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  • Coastal flows  (33)
  • Mesoscale processes  (30)
  • American Meteorological Society  (62)
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  • 1
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    Eddy vertical structure and variability: deepglider observations in the North Atlantic (2023)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2023-02-28
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(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.
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Eddies ; Mesoscale processes ; Turbulence ; Energy transport ; In situ oceanic observations ; Oceanic variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 2
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    Impact of Gulf Stream warm-core rings on slope water intrusion into the Gulf of Maine (2023)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2023-02-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(8), (2022): 1797–1815, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0288.1.
    Description: Intruding slope water is a major source of nutrients to sustain the high biological productivity in the Gulf of Maine (GoM). Slope water intrusion into the GoM is affected by Gulf Stream warm-core rings (WCRs) impinging onto the nearby shelf edge. This study combines long-term mooring measurements, satellite remote sensing data, an idealized numerical ocean model, and a linear coastal-trapped wave (CTW) model to examine the impact of WCRs on slope water intrusion into the GoM through the Northeast Channel. Analysis of satellite sea surface height and temperature data shows that the slope sea region off the GoM is a hotspot of ring activities. A significant linear relationship is found between interannual variations of ring activities in the slope sea region off the GoM and bottom salinity at the Northeast Channel, suggesting the importance of WCRs in modulating variability of intruding slope water. Analysis of the mooring data reveals enhanced slope water intrusion through bottom-intensified along-channel flow following impingements of WCRs on the nearby shelf edge. Numerical simulations qualitatively reproduce the observed WCR impingement processes and associated episodic enhancement of slope water intrusion in the Northeast Channel. Diagnosis of the model result indicates that baroclinic CTWs excited by the ring–topography interaction are responsible for the episodically intensified subsurface along-channel inflow, which carries more slope water into the GoM. A WCR that impinges onto the shelf edge to the northeast of the Northeast Channel tends to generate stronger CTWs and cause stronger enhancement of the slope water intrusion into the GoM.
    Description: This study is supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-1634965.
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Channel flows ; Mesoscale processes ; In situ oceanic observations ; Satellite observations ; Numerical analysis/modeling
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 3
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    Interannual and seasonal along-shelf current variability and dynamics: seventeen years of observations from the southern New England inner shelf (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-12-21
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12), (2022): 2923–2933, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0064.1.
    Description: The characteristics and dynamics of depth-average along-shelf currents at monthly and longer time scales are examined using 17 years of observations from the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory on the southern New England inner shelf. Monthly averages of the depth-averaged along-shelf current are almost always westward, with the largest interannual variability in winter. There is a consistent annual cycle with westward currents of 5 cm s−1 in summer decreasing to 1–2 cm s−1 in winter. Both the annual cycle and interannual variability in the depth-average along-shelf current are predominantly driven by the along-shelf wind stress. In the absence of wind forcing, there is a westward flow of ∼5 cm s−1 throughout the year. At monthly time scales, the depth-average along-shelf momentum balance is primarily between the wind stress, surface gravity wave–enhanced bottom stress, and an opposing pressure gradient that sets up along the southern New England shelf in response to the wind. Surface gravity wave enhancement of bottom stress is substantial over the inner shelf and is essential to accurately estimating the bottom stress variation across the inner shelf.
    Description: The National Science Foundation, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and the Office of Naval Research have supported the construction and maintenance of MVCO. The analysis presented here was partially funded by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE 1558874 and OCE 1655686.
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Coastal flows ; Momentum ; Ocean dynamics ; Wind stress
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 4
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    Turbulent thermal-wind driven coastal upwelling: current observations and dynamics (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-12-21
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12), (2022): 2909-2921, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0063.1.
    Description: A remarkably consistent Lagrangian upwelling circulation at monthly and longer time scales is observed in a 17-yr time series of current profiles in 12 m of water on the southern New England inner shelf. The upwelling circulation is strongest in summer, with a current magnitude of ∼1 cm s−1, which flushes the inner shelf in ∼2.5 days. The average winter upwelling circulation is about one-half of the average summer upwelling circulation, but with larger month-to-month variations driven, in part, by cross-shelf wind stresses. The persistent upwelling circulation is not wind-driven; it is driven by a cross-shelf buoyancy force associated with less-dense water near the coast. The cross-shelf density gradient is primarily due to temperature in summer, when strong surface heating warms shallower nearshore water more than deeper offshore water, and to salinity in winter, caused by fresher water near the coast. In the absence of turbulent stresses, the cross-shelf density gradient would be in a geostrophic, thermal-wind balance with the vertical shear in the along-shelf current. However, turbulent stresses over the inner shelf attributable to strong tidal currents and wind stress cause a partial breakdown of the thermal-wind balance that releases the buoyancy force, which drives the observed upwelling circulation. The presence of a cross-shelf density gradient has a profound impact on exchange across this inner shelf. Many inner shelves are characterized by turbulent stresses and cross-shelf density gradients with lighter water near the coast, suggesting turbulent thermal-wind-driven coastal upwelling may be a broadly important cross-shelf exchange mechanism.
    Description: The National Science Foundation, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and the Office of Naval Research have supported the construction and maintenance of MVCO. The analysis presented here was partially funded by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE 1558874 and OCE 1655686.
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Coastal flows ; Currents ; Dynamics ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Upwelling/downwelling
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 5
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    A three-dimensional inertial model for coastal upwelling along western boundaries (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-10-12
    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(10), (2022): 2431-2444, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0024.1.
    Description: A three-dimensional inertial model that conserves quasigeostrophic potential vorticity is proposed for wind-driven coastal upwelling along western boundaries. The dominant response to upwelling favorable winds is a surface-intensified baroclinic meridional boundary current with a subsurface countercurrent. The width of the current is not the baroclinic deformation radius but instead scales with the inertial boundary layer thickness while the depth scales as the ratio of the inertial boundary layer thickness to the baroclinic deformation radius. Thus, the boundary current scales depend on the stratification, wind stress, Coriolis parameter, and its meridional variation. In contrast to two-dimensional wind-driven coastal upwelling, the source waters that feed the Ekman upwelling are provided over the depth scale of this baroclinic current through a combination of onshore barotropic flow and from alongshore in the narrow boundary current. Topography forces an additional current whose characteristics depend on the topographic slope and width. For topography wider than the inertial boundary layer thickness the current is bottom intensified, while for narrow topography the current is wave-like in the vertical and trapped over the topography within the inertial boundary layer. An idealized primitive equation numerical model produces a similar baroclinic boundary current whose vertical length scale agrees with the theoretical scaling for both upwelling and downwelling favorable winds.
    Description: This research is supported in part by the China Scholarship Council (201906330102). H. G. is financially supported by the China Scholarship Council to study at WHOI for 2 years as a guest student. M.S. is supported by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1922538. Z. C. is supported by the ‘Taishan/Aoshan’ Talents program (2017ASTCPES05) the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (202072001).
    Description: 2023-03-30
    Keywords: Ekman pumping/transport ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Coastal flows
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
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    Kinetic energy transfers between mesoscale and submesoscale motions in the open ocean’s upper layers (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-09-15
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(1),(2022): 75–97, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0099.1.
    Description: Mesoscale eddies contain the bulk of the ocean’s kinetic energy (KE), but fundamental questions remain on the cross-scale KE transfers linking eddy generation and dissipation. The role of submesoscale flows represents the key point of discussion, with contrasting views of submesoscales as either a source or a sink of mesoscale KE. Here, the first observational assessment of the annual cycle of the KE transfer between mesoscale and submesoscale motions is performed in the upper layers of a typical open-ocean region. Although these diagnostics have marginal statistical significance and should be regarded cautiously, they are physically plausible and can provide a valuable benchmark for model evaluation. The cross-scale KE transfer exhibits two distinct stages, whereby submesoscales energize mesoscales in winter and drain mesoscales in spring. Despite this seasonal reversal, an inverse KE cascade operates throughout the year across much of the mesoscale range. Our results are not incompatible with recent modeling investigations that place the headwaters of the inverse KE cascade at the submesoscale, and that rationalize the seasonality of mesoscale KE as an inverse cascade-mediated response to the generation of submesoscales in winter. However, our findings may challenge those investigations by suggesting that, in spring, a downscale KE transfer could dampen the inverse KE cascade. An exploratory appraisal of the dynamics governing mesoscale–submesoscale KE exchanges suggests that the upscale KE transfer in winter is underpinned by mixed layer baroclinic instabilities, and that the downscale KE transfer in spring is associated with frontogenesis. Current submesoscale-permitting ocean models may substantially understate this downscale KE transfer, due to the models’ muted representation of frontogenesis.
    Description: The OSMOSIS experiment was funded by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through Grants NE/1019999/1 and NE/101993X/1. ACNG acknowledges the support of the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation, and XY that of a China Scholarship Council PhD studentship.
    Keywords: Ageostrophic circulations ; Dynamics ; Eddies ; Energy transport ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence
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  • 7
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    Seasonality of the mesoscale inverse cascade as inferred from global scale-dependent eddy energy observations (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-09-01
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(8), (2022): 1677-1691, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0269.1.
    Description: Oceanic mesoscale motions including eddies, meanders, fronts, and filaments comprise a dominant fraction of oceanic kinetic energy and contribute to the redistribution of tracers in the ocean such as heat, salt, and nutrients. This reservoir of mesoscale energy is regulated by the conversion of potential energy and transfers of kinetic energy across spatial scales. Whether and under what circumstances mesoscale turbulence precipitates forward or inverse cascades, and the rates of these cascades, remain difficult to directly observe and quantify despite their impacts on physical and biological processes. Here we use global observations to investigate the seasonality of surface kinetic energy and upper-ocean potential energy. We apply spatial filters to along-track satellite measurements of sea surface height to diagnose surface eddy kinetic energy across 60–300-km scales. A geographic and scale-dependent seasonal cycle appears throughout much of the midlatitudes, with eddy kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km peaking 1–4 months before that at 60–300-km scales. Spatial patterns in this lag align with geographic regions where an Argo-derived estimate of the conversion of potential to kinetic energy is seasonally varying. In midlatitudes, the conversion rate peaks 0–2 months prior to kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km. The consistent geographic patterns between the seasonality of potential energy conversion and kinetic energy across spatial scale provide observational evidence for the inverse cascade and demonstrate that some component of it is seasonally modulated. Implications for mesoscale parameterizations and numerical modeling are discussed.
    Description: This work was generously funded by NSF Grants OCE-1912302, OCE-1912125 (Drushka), and OCE-1912325 (Abernathey) as part of the Ocean Energy and Eddy Transport Climate Process Team.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Energy transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Turbulence ; Oceanic mixed layer ; Altimetry ; Seasonal cycle
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 8
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    Observed deep cyclonic eddies around Southern Greenland (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-06-06
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(10), (2021): 3235–3252, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0288.1.
    Description: Recent mooring measurements from the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program have revealed abundant cyclonic eddies at both sides of Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. In this study, we present further observational evidence, from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives, of deep cyclonic eddies with intense rotation (ζ/f 〉 1) around southern Greenland and into the Labrador Sea. Most of the observed cyclones exhibit strongest rotation below the surface at 700–1000 dbar, where maximum azimuthal velocities are ~30 cm s−1 at radii of ~10 km, with rotational periods of 2–3 days. The cyclonic rotation can extend to the deep overflow water layer (below 1800 dbar), albeit with weaker azimuthal velocities (~10 cm s−1) and longer rotational periods of about one week. Within the middepth rotation cores, the cyclones are in near solid-body rotation and have the potential to trap and transport water. The first high-resolution hydrographic transect across such a cyclone indicates that it is characterized by a local (both vertically and horizontally) potential vorticity maximum in its middepth core and cold, fresh anomalies in the deep overflow water layer, suggesting its source as the Denmark Strait outflow. Additionally, the propagation and evolution of the cyclonic eddies are illustrated with deep Lagrangian floats, including their detachments from the boundary currents to the basin interior. Taken together, the combined Eulerian and Lagrangian observations have provided new insights on the boundary current variability and boundary–interior exchange over a geographically large scale near southern Greenland, calling for further investigations on the (sub)mesoscale dynamics in the region.
