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  • 1
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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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  • 2
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    Mesoscale eddy-internal wave coupling. Part I : symmetry, wave capture, and results from the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 2556-2574, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3666.1.
    Description: Vertical profiles of horizontal velocity obtained during the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE) provided the first published estimates of the high vertical wavenumber structure of horizontal velocity. The data were interpreted as being representative of the background internal wave field, and thus, despite some evidence of excess downward energy propagation associated with coherent near-inertial features that was interpreted in terms of atmospheric generation, these data provided the basis for a revision to the Garrett and Munk spectral model. These data are reinterpreted through the lens of 30 years of research. Rather than representing the background wave field, atmospheric generation, or even near-inertial wave trapping, the coherent high wavenumber features are characteristic of internal wave capture in a mesoscale strain field. Wave capture represents a generalization of critical layer events for flows lacking the spatial symmetry inherent in a parallel shear flow or isolated vortex.
    Description: Salary support for this analysis was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Ocean dynamics ; Internal waves ; Ocean variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 3
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    Performance of a new generation of acoustic current meters (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 148–161, doi:10.1175/JPO3003.1.
    Description: As part of a program aimed at developing a long-duration, subsurface mooring, known as Ultramoor, several modern acoustic current meters were tested. The instruments with which the authors have the most experience are the Aanderaa RCM11 and the Nortek Aquadopp, which measure currents using the Doppler shift of backscattered acoustic signals, and the Falmouth Scientific ACM, which measures changes in travel time of acoustic signals between pairs of transducers. Some results from the Doppler-based Sontek Argonaut and the travel-time-based Nobska MAVS are also reported. This paper concentrates on the fidelity of the speed measurement but also presents some results related to the accuracy of the direction measurement. Two procedures were used to compare the instruments. In one, different instruments were placed close to one another on three different deep-ocean moorings. These tests showed that the RCM11 measures consistently lower speeds than either a vector averaging current meter or a vector measuring current meter, both more traditional instruments with mechanical velocity sensors. The Aquadopp in use at the time, but since updated to address accuracy problems in low scattering environments, was biased high. A second means of testing involved comparing the appropriate velocity component of each instrument with the rate of change of pressure when they were lowered from a ship. Results from this procedure revealed no depth dependence or measurable bias in the RCM11 data, but did show biases in both the Aquadopp and Argonaut Doppler-based instruments that resulted from low signal-to-noise ratios in the clear, low scattering conditions beneath the thermocline. Improvements in the design of the latest Aquadopp have reduced this bias to a level that is not significant.
    Description: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant 9810641.
    Keywords: Currents ; Acoustic measurements ; In situ sensors
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 4
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    Dynamics in the deep Canada Basin, Arctic Ocean, inferred by thermistor chain time series (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 1066–1076, doi:10.1175/JPO3032.1.
    Description: A 50-day time series of high-resolution temperature in the deepest layers of the Canada Basin in the Arctic Ocean indicates that the deep Canada Basin is a dynamically active environment, not the quiet, stable basin often assumed. Vertical motions at the near-inertial (tidal) frequency have amplitudes of 10– 20 m. These vertical displacements are surprisingly large considering the downward near-inertial internal wave energy flux typically observed in the Canada Basin. In addition to motion in the internal-wave frequency band, the measurements indicate distinctive subinertial temperature fluctuations, possibly due to intrusions of new water masses.
    Keywords: Arctic ; Ocean dynamics ; Ship observations
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 5
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    Shelf circulation and cross-shelf transport out of a bay driven by eddies from an open-ocean current. Part I : interaction between a barotropic vortex and a steplike topography (2011)
    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 Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 889–910, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4496.1.
    Description: This paper examines interaction between a barotropic point vortex and a steplike topography with a bay-shaped shelf. The interaction is governed by two mechanisms: propagation of topographic Rossby waves and advection by the forcing vortex. Topographic waves are supported by the potential vorticity (PV) jump across the topography and propagate along the step only in one direction, having higher PV on the right. Near one side boundary of the bay, which is in the wave propagation direction and has a narrow shelf, waves are blocked by the boundary, inducing strong out-of-bay transport in the form of detached crests. The wave–boundary interaction as well as out-of-bay transport is strengthened as the minimum shelf width is decreased. The two control mechanisms are related differently in anticyclone- and cyclone-induced interactions. In anticyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in opposite directions by the point vortex and topographic waves; a topographic cyclone forms out of the balance between the two opposing mechanisms and is advected by the forcing vortex into the deep ocean. In cyclone-induced interactions, the PV front deformations are moved in the same direction by the two mechanisms; a topographic cyclone forms out of the wave–boundary interaction but is confined to the coast. Therefore, anticyclonic vortices are more capable of driving water off the topography. The anticyclone-induced transport is enhanced for smaller vortex–step distance or smaller topography when the vortex advection is relatively strong compared to the wave propagation mechanism.
    Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of theMIT-WHOI Joint Programin Physical Oceanography, NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE- 9901654 and OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Transport ; Eddies ; Barotropic flow ; Topographic effects ; Vortices ; Currents ; Potential vorticity ; Rossby waves
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
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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
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 7
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    On the effective capacity of the dense-water reservoir for the Nordic Seas overflow : some effects of topography and wind stress (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 418–431, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-087.1.
    Description: The overflow of the dense water mass across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge (GSR) from the Nordic Seas drives the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The Nordic Seas is a large basin with an enormous reservoir capacity. The volume of the dense water above the GSR sill depth in the Nordic Seas, according to previous estimates, is sufficient to supply decades of overflow transport. This large capacity buffers overflow’s responses to atmospheric variations and prevents an abrupt shutdown of the AMOC. In this study, the authors use a numerical and an analytical model to show that the effective reservoir capacity of the Nordic Seas is actually much smaller than what was estimated previously. Basin-scale oceanic circulation is nearly geostrophic and its streamlines are basically the same as the isobaths. The vast majority of the dense water is stored inside closed geostrophic contours in the deep basin and thus is not freely available to the overflow. The positive wind stress curl in the Nordic Seas forces a convergence of the dense water toward the deep basin and makes the interior water even more removed from the overflow-feeding boundary current. Eddies generated by the baroclinic instability help transport the interior water mass to the boundary current. But in absence of a robust renewal of deep water, the boundary current weakens rapidly and the eddy-generating mechanism becomes less effective. This study indicates that the Nordic Seas has a relatively small capacity as a dense water reservoir and thus the overflow transport is sensitive to climate changes.
    Description: This study has been supported by National Science Foundation (OCE0927017,ARC1107412).
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Drainage flow ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Topographic effects
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 8
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    On eddy viscosity, energy cascades, and the horizontal resolution of gridded satellite altimeter products (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 283–300, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0240.1.
    Description: Motivated by the recent interest in ocean energetics, the widespread use of horizontal eddy viscosity in models, and the promise of high horizontal resolution data from the planned wide-swath satellite altimeter, this paper explores the impacts of horizontal eddy viscosity and horizontal grid resolution on geostrophic turbulence, with a particular focus on spectral kinetic energy fluxes Π(K) computed in the isotropic wavenumber (K) domain. The paper utilizes idealized two-layer quasigeostrophic (QG) models, realistic high-resolution ocean general circulation models, and present-generation gridded satellite altimeter data. Adding horizontal eddy viscosity to the QG model results in a forward cascade at smaller scales, in apparent agreement with results from present-generation altimetry. Eddy viscosity is taken to roughly represent coupling of mesoscale eddies to internal waves or to submesoscale eddies. Filtering the output of either the QG or realistic models before computing Π(K) also greatly increases the forward cascade. Such filtering mimics the smoothing inherent in the construction of present-generation gridded altimeter data. It is therefore difficult to say whether the forward cascades seen in present-generation altimeter data are due to real physics (represented here by eddy viscosity) or to insufficient horizontal resolution. The inverse cascade at larger scales remains in the models even after filtering, suggesting that its existence in the models and in altimeter data is robust. However, the magnitude of the inverse cascade is affected by filtering, suggesting that the wide-swath altimeter will allow a more accurate determination of the inverse cascade at larger scales as well as providing important constraints on smaller-scale dynamics.
    Description: BKA received support from Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-11-1-0487, National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants OCE-0924481 and OCE- 09607820, and University of Michigan startup funds. KLP acknowledges support from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds. RBS acknowledges support from NSF grants OCE-0960834 and OCE-0851457, a contract with the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, and a NASA subcontract to Boston University. JFS and JGR were supported by the projects ‘‘Global and remote littoral forcing in global ocean models’’ and ‘‘Agesotrophic vorticity dynamics of the ocean,’’ respectively, both sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under program element 601153N.
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Eddies ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean dynamics ; Satellite observations ; Ocean models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 9
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    Wind-driven cross-equatorial flow in the Indian Ocean (2013)
    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): 2234–2253, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-033.1.
