarctica in the past. I validate new firn-core sea-ice proxies over the satellite era; results indicate that firn-core glaciochemical records from this dynamic region may provide a proxy for reconstructing Amundsen Sea and Pine Island Bay polynya variability prior to the satellite era. I next investigate the remote influence of tropical Pacific variability on marine aerosol transport to West Antarctica. Results illustrate that both source and transport of marine aerosols to West Antarctica are controlled by remote atmospheric forcing, linking local dynamics (e.g., katabatic winds) with large-scale teleconnections to the tropics (e.g., Rossby waves). Oxygen isotope records allow me to further investigate the relationship between West Antarctic firn-core records and temperature, precipitation origin, sea-ice variability, and large-scale atmospheric circulation. I show that the tropical Pacific remotely influences the source and transport of the isotopic signal to the coastal ice sheet. The regional firn-core array reveals a spatially varying response to remote tropical Pacific forcing. Finally, I investigate longer-term (~200 year) ocean and ice-sheet changes using the methods and results gleaned from the previous work. I utilize sea-ice proxies to reconstruct long-term changes in sea-ice and polynya variability in the Amundsen Sea, and show that the tropics remotely influence West Antarctica over decadal timescales. This thesis utilizes some of the highest-resolution, most coastal records in the region to date, and provides some of the first analyses of the seasonal- to decadal-scale controls on source and transport of marine aerosols to West Antarctica.

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, and by grants from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (NSF-OPP; #ANT-0632031 & #ANT-0631973), the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program (NSF-MRI; #EAR-1126217), the NASA Cryosphere Program (#NNX10AP09G), and a WHOI Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award for Innovative Research.

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): 229–245, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0218.1.

Description: Data from a mooring deployed at the edge of the East Greenland shelf south of Denmark Strait from September 2007 to October 2008 are analyzed to investigate the processes by which dense water is transferred off the shelf. It is found that water denser than 27.7 kg m−3—as dense as water previously attributed to the adjacent East Greenland Spill Jet—resides near the bottom of the shelf for most of the year with no discernible seasonality. The mean velocity in the central part of the water column is directed along the isobaths, while the deep flow is bottom intensified and veers offshore. Two mechanisms for driving dense spilling events are investigated, one due to offshore forcing and the other associated with wind forcing. Denmark Strait cyclones propagating southward along the continental slope are shown to drive off-shelf flow at their leading edges and are responsible for much of the triggering of individual spilling events. Northerly barrier winds also force spilling. Local winds generate an Ekman downwelling cell. Nonlocal winds also excite spilling, which is hypothesized to be the result of southward-propagating coastally trapped waves, although definitive confirmation is still required. The combined effect of the eddies and barrier winds results in the strongest spilling events, while in the absence of winds a train of eddies causes enhanced spilling.

Description: The authors wish to thank Paula Fratantoni, Frank Bahr, and Dan Torres for processing the mooring data. The mooring array was capably deployed by the crew of the R/V Arni Fridriksson and recovered by the crew of the R/V Knorr. We thank Hedinn Valdimarsson for his assistance in the field work. Ken Brink provided valuable insights regarding the dynamics of shelf waves. Funding for the study was provided by National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0722694, the Arctic Research Initiative of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We also wish to thank the Natural Environment Research Council for Ph.D. studentship funding, and the University of East Anglia’s Roberts Fund and Royal Meteorological Society for supporting travel for collaboration.

Description: 2014-07-01

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): 1822–1842, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0147.1.

Description: Influences of time-dependent precipitation on water mass transformation and heat budgets in an idealized marginal sea are examined using theoretical and numerical models. The equations proposed by Spall in 2012 are extended to cases with time-dependent precipitation whose form is either a step function or a sinusoidal function. The theory predicts the differences in temperature and salinity between the convective water and the boundary current as well as the magnitudes of heat fluxes into the marginal sea and across the sea surface. Moreover, the theory reveals that there are three inherent time scales: relaxation time scales for temperature and salinity and a precipitation time scale. The relaxation time scales are determined by a steady solution of the theoretical model with steady precipitation. The relaxation time scale for temperature is always smaller than that for salinity as a result of not only the difference in the form of fluxes at the surface but also the variation in the eddy transport from the boundary current. These three time scales and the precipitation amplitude determine the strength of the ocean response to changes in precipitation and the phase relation between precipitation, changes in salinity and temperature, and changes in heat fluxes. It is demonstrated that the theoretical predictions agree qualitatively well with results from the eddy-resolving numerical model. This demonstrates the fundamental role of mesoscale eddies in the ocean response to time-dependent forcing and provides a framework with which to assess the extent to which observed variability in marginal sea convection and water mass transformation are consistent with an external forcing by variations in precipitation.

Description: This work was initiated at the 2013 WHOI Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Program, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. This work was also supported by Grant-in-Aid for Research Fellow (25·8466) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEXT), Japan, the Program for Leading Graduate Schools, MEXT, Japan (YY), and by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1232389 (MAS).

Description: 2016-01-01

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2016

Description: Eddies in the ocean move westwards. Those shed by western boundary currents must then interact with continental shelf-slope topography at the western boundary. The presence of other eddies and mean lows complicates this simple picture, yet satellite images show that mesoscale eddies translating near the shelfbreak routinely affect the continental shelves of the Mid-Atlantic Bight, the Gulf of Mexico etc. The consequent cross-shelfbreak transports are currently of unknown importance to shelf budgets of heat, salt and volume. Thus motivated, this thesis uses idealized continuously stratified numerical experiments to explore eddy-slope interactions under four questions: 1. Can the continental slope prevent an eddy from reaching the shelfbreak? 2. What is the structure of the eddy-driven offshore low? 3. How is the continental shelf affected by an eddy at the shelfbreak? 4. Given surface observations, can one estimate the volume of water transported across the shelfbreak? The experiments show that the efficiency of Rossby wave radiation from the eddy controls whether it can cross isobaths: by radiating energy the eddy becomes shallow enough to move into shallower water. For wide continental slopes, relative to an eddy diameter, a slope can prevent an anticyclone from reaching the shelfbreak by shutting down such radiation. For narrow continental slopes, the interaction repeatedly produces dipoles, whose cyclonic halves contain shelf-slope water stacked over eddy water. The formation of such cyclones is explained. Then, the structure of shelf lows forced by the eddy are studied: their vertical structures are rationalized and scalings derived for their cross-isobath scales; for example, the extent to which the eddy influences the shelf. A recipe for estimating cross-isobath transports based on eddy surface properties is put forward. Finally, the findings are tested against observations in the Middle Atlantic Bight of the northeastern United States.

Description: I acknowledge high-performance computing support from Yellowstone (ark:/85065/d7wd3xhc) provided by NCAR’s Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The research presented here was funded by National Science Foundation grants OCE-1059632 and OCE-1433953. Funding support from the Academic Programs Oice, WHOI is also gratefully acknowledged.