    Description: OOI mooring data are based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement 1743430. S. Zou, A. Bower, and H. Furey gratefully acknowledge the support from the Physical Oceanography Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1756361. R.S. Pickart acknowledges support from National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1259618 and OCE-1756361. N. P. Holliday and L. Houpert were supported by NERC programs U.K. OSNAP (NE/K010875) and U.K. OSNAP-Decade (NE/T00858X/1).
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Cyclogenesis/cyclolysis ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation
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  • 9
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    3D structure of striations in the North Pacific (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-06-06
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(12),(2021): 3651–3662, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0076.1.
    Description: Ocean striations are composed of alternating quasi-zonal band-like flows; this kind of organized structure of currents can be found in all the world’s oceans and seas. Previous studies have mainly been focused on the mechanisms of their generation and propagation. This study uses the spatial high-pass filtering to obtain the three-dimensional structure of ocean striations in the North Pacific in both the z coordinate and σ coordinate based on 10-yr averaged Simple Ocean Data Assimilation version 3 (SODA3) data. First, we identify an ideal-fluid potential density domain where the striations are undisturbed by the surface forcing and boundary effects. Second, using the isopycnal layer analysis, we show that on isopycnal surfaces the orientations of striations nearly follow the potential vorticity (PV) contours, while in the meridional–vertical plane the central positions of striations are generally aligned with the latitude of zero gradient of the relative PV. Our analysis provides a simple dynamical interpretation and better understanding for the role of ocean striations.
    Description: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42076025, 41676021), the Key Special Project for introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0306), the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (2013CB956201). The numerical simulation is supported by the High Performance Computing Division in the South China Sea Institute of Oceanography. The authors thank Tingjin Guan for the help in enhancing drawing quality.
    Keywords: Currents ; Jets ; Mesoscale processes ; Potential vorticity ; Isopycnal coordinates
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  • 10
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    On the predictability of sea surface height around Palau (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(11), (2020): 3267–3294, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0310.1.
    Description: As part of the Flow Encountering Abrupt Topography (FLEAT) program, an array of pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) was deployed north of Palau where the westward-flowing North Equatorial Current encounters the southern end of the Kyushu–Palau Ridge in the tropical North Pacific. Capitalizing on concurrent observations from satellite altimetry, FLEAT Spray gliders, and shipboard hydrography, the PIESs’ 10-month duration hourly bottom pressure p and round-trip acoustic travel time τ records are used to examine the magnitude and predictability of sea level and pycnocline depth changes and to track signal propagations through the array. Sea level and pycnocline depth are found to vary in response to a range of ocean processes, with their magnitude and predictability strongly process dependent. Signals characterized here comprise the barotropic tides, semidiurnal and diurnal internal tides, southeastward-propagating superinertial waves, westward-propagating mesoscale eddies, and a strong signature of sea level increase and pycnocline deepening associated with the region’s relaxation from El Niño to La Niña conditions. The presence of a broad band of superinertial waves just above the inertial frequency was unexpected and the FLEAT observations and output from a numerical model suggest that these waves detected near Palau are forced by remote winds east of the Philippines. The PIES-based estimates of pycnocline displacement are found to have large uncertainties relative to overall variability in pycnocline depth, as localized deep current variations arising from interactions of the large-scale currents with the abrupt topography around Palau have significant travel time variability.
    Description: Support for this research was provided by Office of Naval Research Grants N00014-16-1-2668, N00014-18-1-2406, N00014-15-1-2488, and N00014-15-1-2622. R.C.M. was additionally supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Keywords: Tropics ; Currents ; Eddies ; ENSO ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
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  • 11
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    Warm spiral streamers over Gulf Stream warm-core rings (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(11),(2020): 3331–3351, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0035.1.
    Description: This study examines the generation of warm spiral structures (referred to as spiral streamers here) over Gulf Stream warm-core rings. Satellite sea surface temperature imagery shows spiral streamers forming after warmer water from the Gulf Stream or newly formed warm-core rings impinges onto old warm-core rings and then intrudes into the old rings. Field measurements in April 2018 capture the vertical structure of a warm spiral streamer as a shallow lens of low-density water winding over an old ring. Observations also show subduction on both sides of the spiral streamer, which carries surface waters downward. Idealized numerical model simulations initialized with observed water-mass densities reproduce spiral streamers over warm-core rings and reveal that their formation is a nonlinear submesoscale process forced by mesoscale dynamics. The negative density anomaly of the intruding water causes a density front at the interface between the intruding water and surface ring water, which, through thermal wind balance, drives a local anticyclonic flow. The pressure gradient and momentum advection of the local interfacial flow push the intruding water toward the ring center. The large-scale anticyclonic flow of the ring and the radial motion of the intruding water together form the spiral streamer. The observed subduction on both sides of the spiral streamer is part of the secondary cross-streamer circulation resulting from frontogenesis on the stretching streamer edges. The surface divergence of the secondary circulation pushes the side edges of the streamer away from each other, widens the warm spiral on the surface, and thus enhances its surface signal.
    Description: Authors W. G. Zhang and D. J. McGillicuddy are both supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE 1657803.
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Eddies ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Mesoscale processes ; Transport ; Vertical motion
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  • 12
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    Impact of shelf valleys on the spread of surface-trapped river plumes (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(1), (2021): 247-266, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0098.1.
    Description: This study focuses on mechanisms of shelf valley bathymetry affecting the spread of riverine freshwater in the nearshore region. In the context of Changjiang River, a numerical model is used with different no-tide idealized configurations to simulate development of unforced river plumes over a sloping bottom, with and without a shelf valley off the estuary mouth. All simulated freshwater plumes are surface-trapped with continuously growing bulges near the estuary mouth and narrow coastal currents downstream. The simulations indicate that a shelf valley tends to compress the bulge along the direction of the valley long axis and modify the incident angle of the bulge flow impinging toward the coast, which then affects the strength of the coastal current. The bulge compression results from geostrophic adjustment and isobath-following tendency of the depth-averaged flow in the bulge region. Generally, the resulting change in the direction of the bulge impinging flow enhances down-shelf momentum advection and freshwater delivery into the coastal current. Sensitivity simulations with altered river discharges Q, Coriolis parameter, shelf bottom slope, valley geometry, and ambient stratification show that enhancement of down-shelf freshwater transport in the coastal current, ΔQc, increases with increasing valley depth within the bulge region and decreasing slope Burger number of the ambient shelf. Assuming potential vorticity conservation, a scaling formula of ΔQc/Q is developed, and it agrees well with results of the sensitivity simulations. Mechanisms of valley influences on unforced river plumes revealed here will help future studies of topographic influence on river plumes under more realistic conditions.
    Description: This work is conducted by Canbo Xiao and Weifeng (Gordon) Zhang during CX’s one-year visit at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in 2018–19. CX was supported by China Scholarship Council.
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Buoyancy ; Coastal flows ; Topographic effects ; Runoff ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 13
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    On the vertical velocity and nutrient delivery in warm core rings (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(6), (2020): 1557-1582, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0239.1.
    Description: We examine various contributions to the vertical velocity field within large mesoscale eddies by analyzing multiple solutions to an idealized numerical model of a representative anticyclonic warm core Gulf Stream ring. Initial conditions are constructed to reproduce the observed density and nutrient profiles collected during the Warm Core Rings Program. The contributions to vertical fluxes diagnosed from the numerical simulations are compared against a divergence-based, semidiagnostic equation and a generalized omega equation to better understand the dynamics of the vertical velocity field. Frictional decay alone is found to be ineffective in raising isopycnals and transporting nutrients to the upper ocean. With representative wind forcing, the magnitude of vorticity gradient–induced Ekman pumping is not necessarily larger than the current-induced counterpart on a time scale relevant to ecosystem response. Under realistic forcing conditions, strain deformation can perturb the ring to be noncircular and induce vertical velocities much larger than the Ekman vertical velocities. Nutrient budget diagnosis, together with analysis of the relative magnitudes of the various types of vertical fluxes, allows us to describe the time-scale dependence of nutrient delivery. At time scales that are relevant to individual phytoplankton (from hours to days), the magnitudes of nutrient flux by Ekman velocities and deformation-induced velocities are comparable. Over the life span of a typical warm core ring, which can span multiple seasons, surface current–induced Ekman pumping is the most effective mechanism in upper-ocean nutrient enrichment because of its persistence in the center of anticyclones regardless of the direction of the wind forcing.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Ocean Science Division under Grant OCE-1558960. PG also acknowledges support of the NASA Physical Oceanography Program Grant NNX16H59G. KC would like to thank D. McGillicuddy Jr. for inspiring discussions and suggestions during the course of this study. Constructive comments from two anonymous reviewers are appreciated.
    Keywords: Ageostrophic circulations ; Eddies ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Vertical motion
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    On the steadiness and instability of the Intermediate Western Boundary Current between 24 degrees and 18 degrees S (2020)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(12), (2019): 3127-3143, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-19-0011.1.
    Description: The Intermediate Western Boundary Current (IWBC) transports Antarctic Intermediate Water across the Vitória–Trindade Ridge (VTR), a seamount chain at ~20°S off Brazil. Recent studies suggest that the IWBC develops a strong cyclonic recirculation in Tubarão Bight, upstream of the VTR, with weak time dependency. We herein use new quasi-synoptic observations, data from the Argo array, and a regional numerical model to describe the structure and variability of the IWBC and to investigate its dynamics. Both shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data and trajectories of Argo floats confirm the existence of the IWBC recirculation, which is also captured by our Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) simulation. An “intermediate-layer” quasigeostrophic (QG) model indicates that the ROMS time-mean flow is a good proxy for the IWBC steady state, as revealed by largely parallel isolines of streamfunction ψ⎯ and potential vorticity Q⎯; a ψ⎯−Q⎯ scatter diagram also shows that the IWBC is potentially unstable. Further analysis of the ROMS simulation reveals that remotely generated, westward-propagating nonlinear eddies are the main source of variability in the region. These eddies enter the domain through the Tubarão Bight eastern edge and strongly interact with the IWBC. As they are advected downstream and negotiate the local topography, the eddies grow explosively through horizontal shear production.
    Description: We thank Frank O. Smith for copy editing and proofreading this manuscript. This study was financed in part by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—CAPES, Brazil—Finance Code 001 and by Projeto REMARSUL (Processo CAPES 88882.158621/2014-01), Projeto VT-Dyn (Processo FAPESP 2015/21729-4) and Projeto SUBMESO (Processo CNPq 442926/2015-4). Rocha was supported by a WHOI Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Description: 2020-06-06
    Keywords: South Atlantic Ocean ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Intermediate waters ; In situ oceanic observations ; Quasigeostrophic models
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    Can we detect submesoscale motions in drifter pair dispersion? (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(9), (2019): 2237-2254, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0181.1.
    Description: A cluster of 45 drifters deployed in the Bay of Bengal is tracked for a period of four months. Pair dispersion statistics, from observed drifter trajectories and simulated trajectories based on surface geostrophic velocity, are analyzed as a function of drifter separation and time. Pair dispersion suggests nonlocal dynamics at submesoscales of 1–20 km, likely controlled by the energetic mesoscale eddies present during the observations. Second-order velocity structure functions and their Helmholtz decomposition, however, suggest local dispersion and divergent horizontal flow at scales below 20 km. This inconsistency cannot be explained by inertial oscillations alone, as has been reported in recent studies, and is likely related to other nondispersive processes that impact structure functions but do not enter pair dispersion statistics. At scales comparable to the deformation radius LD, which is approximately 60 km, we find dynamics in agreement with Richardson’s law and observe local dispersion in both pair dispersion statistics and second-order velocity structure functions.