    Description: Meridional velocity, mass, and heat transport in the equatorial oceans are difficult to estimate because of the nonapplicability of the geostrophic balance. For this purpose a steady-state model is utilized in the equatorial Indian Ocean using NCEP wind stress and temperature and salinity data from the World Ocean Atlas 2005 (WOA05) and Argo. The results show a Somali Current flowing to the south during the winter monsoon carrying −11.5 ± 1.3 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) and −12.3 ± 0.3 Sv from WOA05 and Argo, respectively. In the summer monsoon the Somali Current reverses to the north transporting 16.8 ± 1.2 Sv and 19.8 ± 0.6 Sv in the WOA05 and Argo results. Transitional periods are considered together and in consequence, there is not a clear Somali Current present in this period. Model results fit with in situ measurements made around the region, although Argo data results are quite more realistic than WOA05 data results.
    Description: This study has been partly funded by the MOC Project (CTM 2008- 06438) and the Spanish contribution to the Argo network (AC2009 ACI2009-0998), financed by the Spanish Government and Feder.
    Description: 2013-06-01
    Keywords: Indian Ocean ; Subtropics ; Currents ; Ocean circulation ; Transport ; Wind stress
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 10
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    Multidecadal Indian Ocean variability linked to the Pacific and implications for preconditioning Indian Ocean dipole events (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 Journal of Climate 30 (2017): 1739-1751, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0200.1.
    Description: The Indian Ocean has sustained robust surface warming in recent decades, but the role of multidecadal variability remains unclear. Using ocean model hindcasts, characteristics of low-frequency Indian Ocean temperature variations are explored. Simulated upper-ocean temperature changes across the Indian Ocean in the hindcast are consistent with those recorded in observational products and ocean reanalyses. Indian Ocean temperatures exhibit strong warming trends since the 1950s limited to the surface and south of 30°S, while extensive subsurface cooling occurs over much of the tropical Indian Ocean. Previous work focused on diagnosing causes of these long-term trends in the Indian Ocean over the second half of the twentieth century. Instead, the temporal evolution of Indian Ocean subsurface heat content is shown here to reveal distinct multidecadal variations associated with the Pacific decadal oscillation, and the long-term trends are thus interpreted to result from aliasing of the low-frequency variability. Transmission of the multidecadal signal occurs via an oceanic pathway through the Indonesian Throughflow and is manifest across the Indian Ocean centered along 12°S as westward-propagating Rossby waves modulating thermocline and subsurface heat content variations. Resulting low-frequency changes in the eastern Indian Ocean thermocline depth are associated with decadal variations in the frequency of Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) events, with positive IOD events unusually common in the 1960s and 1990s with a relatively shallow thermocline. In contrast, the deeper thermocline depth in the 1970s and 1980s is associated with frequent negative IOD and rare positive IOD events. Changes in Pacific wind forcing in recent decades and associated rapid increases in Indian Ocean subsurface heat content can thus affect the basin’s leading mode of variability, with implications for regional climate and vulnerable societies in surrounding countries.
    Description: This research was supported by a Research Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, as well as the Ocean Climate Change Institute and the Investment in Science Fund at WHOI.
    Description: 2017-08-15
    Keywords: Indian Ocean ; Ocean dynamics ; Climate variability ; Multidecadal variability ; Pacific decadal oscillation
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  • 11
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    Circulation induced by isolated dense water formation over closed topographic contours (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 Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2251-2265, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0042.1.
    Description: The problem of localized dense water formation over a sloping bottom is considered for the general case in which the topography forms a closed contour. This class of problems is motivated by topography around islands or shallow shoals in which convection resulting from brine rejection or surface heat loss reaches the bottom. The focus of this study is on the large-scale circulation that is forced far from the region of surface forcing. The authors find that a cyclonic current is generated around the topography, in the opposite sense to the propagation of the dense water plume. In physical terms, this current results from the propagation of low sea surface height from the region of dense water formation anticyclonically along the topographic contours back to the formation region. This pressure gradient is then balanced by a cyclonic geostrophic flow. This basic structure is well predicted by a linear quasigeostrophic theory, a primitive equation model, and in rotating tank experiments. For sufficiently strong forcing, the anticyclonic circulation of the dense plume meets this cyclonic circulation to produce a sharp front and offshore advection of dense water at the bottom and buoyant water at the surface. This nonlinear limit is demonstrated in both the primitive equation model and in the tank experiments.