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): 773-794, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0205.1.

Description: Fourteen autonomous profiling floats, equipped with CTDs, were deployed in the deep eastern and western basins of the Gulf of Mexico over a four-year interval (July 2011–August 2015), producing a total of 706 casts. This is the first time since the early 1970s that there has been a comprehensive survey of water masses in the deep basins of the Gulf, with better vertical resolution than available from older ship-based surveys. Seven floats had 14-day cycles with parking depths of 1500 m, and the other half from the U.S. Argo program had varying cycle times. Maps of characteristic water masses, including Subtropical Underwater, Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), and North Atlantic Deep Water, showed gradients from east to west, consistent with their sources being within the Loop Current (LC) and the Yucatan Channel waters. Altimeter SSH was used to characterize profiles being in LC or LC eddy water or in cold eddies. The two-layer nature of the deep Gulf shows isotherms being deeper in the warm anticyclonic LC and LC eddies and shallower in the cold cyclones. Mixed layer depths have an average seasonal signal that shows maximum depths (~60 m) in January and a minimum in June–July (~20 m). Basin-mean steric heights from 0–50-m dynamic heights and altimeter SSH show a seasonal range of ~12 cm, with significant interannual variability. The translation of LC eddies across the western basin produces a region of low homogeneous potential vorticity centered over the deepest part of the western basin.

Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M08PC20043 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina.

Description: 2018-10-04

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1980

Description: The existence of resonant, baroclinic, equatorially-trapped inertia-gravity waves (discovered by Wunsch and Gill (1976)) is confirmed in the mid-Pacific by spectral analysis of long sea level records. The energy of the low-mode inertia-gravity waves is found to decrease toward the meridional boundaries. A simple spectral model, acknowledging the dispersive characteristics of the equatorial waves, adequately reproduces the observed mid-Pacific sea level spectra in the 1-6 day band. Model spectra computed at latitudes outside the equatorial waveguide of the gravest meridional modes suggest the presence of "inertial" peaks in several observed sea level spectra. Resonant, low-mode inertia-gravity waves may also exist in the Indian Ocean. Sea level fluctuations along the Pacific equator are found to have Kelvin wave characteristics in the 35-80 day band, and, in particular, propagation from the western Pacific to the coast of South America is observed. The Kelvin waves are atmospherically-forced in the central- western Pacific and have a computed equivalent depth corresponding to the first-baroc1inic mode. Outside of the equatorial mid-Pacific, a non-static ocean response to air pressure in the 4-6 day band is dominated by a basin-wide, barotropic, planetary mode. The low Q of this mode suggests that the ocean is viscous with respect to large-scale barotropic oscillations. The dynamical components of the observed long-period tides have been isolated for the first time using the "self-consistent" equilibrium tide of Agnew and Farrell (1978). The tides are slightly non-equilibrium with large horizontal scales. The relatively short-scale Rossby modes predicted by Wunsch (1967) are not observed, perhaps because of the poor spatial coverage of the dataset. Considering the low Q of the 4-6 day planetary basin mode, it is suggested that the long-period tides are frictionally-controlled. The 4- and 5-day equatorial inertia-gravity waves, the 35-80 day Kelvin waves and the 4-6 day planetary basin mode are clearly atmospherically forced, and, perhaps surprisingly, they are forced by atmospheric waves that have similar horizontal structures, i.e., 4-5 day Rossby-gravity waves, 40-50 day Kelvin waves and a 5-day global barotropic mode. The surface expressions of these atmospheric waves are determined in order to understand the nature of the oceanic response, e.g., resonant or forced. Much of the information about the surface atmospheric fields that has been collected, including frequency-wavenumber descriptions, awaits an accurate model of the coupling between wind stress and internal ocean waves.

Description: Monetary support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation through contract OCE73-0l384. At various times, tuition and living expenses were paid by funds from the NSF contract above, the Office of Naval Research (contract N00014-C-75-029l), the Cecil and Ida Green Professorship in Earth Sciences, the J. P. Luther Educational Fund and by an M.I.T. Educational Tuition Award.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Description: The importance of eddies and nonlinearities in ß-plume dynamics in the deep ocean was investigated using reduced gravity models of the deep ocean forced by a small region of cross isopycnal transport in the interior. The effect of topography on ß-plumes was also examined by placing a Gaussian bump in the forcing region. Despite the fact that the mean flow is weak in the deep ocean interior, it was found that the nonlinearity and instabilities are still important for realistic parameter and forcing values. The flow was dominated by eddies and was remarkably different from what would be expected from a linear solution.

Description: This study was supported by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs Office Fellowship and National Science Foundation Grant 89542700.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007

Description: Observations of current velocity, temperature, salinity and pressure from a 2-year moored array deployment and four hydrographic cruises conducted by the United States Southern Ocean GLOBEC program on the western Antarctic Peninsula continental shelf are used to characterize the ocean circulation and its connection to fresh water and heat fluxes on the shelf. Mean velocities on the shelf are of the order of 5 cm/s or less. Tidal motions are dominated by the M2 and S2 semi-diurnal tides and the O1 and K1 diurnal tides, although the tidal velocities are typically less than 2 cm/s. Near-inertial motions are relatively large, with current velocities as high as 26 cm/s. It is shown that Marguerite Trough, a large bathymetric feature connecting the shelf-break to Marguerite Bay, plays a critical role in determining the circulation. The mean flow is strongly steered in the along-slope direction, and the tidal currents also show increasing current polarization at depth in Marguerite Trough. At timescales of 5 to 20 days, the observations show bottom-intensified motion in Marguerite Trough consistent with bottom-trapped topographic Rossby waves. The subtidal circulation in the trough has a significant wind-driven component in Marguerite Trough, with downwelling-favorable winds forcing cross-shelf flow on the northern side of the trough and along the shore on the outer shelf. Upwelling-favorable winds force roughly the opposite circulation. The cyclonic circulation on the trough helps advect blobs of salty, warm and nutrient-rich water across the shelf. These intrusions are small (≈4 km) and frequent (4 events/month). Also, the Antarctic Peninsula Coastal Current (APCC), a coastal buoyant current which is described for the first time here. The APCC is a seasonal current which is only present during the ice-free season and is forced by freshwater fluxes associated with large glacier melt and precipitation rates in the region.