    Description: This research was supported by the Air Sea Interaction Regional Initiative (ASIRI) under ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0451 (SE and AM) and ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0477 (VH and LC). Additionally, AM and SE thank NSF (Grant OCE-I434788) and ONR (Grant N00014-16-1-2470) for support; VH and LC were further supported by ONR Grant N00014-15-1-2286 and NOAA GDP Grant NA10OAR4320156. We thank Joe LaCasce, Dhruv Balwada, and one anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and discussions that significantly improved this manuscript. The authors thank the captain and crew of the R/V Roger Revelle. The SVP-type drifters are part of the Global Drifter Program and supported by ONR Grant N00014-15-1-2286 and NOAA GDP Grant NA10OAR4320156 and are available under http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dac/. The Ssalto/Duacs altimeter products were produced and distributed by the Copernicus Marine and Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS, http://www.marine.copernicus.eu).
    Keywords: Dispersion ; Fronts ; Mesoscale processes ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Trajectories ; Turbulence
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    Improving surface current resolution using direction finding algorithms for multiantenna high-frequency radars (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 36(10), (2019): 1997-2014, doi: 10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0029.1.
    Description: While land-based high-frequency (HF) radars are the only instruments capable of resolving both the temporal and spatial variability of surface currents in the coastal ocean, recent high-resolution views suggest that the coastal ocean is more complex than presently deployed radar systems are able to reveal. This work uses a hybrid system, having elements of both phased arrays and direction finding radars, to improve the azimuthal resolution of HF radars. Data from two radars deployed along the U.S. East Coast and configured as 8-antenna grid arrays were used to evaluate potential direction finding and signal, or emitter, detection methods. Direction finding methods such as maximum likelihood estimation generally performed better than the well-known multiple signal classification (MUSIC) method given identical emitter detection methods. However, accurately estimating the number of emitters present in HF radar observations is a challenge. As MUSIC’s direction-of-arrival (DOA) function permits simple empirical tests that dramatically aid the detection process, MUSIC was found to be the superior method in this study. The 8-antenna arrays were able to provide more accurate estimates of MUSIC’s noise subspace than typical 3-antenna systems, eliminating the need for a series of empirical parameters to control MUSIC’s performance. Code developed for this research has been made available in an online repository.
    Description: This analysis was supported by NSF Grants OCE-1657896 and OCE-1736930 to Kirincich, OCE-1658475 to Emery and Washburn and OCE-1736709 to Flament. Flament is also supported by NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System through Award NA11NOS0120039. The authors thank Lindsey Benjamin, Alma Castillo, Ken Constantine, Benedicte Dousset, Ian Fernandez, Mael Flament, Dave Harris, Garrett Hebert, Ben Hodges, Victoria Futch, Matt Guanci, and Philip Moravcik for assistance in building, deploying, and operating the radars.
    Description: 2020-04-11
    Keywords: Ocean ; Coastal flows ; Algorithms ; Radars/Radar observations ; Remote sensing
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  • 17
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    The Loop Current: Observations of deep eddies and topographic waves. (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019):1463-1483, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0213.1.
    Description: A set of float trajectories, deployed at 1500- and 2500-m depths throughout the deep Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2015, are analyzed for mesoscale processes under the Loop Current (LC). In the eastern basin, December 2012–June 2014 had 〉40 floats per month, which was of sufficient density to allow capturing detailed flow patterns of deep eddies and topographic Rossby waves (TRWs), while two LC eddies formed and separated. A northward advance of the LC front compresses the lower water column and generates an anticyclone. For an extended LC, baroclinic instability eddies (of both signs) develop under the southward-propagating large-scale meanders of the upper-layer jet, resulting in a transfer of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) to the lower layer. The increase in lower-layer EKE occurs only over a few months during meander activity and LC eddy detachment events, a relatively short interval compared with the LC intrusion cycle. Deep EKE of these eddies is dispersed to the west and northwest through radiating TRWs, of which examples were found to the west of the LC. Because of this radiation of EKE, the lower layer of the eastern basin becomes relatively quiescent, particularly in the northeastern basin, when the LC is retracted and a LC eddy has departed. A mean west-to-east, anticyclone–cyclone dipole flow under a mean LC was directly comparable to similar results from a previous moored LC array and also showed connections to an anticlockwise boundary current in the southeastern basin.
    Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M08PC20043 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, NC. The authors also wish to acknowledge the enthusiastic support of Dr. Alexis Lugo-Fernández, the BOEM Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative, during the study into the Deep Circulation of the Gulf of Mexico, using Lagrangian Methods. Thanks go to the captains and crews of the R/V Pelican and B/O Justo Sierra, J. Malbrough (LUMCON), J. Singer (Leidos), J. Valdes (WHOI), B. Guest (WHOI), and the CANEK group (CICESE).
    Description: 2020-05-29
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Eddies ; Instability ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
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    Decomposition of vertical velocity for nutrient transport in the upper ocean (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019): 1561-1575, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0002.1.
    Description: Within the pycnocline, where diapycnal mixing is suppressed, both the vertical movement (uplift) of isopycnal surfaces and upward motion along sloping isopycnals supply nutrients to the euphotic layer, but the relative importance of each of these mechanisms is unknown. We present a method for decomposing vertical velocity w into two components in a Lagrangian frame: vertical velocity along sloping isopycnal surfaces and the adiabatic vertical velocity of isopycnal surfaces . We show that , where is the isopycnal slope and is the geometric aspect ratio of the flow, and that accounts for 10%–25% of the total vertical velocity w for isopycnal slopes representative of the midlatitude pycnocline. We perform the decomposition of w in a process study model of a midlatitude eddying flow field generated with a range of isopycnal slopes. A spectral decomposition of the velocity components shows that while is the largest contributor to vertical velocity, is of comparable magnitude at horizontal scales less than about 10 km, that is, at submesoscales. Increasing the horizontal grid resolution of models is known to increase vertical velocity; this increase is disproportionately due to better resolution of , as is shown here by comparing 1- and 4-km resolution model runs. Along-isopycnal vertical transport can be an important contributor to the vertical flux of tracers, including oxygen, nutrients, and chlorophyll, although we find weak covariance between vertical velocity and nutrient anomaly in our model.
    Description: MAF was supported by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and AM by NSF OCE-I434788. The authors thank Glenn Flierl and Ruth Curry for helpful conversations, and three anonymous reviewers for comments that improved the manuscript.
    Description: 2020-06-11
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Mesoscale processes ; Small scale processes ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Vertical motion
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  • 19
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    Coral reef drag coefficients—surface gravity wave enhancement (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1555-1566, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0231.1.
    Description: A primary challenge in modeling flow over shallow coral reefs is accurately characterizing the bottom drag. Previous studies over continental shelves and sandy beaches suggest surface gravity waves should enhance the drag on the circulation over coral reefs. The influence of surface gravity waves on drag over four platform reefs in the Red Sea is examined using observations from 6-month deployments of current and pressure sensors burst sampling at 1Hz for 4–5min. Depth-average current fluctuations U0 within each burst are dominated by wave orbital velocities uw that account for 80%–90%of the burst variance and have a magnitude of order 10 cm s21, similar to the lower-frequency depth-average current Uavg. Previous studies have shown that the cross-reef bottom stress balances the pressure gradient over these reefs. A bottom stress estimate that neglects the waves (rCdaUavgjUavgj, where r is water density and Cda is a drag coefficient) balances the observed pressure gradient when uw is smaller than Uavg but underestimates the pressure gradient when uw is larger than Uavg (by a factor of 3–5 when uw 5 2Uavg), indicating the neglected waves enhance the bottom stress. In contrast, a bottom stress estimate that includes the waves [rCda(Uavg 1 U0)jUavg 1 U0j)] balances the observed pressure gradient independent of the relative size of uw and Uavg, indicating that this estimate accounts for the wave enhancement of the bottom stress. A parameterization proposed by Wright and Thompson provides a reasonable estimate of the total bottom stress (including the waves) given the burst-averaged current and the wave orbital velocity.
    Description: The Red Sea field program was supported by Awards USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by KAUST. S. Lentz was supported for the analysis by NSF Award OCE-1558343.
    Description: 2019-01-13
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Currents ; Dynamics ; Gravity waves ; Turbulence
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    Evolution of the freshwater coastal current at the southern tip of Greenland (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 2127-2140, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-18-0035.1.
    Description: Shipboard hydrographic and velocity measurements collected in summer 2014 are used to study the evolution of the freshwater coastal current in southern Greenland as it encounters Cape Farewell. The velocity structure reveals that the coastal current maintains its identity as it flows around the cape and bifurcates such that most of the flow is diverted to the outer west Greenland shelf, while a small portion remains on the inner shelf. Taking into account this inner branch, the volume transport of the coastal current is conserved, but the freshwater transport decreases on the west side of Cape Farewell. A significant amount of freshwater appears to be transported off the shelf where the outer branch flows adjacent to the shelfbreak circulation. It is argued that the offshore transposition of the coastal current is caused by the flow following the isobaths as they bend offshore because of the widening of the shelf on the west side of Cape Farewell. An analysis of the potential vorticity shows that the subsequent seaward flux of freshwater can be enhanced by instabilities of the current. This set of circumstances provides a pathway for the freshest water originating from the Arctic, as well as runoff from the Greenland ice sheet, to be fluxed into the interior Labrador Sea where it could influence convection in the basin.
    Description: Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1259618.
    Description: 2019-03-11
    Keywords: Boundary currents ; Coastal flows ; Instability ; Ocean circulation ; Potential vorticity ; Transport
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    The interaction of recirculation gyres and a deep boundary current (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 573-590, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0206.1.
    Description: Motivated by the proximity of the Northern Recirculation Gyre and the deep western boundary current in the North Atlantic, an idealized model is used to investigate how recirculation gyres and a deep flow along a topographic slope interact. In this two-layer quasigeostrophic model, an unstable jet imposed in the upper layer generates barotropic recirculation gyres. These are maintained by an eddy-mean balance of potential vorticity (PV) in steady state. The authors show that the topographic slope can constrain the northern recirculation gyre meridionally and that the gyre’s adjustment to the slope leads to increased eddy PV fluxes at the base of the slope. When a deep current is present along the topographic slope in the lower layer, these eddy PV fluxes stir the deep current and recirculation gyre waters. Increased proximity to the slope dampens the eddy growth rate within the unstable jet, altering the geometry of recirculation gyre forcing and leading to a decrease in overall eddy PV fluxes. These mechanisms may shape the circulation in the western North Atlantic, with potential feedbacks on the climate system.
    Description: We gratefully acknowledge an AMS graduate fellowship (IALB) and U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1332667 and 1332834 (IALB and JMT).
    Description: 2018-09-06
    Keywords: Boundary currents ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation ; Potential vorticity ; Quasigeostrophic models
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  • 22
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    The dynamics of shelf forcing in Greenlandic fjords (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 2799-2827, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-18-0057.1.
    Description: The fjords that connect Greenland’s glaciers to the ocean are gateways for importing heat to melt ice and for exporting meltwater into the ocean. The transport of heat and meltwater can be modulated by various drivers of fjord circulation, including freshwater, local winds, and shelf variability. Shelf-forced flows (also known as the intermediary circulation) are the dominant mode of variability in two major fjords of east Greenland, but we lack a dynamical understanding of the fjord’s response to shelf forcing. Building on observations from east Greenland, we use numerical simulations and analytical models to explore the dynamics of shelf-driven flows. For the parameter space of Greenlandic fjords, we find that the fjord’s response is primarily a function of three nondimensional parameters: the fjord width over the deformation radius (W/Rd), the forcing time scale over the fjord adjustment time scale, and the forcing amplitude (shelf pycnocline displacements) over the upper-layer thickness. The shelf-forced flows in both the numerical simulations and the observations can largely be explained by a simple analytical model for Kelvin waves propagating around the fjord. For fjords with W/Rd 〉 0.5 (most Greenlandic fjords), 3D dynamics are integral to understanding shelf forcing—the fjord dynamics cannot be approximated with 2D models that neglect cross-fjord structure. The volume flux exchanged between the fjord and shelf increases for narrow fjords and peaks around the resonant forcing frequency, dropping off significantly at higher- and lower-frequency forcing.