    Description: MAS was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1534618. Support for CC was given by the WHOI Ocean Climate Change Institute Proposal 27071273.
    Description: 2018-03-20
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Buoyancy ; Ocean dynamics ; Density currents
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  • 12
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    Coral reef drag coefficients—surface gravity wave enhancement (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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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  • 13
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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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  • 14
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    Interannual variability in the pathways of the North Atlantic Current over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the impact of topography (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 104–120, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3686.1.
    Description: Recent studies have indicated that the North Atlantic Ocean subpolar gyre circulation undergoes significant interannual-to-decadal changes in response to variability in atmospheric forcing. There are also observations, however, suggesting that the southern limb of the subpolar gyre, namely, the eastward-flowing North Atlantic Current (NAC), may be quasi-locked to particular latitudes in the central North Atlantic by fracture zones (gaps) in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This could constrain the current’s ability to respond to variability in forcing. In the present study, subsurface float trajectories at 100–1000 m collected during 1997–99 and satellite-derived surface geostrophic velocities from 1992 to 2006 are used to provide an improved description of the detailed pathways of the NAC over the ridge and their relationship to bathymetry. Both the float and satellite observations indicate that in 1997–99, the northern branch of the NAC was split into two branches as it crossed the ridge, one quasi-locked to the Charlie–Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ; 52°–53°N) and the other to the Faraday Fracture Zone (50°–51°N). The longer satellite time series shows, however, that this pattern did not persist outside the float sampling period and that other branching modes persisted for one or more years, including an approximately 12-month time period in 2002–03 when the strongest eastward flow over the ridge was at 49°N. Schott et al. showed how northward excursions of the NAC can temporarily block the westward flow of the Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water through the CGFZ. From the 13-yr time series of surface geostrophic velocity, it is estimated that such blocking may occur on average 6% of the time, although estimates for any given 12-month period range from 0% to 35%.
    Description: This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants OCE-9531877 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and OCE-9906775 to the University of Rhode Island, by the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship Program, and by the Lawrence J. Pratt and Melinda M. Hall Endowed Fund for Interdisciplinary Research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
    Keywords: Currents ; Topographic effects ; Interannual variability ; Forcing ; Gyres
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  • 15
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    Observations and a model of the mean circulation over the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 1203–1221, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3768.1.
    Description: Analyses of current time series longer than 200 days from 33 sites over the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf reveal a consistent mean circulation pattern. The mean depth-averaged flow is equatorward, alongshelf, and increases with increasing water depth from 3 cm s−1 at the 15-m isobath to 10 cm s−1 at the 100-m isobath. The mean cross-shelf circulation exhibits a consistent cross-shelf and vertical structure. The near-surface flow is typically offshore (positive, range −3 to 6 cm s−1). The interior flow is onshore and remarkably constant (−0.2 to −1.4 cm s−1). The near-bottom flow increases linearly with increasing water depth from −1 cm s−1 (onshore) in shallow water to 4 cm s−1 (offshore) at the 250-m isobath over the slope, with the direction reversal near the 50-m isobath. A steady, two-dimensional model (no along-isobath variations in the flow) reproduces the main features of the observed circulation pattern. The depth-averaged alongshelf flow is primarily driven by an alongshelf pressure gradient (sea surface slope of 3.7 × 10−8 increasing to the north) and an opposing mean wind stress that also drives the near-surface offshore flow. The alongshelf pressure gradient accounts for both the increase in the alongshelf flow with water depth and the geostrophic balance onshore flow in the interior. The increase in the near-bottom offshore flow with water depth is due to the change in the relative magnitude of the contributions from the geostrophic onshore flow that dominates in shallow water and the offshore flow driven by the bottom stress that dominates in deeper water.
    Description: This research was funded by Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-820773, OCE-841292, and OCE-848961.
    Keywords: Ocean models ; Ocean circulation ; Continental shelf ; Currents ; In situ observations
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    Western Arctic shelfbreak eddies : formation and transport (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): 1644-1668, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3829.1.