Description: Thanks goes to the agencies who made this thesis possible: the National Science Foundation Office of Polar programs through U.S. Southern Ocean GLOBEC grants OPP 99-10092 and 06-23223, the Chilean government through its Presidential Fellowship program and the Coastal Ocean Institute and the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1996

Description: Nonlinear quasigeostrophic flows in two layers over a topographic slope are considered. The evolution depends on the size of two parameters which indicate the degree of nonlinearity at depth. The first measures the importance of relative vorticity advection and the second of stretching vorticity. Two types of isolated vortex are used to examine the parameter dependence. An initially barotropic vortex remains barotropic only when the first parameter is large, otherwise topographic waves dominate at depth. An Initially surface-trapped vortex larger than deformation scale is baroclinically unstable when the second is large, but is stabilized by the slope otherwise. Both parameters are also relevant to cascading geostrophic turbulence. If the stretching parameter is large, a "barotropic cascade" occurs at the deformation radius (Rhines, 1977) and the cascade "arrests" when the relative vorticity parameter is order unity. If small, layer coupling is hindered and the cascade is arrested at the deformation scale, with the flow dominated by isotropic surface vortices. In both cases, the distinction between vortices and waves is transparent when viewing potential vorticity. It is more difficult to identify waves and vortices from the streamfunction fields, because the waves are present in both layers.

Description: Funding for this research was provided by Office of Naval Research Coastal Science Code, grants N00014-92-J-1643 and N00014-92-J-1528.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2008

Description: This study presents observations of turbulence dynamics made during the low winds portion of the Coupled Boundary Layers and Air-Sea Transfer experiment (CBLAST-Low). Observations were made of turbulent fluxes, turbulent kinetic energy, and the length scales of flux-carrying and energy-containing eddies in the ocean surface boundary layer. A new technique was developed to separate wave and turbulent motions spectrally, using ideas for turbulence spectra that were developed in the study of the bottom boundary layer of the atmosphere. The observations of turbulent fluxes allowed the closing of heat and momentum budgets across the air-sea interface. The observations also show that flux-carrying eddies are similar in size to those expected in rigid-boundary turbulence, but that energy-containing eddies are smaller than those in rigid-boundary turbulence. This suggests that the relationship between turbulent kinetic energy, depth, and turbulent diffusivity are different in the ocean surface boundary layer than in rigid-boundary turbulence. The observations confirm previous speculation that surface wave breaking provides a surface source of turbulent kinetic energy that is transported to depth where it dissipates. A model that includes the effects of shear production, wave breaking and dissipation is able to reproduce the enhancement of turbulent kinetic energy near the wavy ocean surface. However, because of the different length scale relations in the ocean surface boundary layer, the empirical constants in the energy model are different from the values that are used to model rigid-boundary turbulence. The ocean surface boundary layer is observed to have small but finite temperature gradients that are related to the boundary fluxes of heat and momentum, as assumed by closure models. However, the turbulent diffusivity of heat in the surface boundary layer is larger than predicted by rigid-boundary closure models. Including the combined effects of wave breaking, stress, and buoyancy forcing allows a closure model to predict the turbulent diffusivity for heat in the ocean surface boundary layer.

Description: This work was supported by Office of Naval Research grants N00014-00-1-0409, N00014-01-1-0029, and N00014-03-1-0681, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs Office, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration grant NAG5-11933.

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): 2341–2347, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4465.1.

Description: The mean downwelling in an eddy-resolving model of a convective basin is concentrated near the boundary where eddies are shed from the cyclonic boundary current into the interior. It is suggested that the buoyancy-forced downwelling in the Labrador Sea and the Lofoten Basin is similarly concentrated in analogous eddy formation regions along their eastern boundaries. Use of a transformed Eulerian mean depiction of the density transport reveals the central role eddy fluxes play in maintaining the adiabatic nature of the flow in a nonperiodic region where heat is lost from the boundary current. The vorticity balance in the downwelling region is primarily between stretching of planetary vorticity and eddy flux divergence of relative vorticity, although a narrow viscous boundary layer is ultimately important in closing the regional vorticity budget. This overall balance is similar in some ways to the diffusive–viscous balance represented in previous boundary layer theories, and suggests that the downwelling in convective basins may be properly represented in low-resolution climate models if eddy flux parameterizations are adiabatic, identify localized regions of eddy formations, and allow density to be transported far from the region of eddy formations.

Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0726339 and OCE-0850416.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 3162-3175, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4239.1.

Description: This study analyzes anisotropic properties of the material transport by eddies and eddy-driven zonal jets in a general circulation model of the North Atlantic through the analysis of Lagrangian particle trajectories. Spreading rates—defined here as half the rate of change in the particle dispersion—in the zonal direction systematically exceed the meridional rates by an order of magnitude. Area-averaged values for the upper-ocean zonal and meridional spreading rates are approximately 8100 and 1400 m2 s−1, respectively, and in the deep ocean they are 2400 and 200 m2 s−1. The results demonstrate that this anisotropy is mainly due to the action of the transient eddies and not to the shear dispersion associated with the time-mean jets. This property is consistent with the fact that eddies in this study have zonally elongated shapes. With the exception of the upper-ocean subpolar gyre, eddies also cause the superdiffusive zonal spreading, significant variations in the spreading rate in the vertical and meridional directions, and the difference between the westward and eastward spreading.

Description: Funding for IK was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0346178, 0749722, and 0842834. 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. For JP the acknowledgement is to NSF OCE-0451086.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1361-1379, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4096.1.

Description: Multiple zonal jets are observed in satellite data–based estimates of oceanic velocities, float measurements, and high-resolution numerical simulations of the ocean circulation. This study makes a step toward understanding the dynamics of these jets in the real ocean by analyzing the vertical structure and dynamical balances within multiple zonal jets simulated in an eddy-resolving primitive equation model of the North Atlantic. In particular, the authors focus on the role of eddy flux convergences (“eddy forcing”) in supporting the buoyancy and relative/potential vorticity (PV) anomalies associated with the jets. The results suggest a central role of baroclinic eddies in the barotropic and baroclinic dynamics of the jets, and significant differences in the effects of eddy forcing between the subtropical and subpolar gyres. Additionally, diabatic potential vorticity sources and sinks, associated with vertical diffusion, are shown to play an important role in supporting the potential vorticity anomalies. The resulting potential vorticity profile does not resemble a “PV staircase”—a distinct meridional structure observed in some idealized studies of geostrophic turbulence.

Description: Funding for IK was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0346178 and 0749722. 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. For JP the acknowledgement is to NSF OCE-0451086.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 2000

Description: With Lagrangian and hydrographic data taken in the deep Brazil Basin, we identify several submesoscale coherent vortices (SCVs). These features contrast with SCV paradigms in that float data indicate approximately equal populations of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices, and hydrographic data suggest that roughly half exhibit the convex lens shape generally associated with SCVs, while half are instead shaped like a concave lens, with isopycnal surfaces pinched together. There is some evidence that the vortex cores may be enriched in warm, salty North Atlantic Deep Water, suggesting formation in the north or northwest regions of the basin. Data is available from 153 floats which were ballasted for 2500 and 4000 db pressures. They tracked 34 eddies, which are believed to be roughly 30 km in diameter, and rotate with apparent periods of about 30 days. Many floats experienced formation or entrainment events, and destruction or detrainment events, near seamounts.

Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, grants OCE 99-11148 and OCE 94-15509.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2011

Description: Throughout this thesis we will discuss the theoretical background and empirical observation of a swell band shore normal flux divergence reversal. Specifically, we will demonstrate the existence and persistence of the energy flux divergence reversal in the nearshore region of Atchafalaya Bay, Gulf of Mexico, across storms during the March through April 2010 deployment. We will show that the swell band offshore component of energy flux is rather insignificant during the periods of interest, and as such we will neglect it during the ensuing analysis. The data presented will verify that the greatest flux divergence reversal is seen with winds from the East to Southeast, which is consistent with theories which suggest shoreward energy flux as well as estuarine sediment transport and resuspension prior to passage of a cold front. Employing the results of theoretical calculations and numerical modeling we will confirm that a plausible explanation for this phenomena can be found in situations where temporally varying wind input may locally balance or overpower bottom induced dissipation, which may also contravene the hypothesis that dissipation need increase shoreward due to nonlinear wave-wave interactions and maturation of the spectrum. Lastly, we will verify that the data presented is consistent with other measures collected during the same deployment in the Atchafalaya Bay during March - April 2010.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 1998

Description: Efforts to understand the Arctic system have recently focused on the role in local and global circulation of waters from the Arctic shelf seas. In this study, steady-state exchanges between the Arctic shelves and the central basins are estimated using an inverse box model. The model accounts for data uncertainty in the estimates, and quantifies the solution uncertainty. Other features include resolution of the two-basin Arctic hydrographic structure two-way shelf-basin exchange in the surface mixed layer, the capacity for shelfbreak upwelling, and recognition that most inflows enter the Arctic via the shelves. Aggregate estimates of all fluxes across the Arctic boundary, with their uncertainties, are generated from flux estimates published between 1975 and 1997. From the aggregate estimates, mass-, heat-, and salt-conserving boundary flux estimates are derived, which imply a net flux of water from the shelves to the basins of 1.2±0.4 Sv. Due primarily to boundary flux data uncertainty, constraints of mass, heat, and salt conservation alone cannot determine how much shelf-basin exchange occurs via dense overflows, and how much via the surface mixed layer. Adding δ180 constraints, however, greatly reduces the uncertainty. Dense water flux from the shelves to the basins is necessary for maintaining steady state, but shelfbreak upwelling is not required. Proper representation of external sources feeding the shelves, rather than the basins, is important to obtain the full range of plausible steady solutions. Implications of the results for the study of Arctic change are discussed.

Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant OPP-9422292 as part of the Arctic System Science ARCSS program, administered by the Office of Polar Programs.

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): 1182–1208, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4564.1.

Description: The authors use data collected by a line of tall current meter moorings deployed across the axis of the Kuroshio Extension (KE) jet at the location of maximum time-mean eddy kinetic energy to characterize the mean jet structure, the eddy variability, and the nature of eddy–mean flow interactions observed during the Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS). A picture of the 2-yr record mean jet structure is presented in both geographical and stream coordinates, revealing important contrasts in jet strength, width, vertical structure, and flanking recirculation structure. Eddy variability observed is discussed in the context of some of its various sources: jet meandering, rings, waves, and jet instability. Finally, various scenarios for eddy–mean flow interaction consistent with the observations are explored. It is shown that the observed cross-jet distributions of Reynolds stresses at the KESS location are consistent with wave radiation away from the jet, with the sense of the eddy feedback effect on the mean consistent with eddy driving of the observed recirculations. The authors consider these results in the context of a broader description of eddy–mean flow interactions in the larger KE region using KESS data in combination with in situ measurements from past programs in the region and satellite altimetry. This demonstrates important consistencies in the along-stream development of time-mean and eddy properties in the KE with features of an idealized model of a western boundary current (WBC) jet used to understand the nature and importance of eddy–mean flow interactions in WBC jet systems.

Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation funding for the KESS program under Grants OCE-0220161 (SW, NGH, and SRJ), OCE- 0825550 (SW), OCE-0850744 (NGH), and OCE-0849808 (SRJ). SW was also supported by the MIT Presidential Fellowship. The financial assistance of the Houghton Fund, the MIT Student Assistance Fund, and WHOI Academic Programs is also gratefully acknowledged.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1999

Description: A state-of-the-art, high-resolution ocean general circulation model is used to estimate the time-dependent global ocean heat transport and investigate its dynamics. The north-south heat transport is the prime manifestation of the ocean’s role in global climate, but understanding of its variability has been fragmentary owing to uncertainties in observational analyses, limitations in models, and the lack of a convincing mechanism. These issues are addressed in this thesis. Technical problems associated with the forcing and sampling of the model, and the impact of high-frequency motions are discussed. Numerical schemes are suggested to remove the inertial energy to prevent aliasing when the model fields are stored for later analysis. Globally, the cross-equatorial, seasonal heat transport fluctuations are close to +4.5 x 1015 watts, the same amplitude as the seasonal, cross-equatorial atmospheric energy transport. The variability is concentrated within 200 of the equator and dominated by the annual cycle. The majority of it is due to wind-induced current fluctuations in which the time-varying wind drives Ekman layer mass transports that are compensated by depth-independent return flows. The temperature difference between the mass transports gives rise to the time-dependent heat transport. The rectified eddy heat transport is calculated from the model. It is weak in the central gyres, and strong in the western boundary currents, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and the equatorial region. It is largely confined to the upper 1000 meters of the ocean. The rotational component of the eddy heat transport is strong in the oceanic jets, while the divergent component is strongest in the equatorial region and Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The method of estimating the eddy heat transport from an eddy diffusivity derived from mixing length arguments and altimetry data, and the climatological temperature field, is tested and shown not to reproduce the model’s directly evaluated eddy heat transport. Possible reasons for the discrepancy are explored.

Description: Funding for this research came from the Department of Defense under a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. Financial support was also contributed by the National Science Foundation through grants #OCE-9617570 and #OCE-9730071, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company through the TEPCO/MIT Environmental Research Program. The author received partial support from an MIT Climate Modeling Fellowship, made possible by a gift from the American Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1993

Description: The dynamical aspects involved in the assimilation of altimeter data in a numerical ocean model have been investigated. The model used for this study is a quasi-geostrophic model of the Gulf Stream region. The data that have been assimilated are maps of sea surface height which have been obtained as the superposition of sea surface height variability deduced from the Geosat altimeter measurements and a mean field constructed from historical hydrographic data. The method used for assimilating the data is the nudging technique. Nudging has been implemented in such a way as to achieve a high degree of convergence of the surface model fields toward the observations. We have analyzed the mechanisms of the model adjustment, and the final statistical equilibrium characteristics of the model simulation when the surface data are assimilated. Since the surface data are the superposition of a mean component and an eddy component, in order to understand the relative role of these two components in determining the characteristics of the final st atistical steady state, we have considered two different experiments: in the first experiment only the climatological mean field is assimilated, while in the second experiment the total surface streamfunction field (mean + eddies) has been used. We have found that the mean component of the surface data determines, to a large extent, the structure of the flow field in the subsurface layers, while the eddy field, as well as the inflow/outflow conditions at the open boundaries, affect its intensity. In particular, if surface eddies are not assimilated only a weak flow develops in the two deeper model layers where no inflow/ outflow is prescribed at the boundaries. Comparisons of the assimilation results with available in situ observations show a considerable improvement in the degree of realism of the climatological model behavior, with respect to the model in which no data are assimilated. In particular, the possibility of building into the model more realistic eddy characteristics, through the assimilation of the surface eddy field, proves very successful in driving components of the mean model circulation that are in good agreement with the available observations.