    Description: This work was funded by NSF Grant OCE-1536856 and by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship.
    Keywords: Estuaries ; Glaciers ; Baroclinic flows ; Coastal flows ; Kelvin waves ; Regional models
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  • 23
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    Shelf–open ocean exchange forced by wind jets (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 163-174, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0161.1.
    Description: The general problem of exchange from a shallow shelf across sharp topography to the deep ocean forced by narrow, cross-shelf wind jets is studied using quasigeostrophic theory and an idealized primitive equation numerical model. Interest is motivated by katabatic winds that emanate from narrow fjords in southeast Greenland, although similar topographically constrained wind jets are found throughout the world’s oceans. Because there is no net vorticity input by the wind, the circulation is largely confined to the region near the forcing. Circulation over the shelf is limited by bottom friction for weakly stratified flows, but stratification allows for much stronger upper-layer flows that are regulated by weak coupling to the lower layer. Over the sloping topography, the topographic beta effect limits the deep flow, while, for sufficient stratification, the upper-layer flow can cross the topography to connect the shelf to the open ocean. This can be an effective transport mechanism even for short, strong wind events because damping of the upper-layer flow is weak. A variety of transients are generated for an abrupt onset of winds, including short topography Rossby waves, long topographic Rossby waves, and inertial waves. Using parameters representative of southeast Greenland, katabatic wind events will force an offshore transport of O(0.4) Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) that, when considered for 2 days, will result in an offshore flux of O(5 × 1010) m3.
    Description: MAS was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1533170.
    Description: 2018-07-18
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Downslope winds ; Ocean dynamics
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    Estuarine exchange flow is related to mixing through the salinity variance budget (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1375-1384, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0266.1.
    Description: The relationship between net mixing and the estuarine exchange flow may be quantified using a salinity variance budget. Here “mixing” is defined as the rate of destruction of volume-integrated salinity variance, and the exchange flow is quantified using the total exchange flow. These concepts are explored using an idealized 3D model estuary. It is shown that in steady state (e.g., averaging over the spring–neap cycle) the volume-integrated mixing is approximately given by Mixing ≅ SinSoutQr, where Sin and Sout are the representative salinities of in- and outflowing layers at the mouth and Qr is the river volume flux. This relationship provides an extension of the familiar Knudsen relation, in which the exchange flow is diagnosed based on knowledge of these same three quantities, quantitatively linking mixing to the exchange flow.
    Description: The work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grants OCE-1736242 to PM and OCE-1736539 to WRG and by the German Research Foundation through Grants TRR 181 and GRK 2000 to HB.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ocean dynamics ; Streamflow ; Diagnostics ; Isopycnal coordinates
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  • 25
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    Deep eddies in the Gulf of Mexico observed with floats (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 2703-2719, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0245.1.
    Description: A new set of deep float trajectory data collected in the Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2015 at 1500- and 2500-m depths is analyzed to describe mesoscale processes, with particular attention paid to the western Gulf. Wavelet analysis is used to identify coherent eddies in the float trajectories, leading to a census of the basinwide coherent eddy population and statistics of the eddies’ kinematic properties. The eddy census reveals a new formation region for anticyclones off the Campeche Escarpment, located northwest of the Yucatan Peninsula. These eddies appear to form locally, with no apparent direct connection to the upper layer. Once formed, the eddies drift westward along the northern edge of the Sigsbee Abyssal Gyre, located in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico over the abyssal plain. The formation mechanism and upstream sources for the Campeche Escarpment eddies are explored: the observational data suggest that eddy formation may be linked to the collision of a Loop Current eddy with the western boundary of the Gulf. Specifically, the disintegration of a deep dipole traveling under the Loop Current eddy Kraken, caused by the interaction with the northwestern continental slope, may lead to the acceleration of the abyssal gyre and the boundary current in the Bay of Campeche region.
    Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M10PC00112 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina.
    Description: 2019-05-07
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Currents ; Eddies ; Mesoscale processes ; Trajectories ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Eddy memory mode of multidecadal variability in residual-mean ocean circulations with application to the Beaufort Gyre (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 855-866, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0194.1.
    Description: Mesoscale eddies shape the Beaufort Gyre response to Ekman pumping, but their transient dynamics are poorly understood. Climate models commonly use the Gent–McWilliams (GM) parameterization, taking the eddy streamfunction to be proportional to an isopycnal slope s and an eddy diffusivity K. This local-in-time parameterization leads to exponential equilibration of currents. Here, an idealized, eddy-resolving Beaufort Gyre model is used to demonstrate that carries a finite memory of past ocean states, violating a key GM assumption. As a consequence, an equilibrating gyre follows a spiral sink trajectory implying the existence of a damped mode of variability—the eddy memory (EM) mode. The EM mode manifests during the spinup as a 15% overshoot in isopycnal slope (2000 km3 freshwater content overshoot) and cannot be explained by the GM parameterization. An improved parameterization is developed, such that is proportional to an effective isopycnal slope , carrying a finite memory γ of past slopes. Introducing eddy memory explains the model results and brings to light an oscillation with a period ≈ 50 yr, where the eddy diffusion time scale TE ~ 10 yr and γ ≈ 6 yr are diagnosed from the eddy-resolving model. The EM mode increases the Ekman-driven gyre variance by γ/TE ≈ 50% ± 15%, a fraction that stays relatively constant despite both time scales decreasing with increased mean forcing. This study suggests that the EM mode is a general property of rotating turbulent flows and highlights the need for better observational constraints on transient eddy field characteristics.
    Description: GEM acknowledges the Stanback Postdoctoral Fellowship Fund at Caltech and the Howland Postdoctoral Program Fund at WHOI. MAS was supported by NSF Grants PLR-1415489 and OCE- 1232389. AFT acknowledges support from NSF OCE- 1235488.
    Keywords: Arctic ; Eddies ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Parameterization ; Multidecadal variability
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    High-frequency variability in the circulation and hydrography of the Denmark Strait Overflow from a high-resolution numerical model (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2999-3013, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0129.1.
    Description: Initial results are presented from a yearlong, high-resolution (~2 km) numerical simulation covering the east Greenland shelf and the Iceland and Irminger Seas. The model hydrography and circulation in the vicinity of Denmark Strait show good agreement with available observational datasets. This study focuses on the variability of the Denmark Strait overflow (DSO) by detecting and characterizing boluses and pulses, which are the two dominant mesoscale features in the strait. The authors estimate that the yearly mean southward volume flux of the DSO is about 30% greater in the presence of boluses and pulses. On average, boluses (pulses) are 57.1 (27.5) h long, occur every 3.2 (5.5) days, and are more frequent during the summer (winter). Boluses (pulses) increase (decrease) the overflow cross-sectional area, and temperatures around the overflow interface are colder (warmer) by about 2.6°C (1.8°C). The lateral extent of the boluses is much greater than that of the pulses. In both cases the along-strait equatorward flow of dense water is enhanced but more so for pulses. The sea surface height (SSH) rises by 4–10 cm during boluses and by up to 5 cm during pulses. The SSH anomaly contours form a bowl (dome) during boluses (pulses), and the two features cross the strait with a slightly different orientation. The cross streamflow changes direction; boluses (pulses) are associated with veering (backing) of the horizontal current. The model indicates that boluses and pulses play a major role in controlling the variability of the DSO transport into the Irminger Sea.
    Description: This work was supported by the NSF Grants OCE-1433448, OCE-1633124, and OCE- 1259618 and the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) seed grant funding.
    Description: 2018-06-13
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean models ; Regional models
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    Comparison of rip current hazard likelihood forecasts with observed rip current speeds (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Weather and Forecasting 32 (2017): 1659-1666, doi:10.1175/WAF-D-17-0076.1.
    Description: Although rip currents are a major hazard for beachgoers, the relationship between the danger to swimmers and the physical properties of rip current circulation is not well understood. Here, the relationship between statistical model estimates of hazardous rip current likelihood and in situ velocity observations is assessed. The statistical model is part of a forecasting system that is being made operational by the National Weather Service to predict rip current hazard likelihood as a function of wave conditions and water level. The temporal variability of rip current speeds (offshore-directed currents) observed on an energetic sandy beach is correlated with the hindcasted hazard likelihood for a wide range of conditions. High likelihoods and rip current speeds occurred for low water levels, nearly shore-normal wave angles, and moderate or larger wave heights. The relationship between modeled hazard likelihood and the frequency with which rip current speeds exceeded a threshold was assessed for a range of threshold speeds. The frequency of occurrence of high (threshold exceeding) rip current speeds is consistent with the modeled probability of hazard, with a maximum Brier skill score of 0.65 for a threshold speed of 0.23 m s−1, and skill scores greater than 0.60 for threshold speeds between 0.15 and 0.30 m s−1. The results suggest that rip current speed may be an effective proxy for hazard level and that speeds greater than ~0.2 m s−1 may be hazardous to swimmers.
    Description: Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation (1232910, 1332705, and 1536365), and by National Security Science and Engineering and Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowships funded by the assistant secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
    Description: 2018-02-28
    Keywords: Coastlines ; Coastal flows ; Waves, oceanic ; Forecast verification/skill ; Probability forecasts/models/distribution ; Statistical forecasting
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    Surface wave effects on the translation of wind stress across the air–sea interface in a fetch-limited, coastal embayment (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1921-1939, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0146.1.
    Description: The role of surface gravity waves in structuring the air–sea momentum flux is examined in the middle reaches of Chesapeake Bay. Observed wave spectra showed that wave direction in Chesapeake Bay is strongly correlated with basin geometry. Waves preferentially developed in the direction of maximum fetch, suggesting that dominant wave frequencies may be commonly and persistently misaligned with local wind forcing. Direct observations from an ultrasonic anemometer and vertical array of ADVs show that the magnitude and direction of stress changed across the air–sea interface, suggesting that a stress divergence occurred at or near the water surface. Using a numerical wave model in combination with direct flux measurements, the air–sea momentum flux was partitioned between the surface wave field and the mean flow. Results indicate that the surface wave field can store or release a significant fraction of the total momentum flux depending on the direction of the wind. When wind blew across dominant fetch axes, the generation of short gravity waves stored as much as 40% of the total wind stress. Accounting for the storage of momentum in the surface wave field closed the air–sea momentum budget. Agreement between the direction of Lagrangian shear and the direction of the stress vector in the mixed surface layer suggests that the observed directional difference was due to the combined effect of breaking waves producing downward sweeps of momentum in the direction of wave propagation and the straining of that vorticity field in a manner similar to Langmuir turbulence.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1061609 and OCE-1339032.
    Description: 2018-01-13
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Coastal flows ; Mixing ; Momentum ; Wind stress ; Wind waves
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    Coupled ocean–atmosphere offshore decay scale of cold SST signals along upwelling eastern boundaries (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 29 (2016): 8317-8331, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0109.1.