    Description: The mean structure and time-dependent behavior of the shelfbreak jet along the southern Beaufort Sea, and its ability to transport properties into the basin interior via eddies are explored using high-resolution mooring data and an idealized numerical model. The analysis focuses on springtime, when weakly stratified winter-transformed Pacific water is being advected out of the Chukchi Sea. When winds are weak, the observed jet is bottom trapped with a low potential vorticity core and has maximum mean velocities of O(25 cm s−1) and an eastward transport of 0.42 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1). Despite the absence of winds, the current is highly time dependent, with relative vorticity and twisting vorticity often important components of the Ertel potential vorticity. An idealized primitive equation model forced by dense, weakly stratified waters flowing off a shelf produces a mean middepth boundary current similar in structure to that observed at the mooring site. The model boundary current is also highly variable, and produces numerous strong, small anticyclonic eddies that transport the shelf water into the basin interior. Analysis of the energy conversion terms in both the mooring data and the numerical model indicates that the eddies are formed via baroclinic instability of the boundary current. The structure of the eddies in the basin interior compares well with observations from drifting ice platforms. The results suggest that eddies shed from the shelfbreak jet contribute significantly to the offshore flux of heat, salt, and other properties, and are likely important for the ventilation of the halocline in the western Arctic Ocean. Interaction with an anticyclonic basin-scale circulation, meant to represent the Beaufort gyre, enhances the offshore transport of shelf water and results in a loss of mass transport from the shelfbreak jet.
    Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs under Grants 0421904 and 035268 (MS), and by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-02-1-0317 (RP and PF). Analysis by AJP was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant N00014-97-1-0135 and by the National Science Foundation under Grant OPP-9815303.
    Keywords: Arctic ; Eddies ; Transport ; Currents ; Jets
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    Ocean eddy dynamics in a coupled ocean-atmosphere model (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): 1103-1121, doi:10.1175/jpo3041.1.
    Description: The role of mesoscale oceanic eddies is analyzed in a quasigeostrophic coupled ocean–atmosphere model operating at a large Reynolds number. The model dynamics are characterized by decadal variability that involves nonlinear adjustment of the ocean to coherent north–south shifts of the atmosphere. The oceanic eddy effects are diagnosed by the dynamical decomposition method adapted for nonstationary external forcing. The main effects of the eddies are an enhancement of the oceanic eastward jet separating the subpolar and subtropical gyres and a weakening of the gyres. The flow-enhancing effect is due to nonlinear rectification driven by fluctuations of the eddy forcing. This is a nonlocal process involving generation of the eddies by the flow instabilities in the western boundary current and the upstream part of the eastward jet. The eddies are advected by the mean current to the east, where they backscatter into the rectified enhancement of the eastward jet. The gyre-weakening effect, which is due to the time-mean buoyancy component of the eddy forcing, is a result of the baroclinic instability of the westward return currents. The diagnosed eddy forcing is parameterized in a non-eddy-resolving ocean model, as a nonstationary random process, in which the corresponding parameters are derived from the control coupled simulation. The key parameter of the random process—its variance—is related to the large-scale flow baroclinicity index. It is shown that the coupled model with the non-eddy-resolving ocean component and the parameterized eddies correctly simulates climatology and low-frequency variability of the control eddy-resolving coupled solution.
    Description: Funding for this work came from NSF Grants OCE 02-221066 and OCE 03-44094. Additional funding for PB was provided by the U.K. Royal Society Fellowship and by WHOI Grants 27100056 and 52990035.
    Keywords: Ocean dynamics ; Ocean models ; Eddies ; Jets ; Coupled models
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    The western North Atlantic shelfbreak current system in summer (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): 2509-2533, doi:10.1175/JPO3123.1.
    Description: Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990–2001, are analyzed to examine the along-stream evolution of the western North Atlantic Ocean shelfbreak front and current, following its path between the west coast of Greenland and the Middle Atlantic Bight. Over 700 synoptic sections are used to construct a mean three-dimensional description of the summer shelfbreak front and to quantify the along-stream evolution in properties, including frontal strength and grounding position. Results show that there are actually two fronts in the northern part of the domain—a shallow front located near the shelf break and a deeper front centered in the core of Irminger Water over the upper slope. The properties of the deeper Irminger front erode gradually to the south, and the front disappears entirely near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The shallow shelfbreak front is identifiable throughout the domain, and its properties exhibit large variations from north to south, with the largest changes occurring near the Tail of the Grand Banks. Despite these structural changes, and large variations in topography, the foot of the shelfbreak front remains within 20 km of the shelf break. The hydrographic sections are also used to examine the evolution of the baroclinic velocity field and its associated volume transport. The baroclinic velocity structure consists of a single velocity core that is stronger and penetrates deeper where the Irminger front is present. The baroclinic volume transport decreases by equal amounts at the southern end of the Labrador Shelf and at the Tail of the Grand Banks. Overall, the results suggest that the Grand Banks is a geographically critical location in the North Atlantic shelfbreak system.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE00- 95261 (PF) and OCE-0450658 (RP).