Description: This research was carried out with the support of the National Aeronaut ics Space Administration, through a contract to MIT from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, # 958208, as a part of the TOPEX-Poseidon investigation.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution November 1992

Description: Cosmogeruc P-32 (14.28 days) and P-33 (25.3 days) are powerful tracers of upper ocean P cycling, when coupled with time-series of the atmospheric sources. A method was developed to determine the low-level beta activities in rainwater and plankton. The wet deposition rates of P-32 and P-33 were determined during 12 months at a marine site, at Bermuda, coinciding with measurements of the activities and activity ratio P-33/P-32 in suspended particles and plankton tows at BATS station. The in situ production rates of radiophosphorus in the upper ocean were estimated by measuring the activities induced in Cl, K and S targets by cosmic rays. Knowledge of all the sources of radiophosphorus to the Sargasso Sea allowed the cycling of P-32 and P-33 in suspended particles and macrozooplankton to be studied. The study was based on the determination of the activity ratio P-33/P-32 in different particulate pools. The activity ratio was higher in particle collections dominated by higher levels in the food web. The increase in the ratio in plankton relative to rain allowed the determination of the turnover times of P in plankton and in situ grazing rates.

Description: Funding for this research was provided by NSF (grants OCE-8800957. OCE- 8817836 and OCE-902284), DOE (grant DE-FG02-88ER60681), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Ocean Venture Funding of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scurlock Funds of Mr Arch Scurlock to MIT/WHOI Joint Program.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1994

Description: In this work we study motion of a baroclinic upper-ocean eddy over a large-scale topography which simulates a continental slope. We use a quasigeostrophic f-plane approximation with continuous stratification. To study this problem we develop a new numerical technique which we call "semi-lagrangian contour dynamics". This technique resembles the traditional 2-D contour dynamics method but differs significantly from it in the numerical algorithm. In addition to "Lagrangian" moving contours it includes an underlying "Eulerian" regular grid to which vorticity or density fields are interpolated. To study topographic interactions in a continuously stratified model we use density contours at the bottom in a similar manner as vorticity contours are used in the standard contour dynamics. For the case of a localized upper-ocean vortex moving over a sloping bottom the problem becomes computationally 2-dimensional (we need to follow only bottom density contours and the position of the vortex itself) although the physical domain is still 3-dimensional. Results of the numerical model lndicate importance of baroclinic effects in the vortex-topography interaction. After the initial surge of topographic Rossby waves a vortex moves almost steadily due to the interaction with a bottom density anomaly which is created and supported by a vortex itself. This anomaly is equivalent to a region of opposite-signed vorticity with a total circulation exactly compensating that of a vortex. This results in a vertically aligned dipolar structure with the total barotropic component equal to zero. Analytical considerations explaining this effect are presented and formulated in a more general statement which resembles but does not coincide with the "zero angular momentum theorem" of Flierl, Stern and Whitehead, 1983. In such steady translation the centroid of a bottom density anomaly is displaced horizon tally from the center of an upper-ocean vortex so the whole system moves due to this misalignment, which is known as a "he tonic mechanism". Cyclonic vortices go generally upslope, and anticyclones - in a downslope direction. The along-slope component of their motion depends upon the strength of a vortex, curvature of the bottom slope and background flows. When surrounded by a bowl-shaped topography anticyclonic vortices tend to stay near the deepest center of a basin, even resisting ambient flows which advect them outward. Application of this results to various oceanic examples (particularly to the "Shikmona eddy" in the Eastern Meditenanian) is discussed. Our results show that the behavior of a vortex over a sloping bottom differs significantly from its motion on the planetary beta-plane (but with a flat bottom). To explain this difference we introduce the concept of a "wave-breaking regime" relevant for the case of a planetary beta-effect, and a "wave-gliding regime" which characterizes the interaction of an eddy with a topographic slope.

Description: This work was supported by the NSF grant #OCE 90-12821.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2013

Description: Efforts to monitor the ocean for signs of climate change are hampered by ever-present noise, in the form of stochastic ocean variability, and detailed knowledge of the character of this noise is necessary for estimating the significance of apparent trends. Typically, uncertainty estimates are made by a variety of ad hoc methods, often based on numerical model results or the variability of the data set being analyzed. We provide a systematic approach based on the four-dimensional frequency-wavenumber spectrum of low-frequency ocean variability. This thesis presents an empirical model of the spectrum of ocean variability for periods between about 20 days and 15 years and wavelengths of about 200{10,000 km, and describes applications to ocean circulation trend detection, observing system design, and satellite data processing. The horizontal wavenumber-frequency part of the model spectrum is based on satellite altimetry, current meter data, moored temperature records, and shipboard ADCP data. The spectrum is dominated by motions along a "nondispersive line". The observations considered are consistent with a universal ω-2 power law at the high end of the frequency range, but inconsistent with a universal wavenumber power law. The model spectrum is globally varying and accounts for changes in dominant phase speed, period, and wavelength with location. The vertical structure of the model spectrum is based on numerical model results, current meter data, and theoretical considerations. We find that the vertical structure of kinetic energy is surface intensified relative to the simplest theoretical predictions. We present a theory for the interaction of linear Rossby waves with rough topography; rough topography can explain both the observed phase speeds and vertical structure of variability. The improved description of low-frequency ocean variability presented here will serve as a useful tool for future oceanographic studies.

Description: This research was supported by NASA under grants NNG06GC28G and NNX08AR33G.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1997

Description: The unusual twice-yearly cycle of mixed layer deepening and cooling driven by the monsoon is analyzed using a recently collected (1994-95) dataset of concurrent local air-sea fluxes and upper ocean dynamics from the Arabian Sea. The winter northeast monsoon has moderate wind forcing and a strongly destabilizing surface buoyancy flux, driven by large radiative and latent heat losses at the sea surface. Convective entrainment is the primary local mechanism driving the observed mixed layer cooling and deepening, although horizontal advection of thermocline depth variations affect the depth which the mixed layer attains. Modifications of a one-dimensional mixed layer model and heat balance show that the primary nonlocal forcing of the upper ocean is the horizontal advection of temperature gradients below the mixed layer base. The summer southwest monsoon has strong wind stresses and a neutral to stabilizing surface buoyancy flux, limited by the extreme humidity of the atmosphere, which suppresses both the radiative and latent heat losses at the surface. Wind-driven shear instabilities at the base of the mixed layer, which entrain cooler and fresher water primarily produces the observed mixed layer cooling and deepening. Horizontal advection of cooler water within the mixed layer influences the local heat balance at the mooring site. Ekman pumping velocities play only a small role in the upper ocean evolution during both monsoon seasons.