    Description: A simple analytic model is developed to represent the offshore decay of cold sea surface temperature (SST) signals that originate from wind-driven upwelling at a coastal boundary. The model couples an oceanic mixed layer to an atmospheric boundary layer through wind stress and air–sea heat exchange. The primary mechanism that controls SST is a balance between Ekman advection and air–sea exchange. The offshore penetration of the cold SST signal decays exponentially with a length scale that is the product of the ocean Ekman velocity and a time scale derived from the air–sea heat flux and the radiative balance in the atmospheric boundary layer. This cold SST signal imprints on the atmosphere in terms of both the boundary layer temperature and surface wind. Nonlinearities due to the feedback between SST and atmospheric wind, baroclinic instability, and thermal wind in the atmospheric boundary layer all slightly modify this linear theory. The decay scales diagnosed from two-dimensional and three-dimensional eddy-resolving numerical ocean models are in close agreement with the theory, demonstrating that the basic physics represented by the theory remain dominant even in these more complete systems. Analysis of climatological SST off the west coast of the United States also shows a decay of the cold SST anomaly with scale roughly in agreement with the theory.
    Description: MASwas supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research and the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1433170 and PLR-1415489. NS was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant NNX14AL83G, the Department of Energy, Office of Science Grant DE-SC0006766, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology as part of the JAMSTEC-IPRC Joint Investigations.
    Description: 2017-05-03
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean dynamics
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    Downfront winds over buoyant coastal plumes (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 3139-3154, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0042.1.
    Description: Downfront, or downwelling favorable, winds are commonly found over buoyant coastal plumes. It is known that these winds can result in mixing of the plume with the ambient water and that the winds influence the transport, spatial extent, and stability of the plumes. In the present study, the interaction of the Ekman velocity in the surface layer and baroclinic instability supported by the strong horizontal density gradient of the plume is explored with the objective of understanding the potential vorticity and buoyancy budgets. The approach makes use of an idealized numerical model and scaling theory. It is shown that when winds are present the weak stratification resulting from vertical mixing and the strong baroclinicity of the front results in near-zero average potential vorticity q. For weak to moderate winds, the reduction of q by diapycnal mixing is balanced by the generation of q through the geostrophic stress term in the regions of strong horizontal density gradients and stable stratification. However, for very strong winds the wind stress overwhelms the geostrophic stress and leads to a reduction in q, which is balanced by the vertical mixing term. In the absence of winds, the geostrophic stress dominates mixing and the flow rapidly restratifies. Nonlinearity, extremes of relative vorticity and vertical velocity, and mixing are all enhanced by the presence of a coast. Scaling estimates developed for the eddy buoyancy flux, the surface potential vorticity flux, and the diapycnal mixing rate compare well with results diagnosed from a series of numerical model calculations.
    Description: This study was supported by NSF Grants OCE-1433170 (MAS) and OCE-1459677 (LNT).
    Description: 2017-04-07
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Wind stress
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    Heat, salt, and freshwater budgets for a glacial fjord in Greenland (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 2735-2768, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0134.1.
    Description: In Greenland’s glacial fjords, heat and freshwater are exchanged between glaciers and the ocean. Submarine melting of glaciers has been implicated as a potential trigger for recent glacier acceleration, and observations of ocean heat transport are increasingly being used to infer the submarine melt rates. The complete heat, salt, and mass budgets that underlie such methods, however, have been largely neglected. Here, a new framework for exploring glacial fjord budgets is developed. Building on estuarine studies of salt budgets, the heat, salt, and mass transports through the fjord are decomposed, and new equations for calculating freshwater fluxes from submarine meltwater and runoff are presented. This method is applied to moored records from Sermilik Fjord, near the terminus of Helheim Glacier, to evaluate the dominant balances in the fjord budgets and to estimate freshwater fluxes. Throughout the year, two different regimes are found. In the nonsummer months, advective transports are balanced by changes in heat/salt storage within their ability to measure; freshwater fluxes cannot be inferred as a residual. In the summer, a mean exchange flow emerges, consisting of inflowing Atlantic water and outflowing glacially modified water. This exchange transports heat toward the glacier and is primarily balanced by changes in storage and latent heat for melting ice. The total freshwater flux increases over the summer, reaching 1200 ± 700 m3 s−1 of runoff and 1500 ± 500 m3 s−1 of submarine meltwater from glaciers and icebergs in August. The methods and results highlight important components of fjord budgets, particularly the storage and barotropic terms, that have been not been appropriately considered in previous estimates of submarine melting.
    Description: The data collection and analysis was funded by NSF Grants ARC-0909373, OCE-113008, and OCE-1434041.
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Glaciers ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Coastal flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Freshwater ; Snowmelt/icemelt ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Investigating the eddy diffusivity concept in the coastal ocean (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 2201-2218, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0020.1.
    Description: This paper aims to test the validity, utility, and limitations of the lateral eddy diffusivity concept in a coastal environment through analyzing data from coupled drifter and dye releases within the footprint of a high-resolution (800 m) high-frequency radar south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Specifically, this study investigates how well a combination of radar-based velocities and drifter-derived diffusivities can reproduce observed dye spreading over an 8-h time interval. A drifter-based estimate of an anisotropic diffusivity tensor is used to parameterize small-scale motions that are unresolved and underresolved by the radar system. This leads to a significant improvement in the ability of the radar to reproduce the observed dye spreading.
    Description: IR, AK, and SL were supported by the NSF OCE Grant 1332646. IR was also supported by NASA Grant NNX14AH29G.
    Description: 2016-12-29
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Coastal flows ; Diffusion ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Radars/Radar observations ; Models and modeling ; Tracers
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    Estuarine frontogenesis (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 546–561, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0082.1.
    Description: Model studies and observations in the Hudson River estuary indicate that frontogenesis occurs as a result of topographic forcing. Bottom fronts form just downstream of lateral constrictions, where the width of the estuary increases in the down-estuary (i.e., seaward) direction. The front forms during the last several hours of the ebb, when the combination of adverse pressure gradient in the expansion and baroclinicity cause a stagnation of near-bottom velocity. Frontogenesis is observed in two dynamical regimes: one in which the front develops at a transition from subcritical to supercritical flow and the other in which the flow is everywhere supercritical. The supercritical front formation appears to be associated with lateral flow separation. Both types of fronts are three-dimensional, with strong lateral gradients along the flanks of the channel. During spring tide conditions, the fronts dissipate during the flood, whereas during neap tides the fronts are advected landward during the flood. The zone of enhanced density gradient initiates frontogenesis at multiple constrictions along the estuary as it propagates landward more than 60 km during several days of neap tides. Frontogenesis and frontal propagation may thus be essential elements of the spring-to-neap transition to stratified conditions in partially mixed estuaries.
    Description: Support for this research was provided by NSF Grant OCE 0926427.
    Description: 2015-08-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Coastal flows ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Fronts
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    Formation of intrathermocline lenses by eddy–wind interaction (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 606–612, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0221.1.
    Description: Mesoscale intrathermocline lenses are observed throughout the World Ocean and are commonly attributed to water mass anomalies advected from a distant origin. An alternative mechanism of local generation is offered herein, in which eddy–wind interaction can create lens-shaped disturbances in the thermocline. Numerical simulations illustrate how eddy–wind-driven upwelling in anticyclones can yield a convex lens reminiscent of a mode water eddy, whereas eddy–wind-driven downwelling in cyclones produces a concave lens that thins the mode water layer (a cyclonic “thinny”). Such transformations should be observable with long-term time series in the interiors of mesoscale eddies.
    Description: Support of this research by the National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2015-08-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Eddies ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Models and modeling ; Ocean models ; Primitive equations model
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    The role of wave dynamics and small-scale topography for downslope wind events in southeast Greenland (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72 (2015): 2786–2805, doi:10.1175/JAS-D-14-0257.1.
    Description: In Ammassalik, in southeast Greenland, downslope winds can reach hurricane intensity and represent a hazard for the local population and environment. They advect cold air down the ice sheet and over the Irminger Sea, where they drive large ocean–atmosphere heat fluxes over an important ocean convection region. Earlier studies have found them to be associated with a strong katabatic acceleration over the steep coastal slopes, flow convergence inside the valley of Ammassalik, and—in one instance—mountain wave breaking. Yet, for the general occurrence of strong downslope wind events, the importance of mesoscale processes is largely unknown. Here, two wind events—one weak and one strong—are simulated with the atmospheric Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model with different model and topography resolutions, ranging from 1.67 to 60 km. For both events, but especially for the strong one, it is found that lower resolutions underestimate the wind speed because they misrepresent the steepness of the topography and do not account for the underlying wave dynamics. If a 5-km model instead of a 60-km model resolution in Ammassalik is used, the flow associated with the strong wind event is faster by up to 20 m s−1. The effects extend far downstream over the Irminger Sea, resulting in a diverging spatial distribution and temporal evolution of the heat fluxes. Local differences in the heat fluxes amount to 20%, with potential implications for ocean convection.
    Description: This study was supported by grants of the National Science Foundation (OCE- 0751554 and OCE-1130008) as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
    Description: 2016-01-01
    Keywords: Katabatic winds ; Severe storms ; Air-sea interaction ; Mesoscale processes ; Orographic effects ; Model evaluation/performance
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    Effects of eddy vorticity forcing on the mean state of the Kuroshio Extension (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 1356–1375, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0259.1.
    Description: Eddy–mean flow interactions along the Kuroshio Extension (KE) jet are investigated using a vorticity budget of a high-resolution ocean model simulation, averaged over a 13-yr period. The simulation explicitly resolves mesoscale eddies in the KE and is forced with air–sea fluxes representing the years 1995–2007. A mean-eddy decomposition in a jet-following coordinate system removes the variability of the jet path from the eddy components of velocity; thus, eddy kinetic energy in the jet reference frame is substantially lower than in geographic coordinates and exhibits a cross-jet asymmetry that is consistent with the baroclinic instability criterion of the long-term mean field. The vorticity budget is computed in both geographic (i.e., Eulerian) and jet reference frames; the jet frame budget reveals several patterns of eddy forcing that are largely attributed to varicose modes of variability. Eddies tend to diffuse the relative vorticity minima/maxima that flank the jet, removing momentum from the fast-moving jet core and reinforcing the quasi-permanent meridional meanders in the mean jet. A pattern associated with the vertical stretching of relative vorticity in eddies indicates a deceleration (acceleration) of the jet coincident with northward (southward) quasi-permanent meanders. Eddy relative vorticity advection outside of the eastward jet core is balanced mostly by vertical stretching of the mean flow, which through baroclinic adjustment helps to drive the flanking recirculation gyres. The jet frame vorticity budget presents a well-defined picture of eddy activity, illustrating along-jet variations in eddy–mean flow interaction that may have implications for the jet’s dynamics and cross-frontal tracer fluxes.
    Description: A. S. Delman (ASD) and J. L. McClean (JLM) were supported by NSF Grant OCE-0850463 and Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DE-FG02-05ER64119. ASD and J. Sprintall were also supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF), Grant NNX13AM93H. JLM was also supported by U.S. DOE Office of Science grant entitled “Ultra-High Resolution Global Climate Simulation” via a Los Alamos National Laboratory subcontract. S. R. Jayne was supported by NSF Grant OCE-0849808. Computational resources for the model run were provided by NSF Resource Grants TG-OCE110013 and TG-OCE130010.
    Description: 2015-11-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Pacific Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Forcing ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Jets ; Models and modeling ; General circulation models
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    Observations of water mass transformation and eddies in the Lofoten basin of the Nordic Seas (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 1735–1756, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0238.1.
    Description: The Lofoten basin of the Nordic Seas is recognized as a crucial component of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic because of the large horizontal extent of Atlantic Water and winter surface buoyancy loss. In this study, hydrographic and current measurements collected from a mooring deployed in the Lofoten basin from July 2010 to September 2012 are used to describe water mass transformation and the mesoscale eddy field. Winter mixed layer depths (MLDs) are observed to reach approximately 400 m, with larger MLDs and denser properties resulting from the colder 2010 winter. A heat budget of the upper water column requires lateral input, which balances the net annual heat loss of ~80 W m−2. The lateral flux is a result of mesoscale eddies, which dominate the velocity variability. Eddy velocities are enhanced in the upper 1000 m, with a barotropic component that reaches the bottom. Detailed examination of two eddies, from April and August 2012, highlights the variability of the eddy field and eddy properties. Temperature and salinity properties of the April eddy suggest that it originated from the slope current but was ventilated by surface fluxes. The properties within the eddy were similar to those of the mode water, indicating that convection within the eddies may make an important contribution to water mass transformation. A rough estimate of eddy flux per unit boundary current length suggests that fluxes in the Lofoten basin are larger than in the Labrador Sea because of the enhanced boundary current–interior density difference.