Description: This research was funded by ONR grant N00014-94- 1-0161, and I was supported during this time by a generous NDSEG fellowship.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1992

Description: A basin-scale acoustic tomography experiment was conducted in the northeast Pacific from May 1987 to September 1987. In this thesis, the stability of the forward model is analyzed. There are large non-linearities in the changes in travel time between ray paths for the four seasons . I constructed a model in which the change in warming in the upper 100 m of the ocean was due only to changes in surface solar irradiance. The value of the surface solar irradiance anomalies necessary to cause the tomography results for warming (Spiesberger and Metzger, 1991) was computed. This value was larger than the actual value of surface solar irradiance anomaly which was computed using inputs measured by satellite (Chertock, 1989).

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1995

Description: Data from fifteen globally distributed, modern, high resolution, hydrographic oceanic transects are combined in an inverse calculation using large scale box models. The models provide estimates of the global meridional heat and freshwater budgets and are used to examine the sensitivity of the global circulation, both inter and intra-basin exchange rates, to a variety of external constraints provided by estimates of Ekman, boundary current and throughflow transports. A solution is found which is consistent with both the model physics and the global data set, despite a twenty five year time span and a lack of seasonal consistency among the data. The overall pattern of the global circulation suggested by the models is similar to that proposed in previously published local studies and regional reviews. However, significant qualitative and quantitative differences exist. These differences are due both to the model definition and to the global nature of the data set. The picture of the global circulation which emerges from the models IS a complex, turbulent flow. When integrated across ocean basins not one, but two major cells emerge. The first connects an Atlantic overturning cell (estimated at 18± 4x 109 kg s- 1) to the Southern Ocean where the Antarctic Circumpolar Current carries lower deep waters to the Indian and Pacific basins where they are converted to upper deep and intermediate waters before returning to the Atlantic. The second cell connects the Pacific and Indian Basins to the north and south of Australia. In t his cell deep waters pass into the Pacific and return within the Indian Basin as intermediate waters after passing through the Indonesian Passages. The two cells are found to be independent of one another, i.e. within the models, the Indonesian Passages do not represent a significant element in a net global circulation. While there is ample evidence of westward flow around the southern tip of South Africa which would support a "warm" water path scenario, the variability of flow in this region, rich with eddies makes hydrography a poor estimator of the relative strengths of the controversial "warm" and "cold" water paths. All existing estimates of Indonesian Passage throughflow, including the smallest (O x 106 m3 s-1) and the largest (20 x 106 m3 s-1), are consistent with the model constraints. When the Pacific- Indian throughflow is not constrained, the model produces an estimate of 11 ± 14x 109 kg s-1. The model heat flux estimates are both significantly different from zero and quite robust to changes in initial assumptions, with the exception of the choice of wind field. Although in this work it was not possible to compute freshwater fluxes which were significantly different from zero, future inclusion of salinity anomaly constraints along with terms describing vertical diffusion may yet make it possible to compute significant freshwater :flux estimates from hydrography.

Description: This research was partially funded by a NASA Global Change Fellowship and was also supported by NASA under contract NAGW-1048 and NSF under contract OCE-9205942.

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): 1611–1626, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0204.1.

Description: A new method is proposed for extrapolating subsurface velocity and density fields from sea surface density and sea surface height (SSH). In this, the surface density is linked to the subsurface fields via the surface quasigeostrophic (SQG) formalism, as proposed in several recent papers. The subsurface field is augmented by the addition of the barotropic and first baroclinic modes, whose amplitudes are determined by matching to the sea surface height (pressure), after subtracting the SQG contribution. An additional constraint is that the bottom pressure anomaly vanishes. The method is tested for three regions in the North Atlantic using data from a high-resolution numerical simulation. The decomposition yields strikingly realistic subsurface fields. It is particularly successful in energetic regions like the Gulf Stream extension and at high latitudes where the mixed layer is deep, but it also works in less energetic eastern subtropics. The demonstration highlights the possibility of reconstructing three-dimensional oceanic flows using a combination of satellite fields, for example, sea surface temperature (SST) and SSH, and sparse (or climatological) estimates of the regional depth-resolved density. The method could be further elaborated to integrate additional subsurface information, such as mooring measurements.

Description: JW and AM were supported by NASA (NNX12AD47G) and NSF (OCE 0928617). JLM was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy under DE-GF0205ER64119. GRF is supported by OCE-0752346 and JHL by NORSEE (Nordic Seas Eddy Exchanges) funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

Description: 2014-02-01

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 118 (2013): 2295–2309, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20175.

Description: A number of studies have posited that coastally generated eddies could cool the southeast Pacific Ocean (SEP) by advecting cool, upwelled waters offshore. We examine this mechanism by characterizing the upper-ocean properties of mesoscale eddies in the SEP with a variety of observations and by estimating the surface-layer eddy heat flux divergence with satellite data. Cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies observed during two cruises featured deep positive salinity anomalies along the 26.5 kg m−3isopycnal, indicating that the eddies had likely trapped and transported coastal waters offshore. The cyclonic eddies observed during the cruises were characterized by shoaling isopycnals in the upper 200 m and cool near-surface temperature anomalies, whereas the upper-ocean structure of anticyclonic eddies was more variable. Using a variety of large-scale observations, including Argo float profiles, drifter records, and satellite sea surface temperature fields, we show that, relative to mean conditions, cyclonic eddies are associated with cooler surface temperatures and that anticyclonic eddies are associated with warmer surface temperatures. Within each data set, the mean eddy surface temperature anomalies are small and of approximately equal magnitude but opposite sign. Eddy statistics drawn from satellite altimetry data reveal that cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies occur with similar frequency and have similar average radii in the SEP. A satellite-based estimate of the surface-layer eddy heat flux divergence, while large in coastal regions, is small when averaged over the SEP, suggesting that eddies do not substantially contribute to cooling the surface layer of the SEP.

Description: This work was supported by NOAA’s Climate Program Office and by NSF Grant OCE-0745508. Microwave OI SST data are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), the NASA Earth Science Physical Oceanography Program, and the NASA MEaSUREs DISCOVER Project.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 28 (2014): 103-114, doi:10.1002/2013GB004652.

Description: A new observational synthesis of diazotrophic biomass and nitrogen fixation provides the opportunity for systematic quantitative evaluation of these aspects in biogeochemical models. One such model of the Atlantic Ocean is scrutinized, and the simulated biomass is found to be an order of magnitude too low. Initial attempts to increase biomass levels through decreasing grazing and other loss terms caused an unrealistic buildup of nitrate in the upper ocean. Two key changes to the model structure facilitated a closer match to the observed biomass and nitrogen fixation rates: addition of a pathway for export of diazotrophically fixed organic material and uptake of inorganic nitrogen by the diazotroph population. These changes, along with a few other revisions to existing model parameterizations, facilitate more accurate simulation of basin-scale distributions of diazotrophic biomass, as well as mesoscale variations contained therein. The resulting solutions suggest that the Trichodesmium spp. populations of the North Atlantic export the vast majority of the nitrogen they fix, a finding that awaits assessment through direct observation.

Description: Support of this research by the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is gratefully acknowledged.

Description: 2014-08-20

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

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): 3263-3278, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0091.1.

Description: The halocline of the Beaufort Gyre varies significantly on interannual to decadal time scales, affecting the freshwater content (FWC) of the Arctic Ocean. This study explores the role of eddies in the Ekman-driven gyre variability. Following the transformed Eulerian-mean paradigm, the authors develop a theory that links the FWC variability to the stability of the large-scale gyre, defined as the inverse of its equilibration time. The theory, verified with eddy-resolving numerical simulations, demonstrates that the gyre stability is explicitly controlled by the mesoscale eddy diffusivity. An accurate representation of the halocline dynamics requires the eddy diffusivity of 300 ± 200 m2 s−1, which is lower than what is used in most low-resolution climate models. In particular, on interannual and longer time scales the eddy fluxes and the Ekman pumping provide equally important contributions to the FWC variability. However, only large-scale Ekman pumping patterns can significantly alter the FWC, with spatially localized perturbations being an order of magnitude less efficient. Lastly, the authors introduce a novel FWC tendency diagnostic—the Gyre Index—that can be conveniently calculated using observations located only along the gyre boundaries. Its strong predictive capabilities, assessed in the eddy-resolving model forced by stochastic winds, suggest that the Gyre Index would be of use in interpreting FWC evolution in observations as well as in numerical models.

Description: GEMacknowledges the support from theHowland Postdoctoral Program Fund at WHOI and the Stanback Fellowship Fund at Caltech.MAS was supported by NSF Grants PLR-1415489 and OCE-1232389. AFT acknowledges support from NASA Award NNN12AA01C.

Description: 2017-04-20

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 43 (2016): 8106–8114, doi:10.1002/2016GL069671.

Description: The eddy field across the Arctic Ocean's Canada Basin is analyzed using Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) and moored measurements of temperature, salinity, and velocity spanning 2005 to 2015. ITPs encountered 243 eddies, 98% of which were anticyclones, with approximately 70% of these having anomalously cold cores. The spatially and temporally varying eddy field is analyzed accounting for sampling biases in the unevenly distributed ITP data and caveats in detection methods. The highest concentration of eddies was found in the western and southern portions of the basin, close to topographic margins and boundaries of the Beaufort Gyre. The number of lower halocline eddies approximately doubled from 2005–2012 to 2013–2014. The increased eddy density suggests more active baroclinic instability of the Beaufort Gyre that releases available potential energy to balance the wind energy input; this may stabilize the Gyre spin-up and associated freshwater increase.

Description: National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs Grant Number: 1350046

Description: 2017-02-03

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2018

Description: Highly migratory marine fishes support valuable commercial fisheries worldwide. Yet, many target species have proven difficult to study due to long-distance migrations and regular deep diving. Despite the dominance of oceanographic features, such as fronts and eddies, in the open ocean, the biophysical interactions occurring at the oceanic (sub)mesoscale (〈 100 km) remain poorly understood. This leads to a paucity of knowledge on oceanographic associations of pelagic fishes and hinders management efforts. With ever-improving oceanographic datasets and modeling outputs, we can leverage these tools both to derive better estimates of animal movements and to quantify fish-environment interactions. In this thesis, I developed analytical tools to characterize the biophysical interactions influencing animal behavior and species’ ecology in the open ocean. A novel, observation-based likelihood framework was combined with a Bayesian state-space model to improve geolocation estimates for archival-tagged fishes using oceanographic profile data. Using this approach, I constructed track estimates for a large basking shark tag dataset using a high-resolution oceanographic model and discovered a wide range of movement strategies. I also applied this modeling approach to track archival-tagged swordfish, which revealed affinity for thermal front and eddy habitats throughout the North Atlantic that was further corroborated by synthesizing these results with a fisheries-dependent conventional tag dataset. An additive modeling approach applied to longline catch-per-unit effort data further highlighted the biophysical interactions that characterize variability in swordfish catch. In the final chapter, I designed a synergistic analysis of high-resolution, 3D shark movements and satellite observations to quantify the influence of mesoscale oceanography on blue shark movements and behavior. This work demonstrated the importance of eddies in structuring the pelagic ocean by influencing the movements of an apex predator and governing the connectivity between deep scattering layer communities and deep-diving, epipelagic predators. Together, these studies demonstrate the breadth and depth of information that can be garnered through the integration of traditional animal tagging and oceanographic research with cutting-edge analytical approaches and high-resolution oceanographic model and remote sensing datasets, the product of which provides a transformative view of the biophysical interactions occurring in and governing the structure of the pelagic ocean.

Description: Supported by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, the MIT John S. Hennessy Fellowship, the MIT Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability Fellowship, the WHOI Ocean Venture, Grassle, and James Stratton Fellowships and the WHOI Academic Programs Office. This research and its dissemination was supported by funds from National Geographic, Amazon Web Services, the Explorers Club, Rolex, Sigma Xi, the MIT Center for International Studies, WHOI Access to the Sea and Coastal Ocean Institute Funds, MIT Graduate Student Council, MIT Student Assistance Fund, WHOI Biology Department, American Fisheries Society, WHOI Academic Programs Office

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

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2004

Description: The uncertainty in the determination of the momentum and scalar fluxes remains one of the main obstacles to accurate numerical forecasts in low to moderate wind conditions. For example, latent heat fluxes computed from data using direct covariance and bulk aerodynamic methods show that there is good agreement in unstable conditions when the latent heat flux values are generally positive. However, the agreement is relatively poor in stable conditions, particularly when the moisture flux is directed downward. If the direct covariance measurements are indeed accurate, then they clearly indicate that the bulk aerodynamic formula overestimate the downward moisture flux in stable conditions. As a result, comparisons of the Dalton number for unstable and stable conditions indicate a marked difference in value between the two stability regimes. Investigations done for this thesis used data taken primarily at the Air-Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT) during the Coupled Boundary Layers and Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) Experiment 2003 from the 20-27 August 2003. Other data from the shore based Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO) and moored buoys in the vicinity of the ASIT were also incorporated. During this eight day period, the boundary layer was often characterized by light winds, a stably stratified surface layer and a swell dominated wave field. Additionally, the advection of warm moist air over cooler water resulted in fog formation and a downward flux of moisture on at least three occasions. Therefore, a primary objective of this thesis is to present a case study to investigate the cause of this shortcoming in the bulk formula under these conditions by examining the physical processes that are unique to these boundary layers. Particular attention will be paid to the behavior of the Dalton number in a stable marine atmospheric boundary layer under foggy conditions using insights derived from the study of fog formation and current flux parameterization methods.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution March 1992