    Description: The work was supported by NSF OCE 0850416.
    Description: 2015-12-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary currents ; Eddies ; Fluxes ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Thermohaline circulation
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  • 39
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    Properties and origins of the anisotropic eddy-induced transport in the North Atlantic (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 778–791, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0164.1.
    Description: This study examines anisotropic transport properties of the eddying North Atlantic flow, using an idealized model of the double-gyre oceanic circulation and altimetry-derived velocities. The material transport by the time-dependent flow (quantified by the eddy diffusivity tensor) varies geographically and is anisotropic, that is, it has a well-defined direction of the maximum transport. One component of the time-dependent flow, zonally elongated large-scale transients, is particularly important for the anisotropy, as it corresponds to primarily zonal material transport and long correlation time scales. The importance of these large-scale zonal transients in the material distribution is further confirmed with simulations of idealized color dye tracers, which has implications for parameterizations of the eddy transport in non-eddy-resolving models.
    Description: IK would like to acknowledge support through the NSF Grant OCE-1154923. IR was supported by the NSF OCE-1154641 and NASA Grant NNX14AH29G.
    Description: 2015-09-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Eddies ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Ocean circulation ; Models and modeling ; Tracers
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    Two years of observations of warm-core anticyclones in the Labrador Sea and their seasonal cycle in heat and salt stratification (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 427–444, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-070.1.
    Description: Between 25 September 2007 and 28 September 2009, a heavily instrumented mooring was deployed in the Labrador Sea, offshore of the location where warm-core, anticyclonic Irminger rings are formed. The 2-year time series offers insight into the vertical and horizontal structure of newly formed Irminger rings and their heat and salt transport into the interior basin. In 2 years, 12 Irminger rings passed by the mooring. Of these, 11 had distinct properties, while 1 anticyclone likely passed the mooring twice. Eddy radii (11–35 km) were estimated using the dynamic height signal of the anticyclones (8–18 cm) together with the observed velocities. The anticyclones show a seasonal cycle in core properties when observed (1.9°C in temperature and 0.07 in salinity at middepth) that has not been described before. The temperature and salinity are highest in fall and lowest in spring. Cold, fresh caps, suggested to be an important source of freshwater, were seen in spring but were almost nonexistent in fall. The heat and freshwater contributions by the Irminger rings show a large spread (from 12 to 108 MJ m−2 and from −0.5 to −4.7 cm, respectively) for two reasons. First, the large range of radii leads to large differences in transported volume. Second, the seasonal cycle leads to changes in heat and salt content per unit volume. This implies that estimates of heat and freshwater transport by eddies should take the distribution of eddy properties into account in order to accurately assess their contribution to the restratification.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Devonshire Foundation.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Anticyclones ; Boundary currents ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Variability ; Seasonal cycle
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  • 41
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    Eulerian and Lagrangian correspondence of high-frequency radar and surface drifter data : effects of radar resolution and flow components (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 31 (2014): 945–966, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00146.1.
    Description: This study investigated the correspondence between the near-surface drifters from a mass drifter deployment near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and the surface current observations from a network of three high-resolution, high-frequency radars to understand the effects of the radar temporal and spatial resolution on the resulting Eulerian current velocities and Lagrangian trajectories and their predictability. The radar-based surface currents were found to be unbiased in direction but biased in magnitude with respect to drifter velocities. The radar systematically underestimated velocities by approximately 2 cm s−1 due to the smoothing effects of spatial and temporal averaging. The radar accuracy, quantified by the domain-averaged rms difference between instantaneous radar and drifter velocities, was found to be about 3.8 cm s−1. A Lagrangian comparison between the real and simulated drifters resulted in the separation distances of roughly 1 km over the course of 10 h, or an equivalent separation speed of approximately 2.8 cm s−1. The effects of the temporal and spatial radar resolution were examined by degrading the radar fields to coarser resolutions, revealing the existence of critical scales (1.5–2 km and 3 h) beyond which the ability of the radar to reproduce drifter trajectories decreased more rapidly. Finally, the importance of the different flow components present during the experiment—mean, tidal, locally wind-driven currents, and the residual velocities—was analyzed, finding that, during the study period, a combination of tidal, locally wind-driven, and mean currents were insufficient to reliably reproduce, with minimal degradation, the trajectories of real drifters. Instead, a minimum combination of the tidal and residual currents was required.
    Description: I.R. was supported by the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute Project 27040148 and by the WHOI Access to the Sea Program 27500036. I.R. and A.K. acknowledge support fromthe NSF project 83264600. A.K. acknowledges support from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) via the New England Marine Renewable Energy Center (MREC).
    Description: 2014-10-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Currents ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Trajectories ; Radars/Radar observations
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    Variations of the North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water from direct observations (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 27 (2014): 2842–2860, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00227.1.
    Description: Mooring measurements from the Kuroshio Extension System Study (June 2004–June 2006) and from the ongoing Kuroshio Extension Observatory (June 2004–present) are combined with float measurements of the Argo network to study the variability of the North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water (STMW) across the entire gyre, on time scales from days, to seasons, to a decade. The top of the STMW follows a seasonal cycle, although observations reveal that it primarily varies in discrete steps associated with episodic wind events. The variations of the STMW bottom depth are tightly related to the sea surface height (SSH), reflecting mesoscale eddies and large-scale variations of the Kuroshio Extension and recirculation gyre systems. Using the observed relationship between SSH and STMW, gridded SSH products and in situ estimates from floats are used to construct weekly maps of STMW thickness, providing nonbiased estimates of STMW total volume, annual formation and erosion volumes, and seasonal and interannual variability for the past decade. Year-to-year variations are detected, particularly a significant decrease of STMW volume in 2007–10 primarily attributable to a smaller volume formed. Variability of the heat content in the mode water region is dominated by the seasonal cycle and mesoscale eddies; there is only a weak link to STMW on interannual time scales, and no long-term trends in heat content and STMW thickness between 2002 and 2011 are detected. Weak lagged correlations among air–sea fluxes, oceanic heat content, and STMW thickness are found when averaged over the northwestern Pacific recirculation gyre region.
    Description: This work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (Grants OCE-0220161, OCE-0825152, and OCE-0827125).
    Description: 2014-10-15
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Mesoscale processes ; Mesoscale systems ; Ocean dynamics ; Eddies ; Water masses
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 43
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    Coastal trapped waves, alongshore pressure gradients, and the California Undercurrent (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 319–342, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-095.1.
    Description: The California Undercurrent (CUC), a poleward-flowing feature over the continental slope, is a key transport pathway along the west coast of North America and an important component of regional upwelling dynamics. This study examines the poleward undercurrent and alongshore pressure gradients in the northern California Current System (CCS), where local wind stress forcing is relatively weak. The dynamics of the undercurrent are compared in the primitive equation Navy Coastal Ocean Model and a linear coastal trapped wave model. Both models are validated using hydrographic data and current-meter observations in the core of the undercurrent in the northern CCS. In the linear model, variability in the predominantly equatorward wind stress along the U.S. West Coast produces episodic reversals to poleward flow over the northern CCS slope during summer. However, reproducing the persistence of the undercurrent during late summer requires additional incoming energy from sea level variability applied south of the region of the strongest wind forcing. The relative importance of the barotropic and baroclinic components of the modeled alongshore pressure gradient changes with latitude. In contrast to the southern and central portions of the CCS, the baroclinic component of the alongshore pressure gradient provides the primary poleward force at CUC depths over the northern CCS slope. At time scales from weeks to months, the alongshore pressure gradient force is primarily balanced by the Coriolis force associated with onshore flow.
    Description: This work was supported by grants to B. Hickey from the Coastal Ocean Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (NA17OP2789 and NA09NOS4780180) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) (OCE0234587 and OCE0942675) as part of the Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms Pacific Northwest (ECOHAB PNW) and Pacific Northwest Toxin (PNWTOX) projects. I. Shulman was supported by the Naval Research Laboratory.
    Description: 2014-07-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Coastal flows ; Models and modeling ; Model evaluation/performance ; Variability ; Intraseasonal variability ; Seasonal variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 44
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    Inner-shelf response to cross-chelf wind stress : the importance of the cross-shelf density gradient in an idealized numerical model and field observations (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 86–103, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-075.1.
    Description: This study investigates the effects of horizontal and vertical density gradients on the inner-shelf response to cross-shelf wind stress by using an idealized numerical model and observations from a moored array deployed south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. In two-dimensional (no along-shelf variation) numerical model runs of an initially stratified shelf, a cross-shelf wind stress drives vertical mixing that results in a nearly well-mixed inner shelf with a cross-shelf density gradient because of the sloping bottom. The cross-shelf density gradient causes an asymmetric response to on- and offshore wind stresses. For density increasing offshore, an offshore wind stress drives a near-surface offshore flow and near-bottom onshore flow that slightly enhances the vertical stratification and the cross-shelf circulation. An onshore wind stress drives the reverse cross-shelf circulation reducing the vertical stratification and the cross-shelf circulation. A horizontal Richardson number is shown to be the nondimensional parameter that controls the dependence of the wind-driven nondimensional cross-shelf transport on the cross-shelf density gradient. Field observations show the same empirical relationship between the horizontal Richardson number and transport fraction as the model predicts. These results show that it is the cross-shelf rather than vertical density gradient that is critical to predicting the inner-shelf cross-shelf transport driven by a cross-shelf wind stress.
    Description: This work was funded by Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0548961 and by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution through the Academic Programs Office and the Coastal Ocean Institute. Data central to this study were provided by the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory, which is funded by WHOI and the Jewett/EDUC/Harrison Foundation.
    Description: 2014-07-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Coastal flows ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Upwelling/downwelling
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  • 45
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    Aerial imaging of fluorescent dye in the near shore (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 31 (2014): 1410–1421, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00230.1.
    Description: Aerial images are used to quantify the concentration of fluorescent Rhodamine water tracing (WT) dye in turbid and optically deep water. Tracer releases near the shoreline of an ocean beach and near a tidal inlet were observed with a two-band multispectral camera and a pushbroom hyperspectral imager, respectively. The aerial observations are compared with near-surface in situ measurements. The ratio of upwelling radiance near the Rhodamine WT excitation and emission peaks varies linearly with the in situ dye concentrations for concentrations 〈20 ppb (r2 = 0.70 and r2 = 0.85–0.88 at the beach and inlet, respectively). The linear relationship allows for relative tracer concentration estimates without in situ calibration. The O(1 m) image pixels resolve complex flow structures on the inner shelf that transport and mix tracer.
    Description: We thank ONR and NSF for funding this work.
    Description: 2014-12-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Mixing ; Transport ; Aircraft observations ; Remote sensing ; Tracers
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 46
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    The impact of oceanic near-inertial waves on climate (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 26 (2013): 2833–2844, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00181.1.
    Description: The Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) is used to assess the climate impact of wind-generated near-inertial waves (NIWs). Even with high-frequency coupling, CCSM4 underestimates the strength of NIWs, so that a parameterization for NIWs is developed and included into CCSM4. Numerous assumptions enter this parameterization, the core of which is that the NIW velocity signal is detected during the model integration, and amplified in the shear computation of the ocean surface boundary layer module. It is found that NIWs deepen the ocean mixed layer by up to 30%, but they contribute little to the ventilation and mixing of the ocean below the thermocline. However, the deepening of the tropical mixed layer by NIWs leads to a change in tropical sea surface temperature and precipitation. Atmospheric teleconnections then change the global sea level pressure fields so that the midlatitude westerlies become weaker. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the real air-sea flux of NIW energy is poorly constrained by observations; this makes the quantitative assessment of their climate impact rather uncertain. Thus, a major result of the present study is that because of its importance for global climate the uncertainty in the observed tropical NIW energy has to be reduced.
    Description: This research was funded as part of the Climate Process Team on internal wave-driven mixing with NSF Grant Nr E0968771 at NCAR.
    Description: 2013-11-01
    Keywords: Fronts ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Mesoscale processes ; Mixing ; Nonlinear dynamics
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Interaction of Ekman layers and islands (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 1028–1041, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0159.1.
    Description: The circulation induced by the interaction of surface Ekman transport with an island is considered using both numerical models and linear theory. The basic response is similar to that found for the interaction of Ekman layers and an infinite boundary, namely downwelling (upwelling) in narrow boundary layers and deformation-scale baroclinic boundary layers with associated strong geostrophic flows. The presence of the island boundary, however, allows the pressure signal to propagate around the island so that the regions of upwelling and downwelling are dynamically connected. In the absence of stratification the island acts as an effective barrier to the Ekman transport. The presence of stratification supports baroclinic boundary currents that provide an advective pathway from one side of the island to the other. The resulting steady circulation is quite complex. Near the island, both geostrophic and ageostrophic velocity components are typically large. The density anomaly is maximum below the surface and, for positive wind stress, exhibits an anticyclonic phase rotation with depth (direction of Kelvin wave propagation) such that anomalously warm water can lie below regions of Ekman upwelling. The horizontal and vertical velocities exhibit similar phase changes with depth. The addition of a sloping bottom can act to shield the deep return flow from interacting with the island and providing mass transport into/out of the surface Ekman layer. In these cases, the required transport is provided by a pair of recirculation gyres that connect the narrow upwelling/downwelling boundary layers on the eastern and western sides of the island, thus directly connecting the Ekman transport across the island.
    Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0826656 and OCE-0959381 (MAS), and OCE-0925061 (JP).
    Description: 2013-11-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean dynamics
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    Residual sediment fluxes in weakly-to-periodically stratified estuaries and tidal inlets (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 1841–1861, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0231.1.
    Description: In this idealized numerical modeling study, the composition of residual sediment fluxes in energetic (e.g., weakly or periodically stratified) tidal estuaries is investigated by means of one-dimensional water column models, with some focus on the sediment availability. Scaling of the underlying dynamic equations shows dependence of the results on the Simpson number (relative strength of horizontal density gradient) and the Rouse number (relative settling velocity) as well as impacts of the Unsteadiness number (relative tidal frequency). Here, the parameter space given by the Simpson and Rouse numbers is mainly investigated. A simple analytical model based on the assumption of stationarity shows that for small Simpson and Rouse numbers sediment flux is down estuary and vice versa for large Simpson and Rouse numbers. A fully dynamic water column model coupled to a second-moment turbulence closure model allows to decompose the sediment flux profiles into contributions from the transport flux (product of subtidal velocity and sediment concentration profiles) and the fluctuation flux profiles (tidal covariance between current velocity and sediment concentration). Three different types of bottom sediment pools are distinguished to vary the sediment availability, by defining a time scale for complete sediment erosion. For short erosion times scales, the transport sediment flux may dominate, but for larger erosion time scales the fluctuation sediment flux largely dominates the tidal sediment flux. When quarter-diurnal components are added to the tidal forcing, up-estuary sediment fluxes are strongly increased for stronger and shorter flood tides and vice versa. The theoretical results are compared to field observations in a tidally energetic inlet.
    Description: Project funding was provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of the Project ECOWS (Role of Estuarine Circulation for Transport of Suspended Particulate Matter in the Wadden Sea, BU 1199/11) and by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education in the framework of the Project PACE [The future of the Wadden Sea sediment fluxes: still keeping pace with sea level rise? (FKZ 03F0634A)].
    Description: 2014-03-01
    Keywords: Channel flows ; Coastal flows ; Mixing ; Transport ; Turbulence ; Single column models
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  • 49
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    The spatial structure of tidal and mean circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 1940–1958, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-020.1.
    Description: The spatial structure of the tidal and background circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, was investigated using observations from a high-resolution, high-frequency coastal radar system, paired with satellite SSTs and in situ ADCP velocities. Maximum tidal velocities for the dominant semidiurnal constituent increased from 5 to 35 cm s−1 over the 20-km-wide domain with phase variations up to 60°. A northeastward jet along the eastern edge and a recirculation region inshore dominated the annually averaged surface currents, along with a separate along-shelf jet offshore. Owing in part to this variable circulation, the spatial structure of seasonal SST anomalies had implications for the local heat balance. Cooling owing to the advective heat flux divergence was large enough to offset more than half of the seasonal heat gain owing to surface heat flux. Tidal stresses were the largest terms in the mean along- and across-shelf momentum equations in the area of the recirculation, with residual wind stress and the Coriolis term dominating to the west and south, respectively. The recirculation was strongest in summer, with mean winds and tidal stresses accounting for much of the differences between summer and winter mean circulation. Despite the complex bathymetry and short along-shelf spatial scales, a simple model of tidal rectification was able to recreate the features of the northeastward jet and match an estimate of the across-shelf structure of sea surface height inferred from the residual of the momentum analysis.
    Description: 2014-03-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Momentum ; Sea surface temperature ; Tides ; Surface observations
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    A comparison of methods for estimating Reynolds stress from ADCP measurements in wavy environments (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 28 (2011): 1539–1553, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00001.1.
    Description: Turbulent Reynolds stresses are now routinely estimated from acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements in estuaries and tidal channels using the variance method, yet biases due to surface gravity waves limit its use in the coastal ocean. Recent modifications to this method, including spatially filtering velocities to isolate the turbulence from wave velocities and fitting a cospectral model to the below-wave band cospectra, have been used to remove this bias. Individually, each modification performed well for the published test datasets, but a comparative analysis over the range of conditions in the coastal ocean has not yet been performed. This work uses ADCP velocity measurements from five previously published coastal ocean and estuarine datasets, which span a range of wave and current conditions as well as instrument configurations, to directly compare methods for estimating stresses in the presence of waves. The computed stresses from each were compared to bottom stress estimates from a quadratic drag law and, where available, estimates of wind stress. These comparisons, along with an analysis of the cospectra, indicated that spectral fitting performs well when the wave climate is wide-banded and/or multidirectional as well as when instrument noise is high. In contrast, spatial filtering performs better when waves are narrow-banded, low frequency, and when wave orbital velocities are strong relative to currents. However, as spatial filtering uses vertically separated velocity bins to remove the wave bias, spectral fitting is able to resolve stresses over a larger fraction of the water column.
    Description: J. Rosman acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation (OCE-1061108).
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Momentum ; Ocean circulation ; Waves, oceanic ; In situ observations ; Instrumentation/sensors
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    Improving HF radar estimates of surface currents using signal quality metrics, with application to the MVCO high-resolution radar system (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 29 (2012): 1377–1390, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00160.1.
    Description: Estimates of surface currents over the continental shelf are now regularly made using high-frequency radar (HFR) systems along much of the U.S. coastline. The recently deployed HFR system at the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO) is a unique addition to these systems, focusing on high spatial resolution over a relatively small coastal ocean domain with high accuracy. However, initial results from the system showed sizable errors and biased estimates of M2 tidal currents, prompting an examination of new methods to improve the quality of radar-based velocity data. The analysis described here utilizes the radial metric output of CODAR Ocean Systems’ version 7 release of the SeaSonde Radial Site Software Suite to examine both the characteristics of the received signal and the output of the direction-finding algorithm to provide data quality controls on the estimated radial currents that are independent of the estimated velocity. Additionally, the effect of weighting spatial averages of radials falling within the same range and azimuthal bin is examined to account for differences in signal quality. Applied to two month-long datasets from the MVCO high-resolution system, these new methods are found to improve the rms difference comparisons with in situ current measurements by up to 2 cm s−1, as well as reduce or eliminate observed biases of tidal ellipses estimated using standard methods.
    Description: 2013-03-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Currents ; Data processing ; Data quality control ; In situ atmospheric observations ; Remote sensing
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    Cross-shelf and out-of-bay transport driven by an open-ocean current (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 2168–2186, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-08.1.
    Description: This paper studies the interaction of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)–like wind-driven channel flow with a continental slope and a flat-bottomed bay-shaped shelf near the channel’s southern boundary. Interaction between the model ACC and the topography in the second layer induces local changes of the potential vorticity (PV) flux, which further causes the formation of a first-layer PV front near the base of the topography. Located between the ACC and the first-layer slope, the newly formed PV front is constantly perturbed by the ACC and in turn forces the first-layer slope with its own variability in an intermittent but persistent way. The volume transport of the slope water across the first-layer slope edge is mostly directly driven by eddies and meanders of the new front, and its magnitude is similar to the maximum Ekman transport in the channel. Near the bay’s opening, the effect of the topographic waves, excited by offshore variability, dominates the cross-isobath exchange and induces a mean clockwise shelf circulation. The waves’ propagation is only toward the west and tends to be blocked by the bay’s western boundary in the narrow-shelf region. The ensuing wave–coast interaction amplifies the wave amplitude and the cross-shelf transport. Because the interaction only occurs near the western boundary, the shelf water in the west of the bay is more readily carried offshore than that in the east and the mean shelf circulation is also intensified along the bay’s western boundary.
    Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography and NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE- 0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
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    On the response of a buoyant plume to downwelling-favorable wind stress (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 1083–1098, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-015.1.
    Description: Here, the response of a coastally trapped buoyant plume to downwelling-favorable wind forcing is explored using a simplified two-dimensional numerical model and a prognostic theory for the resulting width, depth, and density anomaly and along-shelf transport of the plume. Consistent with the numerical simulations, the analytical model shows that the wind causes mixing of the plume water and that the forced cross-shelf circulation can also generate significant deepening and surface narrowing, as well as increased along-shelf transport. The response is due to a combination of the purely advective process that leads to the steepening of the isopycnals and the entrainment of ambient water into the plume. The advective component depends on the initial plume geometry: plumes that have a large fraction of their total width in contact with the bottom (“bottom trapped”) suffer relatively small depth and width changes compared to plumes that have a large fraction of their total width detached from the bottom (“surface trapped”). Key theoretical parameters are Wγ/Wα, the ratio of the width of the plume detached from the bottom to the width of the plume in contact with it, and the ratio of the wind-generated mixed layer δe to the initial plume depth hp, which determines the amount of water initially entrained into the plume. The model results also show that the cross-shelf circulation can be strongly influenced by the wind-driven response in combination with the geostrophic shear of the plume. The continuous entrainment into the plume, as well as transient events, is also discussed.
    Description: This work has been supported by FONDECYT Grant 1070501. S. Lentz received support by theNational Science Foundation GrantOCE-0751554. C. Moffat had additional support from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs through U.S. Southern Ocean GLOBEC Grants OPP 99-10092 and 06- 23223.
    Description: 2013-01-01
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Boundary currents ; Coastal flows ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Wind ; Ocean models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Estuarine exchange flow quantified with isohaline coordinates : contrasting long and short estuaries (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 748–763, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-086.1.