Description: Rotating baroclinic and barotropic boundary currents flowing around a corner in the laboratory were studied in order to discover the circumstances under which eddies were produced at the corner. Such flows are reminiscent of oceanic coastal flows around capes. When the baroclinic currents, which consisted of surface flows bounded by a density front, encountered a sharp corner, immediately downstream of the corner an anticyclone grew in the surface layer for an angle of greater than 40 degrees. Varying the initial condition of the flow or the depth of the lower layer did not noticeably affect the gyre's properties except for its growth speed, which was greater when the lower layer was shallower. The barotropic currents were pumped along a sloping bottom, and also formed anticyclonic gyres which quickly attained an approximately steady state. For a given topography, the size of the gyre was proportional to the inertial radius u/f. Volume flux calculations based on the surface velocity revealed vertical shear which increased with gyre size. Hydraulic models were also applied to flow around gently curving topography to determine the critical separation curvature as a function of upstream parameters.

Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant OCE 89-15408.

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): 2593–2616, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0120.1.

Description: The first direct estimate of the rate at which geostrophic turbulence mixes tracers across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is presented. The estimate is computed from the spreading of a tracer released upstream of Drake Passage as part of the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES). The meridional eddy diffusivity, a measure of the rate at which the area of the tracer spreads along an isopycnal across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, is 710 ± 260 m2 s−1 at 1500-m depth. The estimate is based on an extrapolation of the tracer-based diffusivity using output from numerical tracers released in a one-twentieth of a degree model simulation of the circulation and turbulence in the Drake Passage region. The model is shown to reproduce the observed spreading rate of the DIMES tracer and suggests that the meridional eddy diffusivity is weak in the upper kilometer of the water column with values below 500 m2 s−1 and peaks at the steering level, near 2 km, where the eddy phase speed is equal to the mean flow speed. These vertical variations are not captured by ocean models presently used for climate studies, but they significantly affect the ventilation of different water masses.

Description: NSF support through Awards OCE-1233832, OCE-1232962, and OCE-1048926 is gratefully acknowledged.

Description: 2015-04-01

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(6), (2022): 1091–1110, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0068.1.

Description: Hundreds of full-depth temperature and salinity profiles collected by Deepglider autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the North Atlantic reveal robust signals in eddy isopycnal vertical displacement and horizontal current throughout the entire water column. In separate glider missions southeast of Bermuda, subsurface-intensified cold, fresh coherent vortices were observed with velocities exceeding 20 cm s−1 at depths greater than 1000 m. With vertical resolution on the order of 20 m or less, these full-depth glider slant profiles newly permit estimation of scaled vertical wavenumber spectra from the barotropic through the 40th baroclinic mode. Geostrophic turbulence theory predictions of spectral slopes associated with the forward enstrophy cascade and proportional to inverse wavenumber cubed generally agree with glider-derived quasi-universal spectra of potential and kinetic energy found at a variety of locations distinguished by a wide range of mean surface eddy kinetic energy. Water-column average spectral estimates merge at high vertical mode number to established descriptions of internal wave spectra. Among glider mission sites, geographic and seasonal variability implicate bottom drag as a mechanism for dissipation, but also the need for more persistent sampling of the deep ocean.

Description: This work was funded by NSF Grant 1736217 and would not have been possible without the help of Kirk O’Donnell, James Bennett, Noel Pelland, and all contributors to Deepglider development. We additionally thank the captain crew of the R/V Atlantic Explorer and the BATS team at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, particularly Rod Johnson, as well as Seakeepers International for their professionalism, capability, and generous assistance in deploying and recovering gliders.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2023.

Description: The Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) is a highly productive ecosystem, supporting several economically important commercial fisheries. Chlorophyll enhancement at the MAB shelf-break front has been observed only intermittently, despite numerous studies that suggest persistent upwelling at the front. High resolution cross-frontal transect crossings were collected from three two-week cruises in April 2018, May 2019, and July 2019. Chapter 2 focused on applying a novel method of classifying planktonic images taken by a Video Plankton Recorder to enable processing of the large volumes of data collected with the instrument. Chapter 3 investigated cross-frontal trends by temporally averaging in both Eulerian and frontally-aligned coordinates. For April 2018, transient chlorophyll enhancement was seen at the front in individual transects and within the frontally-aligned mean transect, but not within the Eulerian mean transect. The Eulerian mean for May 2019 showed chlorophyll enhancement as a result of frontal eddies, which were further explored in chapter 4. No frontal enhancement was observed in July 2019. The frontal eddies observed in May 2019 were simulated using an idealized model, which showed that upwelling occurred within both of the frontal eddies, despite having opposite rotational directions. This result was consistent with nutrient enhancement observed within the centers of both eddies. Biological enhancement within each eddy was observed, which may have been a result of advection from source waters and/or a local response to upwelled nutrients. The influence of frontal variability and frontal eddies on nutrients and plankton at the front argues for the necessity for 3-D models to fully explain frontal behavior and its effects on biological responses.

Description: The research in this thesis was supported by the National Science Foundation (OCE-1657803) and the Dalio Foundation. Support from the WHOI Academic Programs Office is gratefully acknowledged.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(9), (2020): 2491-2506, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-20-0056.1.

Description: An idealized two-layer shallow water model is applied to the study of the dynamics of the Arctic Ocean halocline. The model is forced by a surface stress distribution reflective of the observed wind stress pattern and ice motion and by an inflow representing the flow of Pacific Water through Bering Strait. The model reproduces the main elements of the halocline circulation: an anticyclonic Beaufort Gyre in the western basin (representing the Canada Basin), a cyclonic circulation in the eastern basin (representing the Eurasian Basin), and a Transpolar Drift between the two gyres directed from the upwind side of the basin to the downwind side of the basin. Analysis of the potential vorticity budget shows a basin-averaged balance primarily between potential vorticity input at the surface and dissipation at the lateral boundaries. However, advection is a leading-order term not only within the anticyclonic and cyclonic gyres but also between the gyres. This means that the eastern and western basins are dynamically connected through the advection of potential vorticity. Both eddy and mean fluxes play a role in connecting the regions of potential vorticity input at the surface with the opposite gyre and with the viscous boundary layers. These conclusions are based on a series of model runs in which forcing, topography, straits, and the Coriolis parameter were varied.

Description: This study was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OPP-1822334. Comments and suggestions from two anonymous referees greatly helped to improve the paper.

Description: 2021-02-17