    Description: Isohaline coordinate analysis is used to compare the exchange flow in two contrasting estuaries, the long (with respect to tidal excursion) Hudson River and the short Merrimack River, using validated numerical models. The isohaline analysis averages fluxes in salinity space rather than in physical space, yielding the isohaline exchange flow that incorporates both subtidal and tidal fluxes and precisely satisfies the Knudsen relation. The isohaline analysis can be consistently applied to both subtidally and tidally dominated estuaries. In the Hudson, the isohaline exchange flow is similar to results from the Eulerian analysis, and the conventional estuarine theory can be used to quantify the salt transport based on scaling with the baroclinic pressure gradient. In the Merrimack, the isohaline exchange flow is much larger than the Eulerian quantity, indicating the dominance of tidal salt flux. The exchange flow does not scale with the baroclinic pressure gradient but rather with tidal volume flux. This tidal exchange is driven by tidal pumping due to the jet–sink flow at the mouth constriction, leading to a linear dependence of exchange flow on tidal volume flux. Finally, a tidal conversion parameter Qin/Qprism, measuring the fraction of tidal inflow Qprism that is converted into net exchange Qin, is proposed to characterize the exchange processes among different systems. It is found that the length scale ratio between tidal excursion and salinity intrusion provides a characteristic to distinguish estuarine regimes.
    Description: SNC is supported by a WHOI postdoctoral scholarship, a NSF Grant OCE-0926427, and a Taiwan National Science Council Grant NSC 100- 2199-M-002-028.WRGis supported byNSFGrantOCE- 0926427. JAL is supported by NSF Grant OCE-0452054.
    Description: 2012-11-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows
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  • 55
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    Buoyancy arrest and shelf–ocean exchange (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 644–658, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0143.1.
    Description: When steady flow in a stratified ocean passes between the continental slope and open ocean, its ability to cross isobaths is potentially limited by buoyancy arrest. If the bottom Ekman transport vanishes and there are no interior stresses, then steady linear flow on an f plane must be geostrophic and follow isobaths exactly. The influence of arrest on cross-shelf transport is investigated here to establish 1) whether there are substantial penetration asymmetries between cases with upwelling and downwelling in the bottom boundary layer; 2) over what spatial scales, hence in what parameter regime, buoyancy arrest is important; and 3) the effects of depth-dependent interior flow. The problem is approached using scalings and idealized numerical models. The results show that there is little or no asymmetry introduced by bottom boundary layer behavior. Further, if the stratification is weak or moderate, as measured by a slope Burger number s = αN/f (where α is the bottom slope, N is buoyancy frequency, and f is the Coriolis parameter), buoyancy arrest does not exert a strong constraint on cross-isobath exchange.
    Description: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Physical Oceanography program through Grant OCE-0849498.
    Description: 2012-10-01
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping/transport
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    Mesoscale eddy–internal wave coupling. Part II : energetics and results from PolyMode (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 789-801, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4039.1.
    Description: The issue of internal wave–mesoscale eddy interactions is revisited. Previous observational work identified the mesoscale eddy field as a possible source of internal wave energy. Characterization of the coupling as a viscous process provides a smaller horizontal transfer coefficient than previously obtained, with vh 50 m2 s−1 in contrast to νh 200–400 m2 s−1, and a vertical transfer coefficient bounded away from zero, with νυ + (f2/N2)Kh 2.5 ± 0.3 × 10−3 m2 s−1 in contrast to νυ + (f2/N2)Kh = 0 ± 2 × 10−2 m2 s−1. Current meter data from the Local Dynamics Experiment of the PolyMode field program indicate mesoscale eddy–internal wave coupling through horizontal interactions (i) is a significant sink of eddy energy and (ii) plays an O(1) role in the energy budget of the internal wave field.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Response to a steady poleward outflow. Part I : the linear, quasigeostrophic problem (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1541-1550, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3999.1.
    Description: The response of a zonal channel to a uniform, switched-on but subsequently steady poleward outflow is presented. An eastward coastal current with a Kelvin wave’s cross-shore structure is found to be generated instantly upon initiation of the outflow. The current is essentially in geostrophic balance everywhere except for the vicinity of the outflow channel mouth, where the streamlines must cross planetary vorticity contours to feed the current. The adjustment of this region generates a plume that propagates westward at Rossby wave speeds. The cross-shore structure of the plume varies with longitude, and at any given longitude it evolves with time. The authors show that the plume evolution can be understood both conceptually and quantitatively as the westward propagation of the Kelvin current’s meridional spectrum, with each spectral element propagating at its own Rossby wave group velocity.
    Description: This work was completed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution while T.S. Durland was supported by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute. M.A. Spall was supported by NSF Grant OCE-0423975, and J. Pedlosky by NSF Grant OCE-0451086. T.S. Durland acknowledges additional report preparation support from NASA Grant NNG05GN98G.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Estuaries ; Currents ; Vorticity ; Plumes
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Laboratory experiments on the interaction of a buoyant coastal current with a canyon : application to the East Greenland Current (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1258-1271, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4028.1.
    Description: This paper presents a set of laboratory experiments focused on how a buoyant coastal current flowing over a sloping bottom interacts with a canyon and what controls the separation, if any, of the current from the upstream canyon bend. The results show that the separation of a buoyant coastal current depends on the current width W relative to the radius of curvature of the bathymetry ρc. The flow moved across the mouth of the canyon (i.e., separated) for W/ρc 〉 1, in agreement with previous results. The present study extends previous work by examining both slope-controlled and surface-trapped currents, and using a geometry specific to investigating buoyant current–canyon interaction. The authors find that, although bottom friction is important in setting the position of the buoyant front, the separation process driven by the inertia of the flow could overcome even the strongest bathymetric influence. Application of the laboratory results to the East Greenland Current (EGC), an Arctic-origin buoyant current that is observed to flow in two branches south of Denmark Strait, suggests that the path of the EGC is influenced by the large canyons cutting across the shelf, as the range of W/ρc in the ocean spans those observed in the laboratory. What causes the formation of a two-branched EGC structure downstream of the Kangerdlugssuaq Canyon (68°N, 32°W) is still unclear, but potential mechanisms are discussed.
    Description: This work was partially funded by NSF Grant OCE-0450658. DS also received support from the Academic Programs Office of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, while CC had partial support from NSF OCE-0350891.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Buoyancy ; Currents ; Experimental design ; Topographic effects
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    Observations and a model of undertow over the inner continental shelf (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 2341-2357, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3986.1.
    Description: Onshore volume transport (Stokes drift) due to surface gravity waves propagating toward the beach can result in a compensating Eulerian offshore flow in the surf zone referred to as undertow. Observed offshore flows indicate that wave-driven undertow extends well offshore of the surf zone, over the inner shelves of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Theoretical estimates of the wave-driven offshore transport from linear wave theory and observed wave characteristics account for 50% or more of the observed offshore transport variance in water depths between 5 and 12 m, and reproduce the observed dependence on wave height and water depth. During weak winds, wave-driven cross-shelf velocity profiles over the inner shelf have maximum offshore flow (1–6 cm s−1) and vertical shear near the surface and weak flow and shear in the lower half of the water column. The observed offshore flow profiles do not resemble the parabolic profiles with maximum flow at middepth observed within the surf zone. Instead, the vertical structure is similar to the Stokes drift velocity profile but with the opposite direction. This vertical structure is consistent with a dynamical balance between the Coriolis force associated with the offshore flow and an along-shelf “Hasselmann wave stress” due to the influence of the earth’s rotation on surface gravity waves. The close agreement between the observed and modeled profiles provides compelling evidence for the importance of the Hasselmann wave stress in forcing oceanic flows. Summer profiles are more vertically sheared than either winter profiles or model profiles, for reasons that remain unclear.
    Description: This research was funded by the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0241292 and OCE-0548961.
    Keywords: Continental shelf ; Transport ; Shear structure/flows ; Coastal flows ; Gravity waves
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    The coastal bottom boundary layer : a note on the model of Chapman and Lentz (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 2776-2784, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3710.1.
    Description: The bottom boundary layer of a stratified flow on a coastal continental shelf is examined using the model of Chapman and Lentz. The flow is driven by a surface stress, uniform in the alongshore coordinate, in a downwelling-favorable direction. The stress diminishes in the offshore direction and produces an Ekman pumping, as well as an onshore Ekman flux. The model yields an interior flow, sandwiched between an upper Ekman layer and a bottom boundary layer. The interior has a horizontal density gradient produced by a balance between horizontal diffusion of density and vertical advection of a background vertical density gradient. The interior flow is vertically sheared and in thermal wind balance. Whereas the original model of Chapman and Lentz considered an alongshore flow that is freely evolving, the present note focuses on the equilibrium structure of a flow driven by stress and discusses the vertical and lateral structure of the flow and, in particular, the boundary layer thickness. The vertical diffusivity of density in the bottom boundary layer is considered so strong, locally, as to render the bottom boundary layer’s density a function of only offshore position. Boundary layer budgets of mass, momentum, and buoyancy determine the barotropic component of the interior flow as well as the boundary layer thickness, which is a function of the offshore coordinate. The alongshore flow has enhanced vertical shear in the boundary layer that reduces the alongshore flow in the boundary layer; however, the velocity at the bottom is generally not zero but produces a stress that locally balances the applied surface stress. The offshore transport in the bottom boundary layer therefore balances the onshore surface Ekman flux. The model predicts the thickness of the bottom boundary layer, which is a complicated function of several parameters, including the strength of the forcing stress, the vertical and horizontal diffusion coefficients in the interior, and the horizontal diffusion in the boundary layer. The model yields a boundary layer over only a finite portion of the bottom slope if the interior diffusion coefficients are too large; otherwise, the layer extends over the full lateral extent of the domain.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE-851086.00.
    Keywords: Boundary layer ; Continental shelf ; Coastal flows ; Ekman pumping ; Forcing
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    The turbulent oscillator : a mechanism of low-frequency variability of the wind-driven ocean gyres (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography. 37 (2007): 2363-2386, doi:10.1175/jpo3118.1.
    Description: Intrinsic low-frequency variability is studied in the idealized, quasigeostrophic, midlatitude, wind-driven ocean gyres operating at large Reynolds number. A robust decadal variability mode driven by the transient mesoscale eddies is found and analyzed. The variability is a turbulent phenomenon, which is driven by the competition between the eddy rectification process and the potential vorticity anomalies induced by changes of the intergyre transport
    Description: Funding for Pavel Berloff was provided by NSF Grants OCE-0091836 and OCE- 0344094, by the U.K. Royal Society Fellowship, and by the Newton Trust Award, A. M. Hogg was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (DP0449851) during this work, and William K. Dewar was supported by NSF Grants OCE-0424227 and OCE-0550139.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Gyres ; Transport ; Potential vorticity ; Mesoscale processes
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    The effects of mesoscale ocean–atmosphere coupling on the large-scale ocean circulation (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 22 (2009): 4066–4082, doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2629.1.
    Description: Small-scale variation in wind stress due to ocean–atmosphere interaction within the atmospheric boundary layer alters the temporal and spatial scale of Ekman pumping driving the double-gyre circulation of the ocean. A high-resolution quasigeostrophic (QG) ocean model, coupled to a dynamic atmospheric mixed layer, is used to demonstrate that, despite the small spatial scale of the Ekman-pumping anomalies, this phenomenon significantly modifies the large-scale ocean circulation. The primary effect is to decrease the strength of the nonlinear component of the gyre circulation by approximately 30%–40%. This result is due to the highest transient Ekman-pumping anomalies destabilizing the flow in a dynamically sensitive region close to the western boundary current separation. The instability of the jet produces a flux of potential vorticity between the two gyres that acts to weaken both gyres.
    Description: AH and WD were supported by an ARC Linkage International Grant (LX0668781). WD was also supported by NSF Grants OCE 0424227 and OCE 0550139. Funding for PB was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0344094 and OCE 0725796 and by the research grant from the Newton Trust of the University of Cambridge. SK was supported by U.S. DOE Grant DE-FG02–02ER63413 and NASA Grant NNG-06- AG66G-1.
    Keywords: Airndashsea interaction ; Coupled models ; Mesoscale processes ; Wind stress ; Ekman pumping/transport
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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