    Keywords: Continental shelf ; Currents ; Atlantic Ocean ; Fronts ; Transport
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  • 19
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    Effect of sea surface temperature-wind stress coupling on baroclinic instability in the ocean (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 1092–1097, doi:10.1175/JPO3045.1.
    Description: The impact of the observed relationship between sea surface temperature and surface wind stress on baroclinic instability in the ocean is explored using linear theory and a nonlinear model. A simple parameterization of the influence of sea surface temperature on wind stress is used to derive a surface boundary condition for the vertical velocity at the base of the oceanic Ekman layer. This boundary condition is applied to the classic linear, quasigeostrophic stability problem for a uniformly sheared flow originally studied by Eady in the 1940s. The results demonstrate that for a wind directed from warm water toward cold water, the coupling acts to enhance the growth rate, and increase the wavelength, of the most unstable wave. Winds in the opposite sense reduce the growth rate and decrease the wavelength of the most unstable wave. For representative coupling strengths, the change in growth rate can be as large as ±O(50%). This effect is largest for shallow, strongly stratified, low-latitude flows.
    Description: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-05-1-0300.
    Keywords: Wind stress ; Instability ; Sea surface temperature ; Baroclinic flows ; Ocean dynamics
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  • 20
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    Time-dependent response to cooling in a beta-plane basin (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 36 (2006): 2185-2198, doi:10.1175/JPO2967.1.
    Description: The time-dependent response of an ocean basin to the imposition of cooling (or heating) is examined in the context of a quasigeostrophic, two-layer model on the beta plane. The focus is on the structure and magnitude of the vertical motion and its response to both a switch-on forcing and a periodic forcing. The model employed is a time-dependent version of an earlier model used to discuss the intensification of sinking in the region of the western boundary current. The height of the interface of the two-layer model serves as an analog of temperature, and the vertical velocity at the interface consists of a cross-isopycnal velocity modeled in terms of a relaxation to a prescribed interface height, an adiabatic representation of eddy thickness fluxes parameterized as lateral diffusion of thickness, and the local vertical motion of the interface itself. The presence of time dependence adds additional dynamical features to the problem, in particular the emergence of low-frequency, weakly damped Rossby basin modes. If the buoyancy forcing is zonally uniform the basin responds to a switch-on of the forcing by coming into steady-state equilibrium after the passage of a single baroclinic Rossby wave. If the forcing is nonuniform in the zonal direction, a sequence of Rossby basin modes is excited and their decay is required before the basin achieves a steady state. For reasonable parameter values the boundary layers, in which both horizontal and vertical circulations are closed, are quasi-steady and respond to the instantaneous state of the interior. As in the steady problem the flow is sensitive to small nonquasigeostrophic mass fluxes across the perimeter of the basin. These fluxes generally excite basin modes as well. The basin modes will also be weakly excited if the beta-plane approximation is relaxed. The response to periodic forcing is also examined, and the sensitivity of the response to the structure of the forcing is similar to the switch-on problem.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE-9901654,
    Keywords: Vertical motion ; Ocean dynamics ; Buoyancy ; Ocean models
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  • 21
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    An equatorial ocean bottleneck in global climate models (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 Climate 25 (2012): 343–349, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00059.1.
    Description: The Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) is a major component of the tropical Pacific Ocean circulation. EUC velocity in most global climate models is sluggish relative to observations. Insufficient ocean resolution slows the EUC in the eastern Pacific where nonlinear terms should dominate the zonal momentum balance. A slow EUC in the east creates a bottleneck for the EUC to the west. However, this bottleneck does not impair other major components of the tropical circulation, including upwelling and poleward transport. In most models, upwelling velocity and poleward transport divergence fall within directly estimated uncertainties. Both of these transports play a critical role in a theory for how the tropical Pacific may change under increased radiative forcing, that is, the ocean dynamical thermostat mechanism. These findings suggest that, in the mean, global climate models may not underrepresent the role of equatorial ocean circulation, nor perhaps bias the balance between competing mechanisms for how the tropical Pacific might change in the future. Implications for model improvement under higher resolution are also discussed.
    Description: KBK gratefully acknowledges the J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund. GCJ is supported by NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. RM gratefully acknowledges the generous support and hospitality of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change and CAOS at IISc, Bangalore, and partial support by NASA PO grants.
    Description: 2012-07-01
    Keywords: Tropics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Climate models ; Coupled models ; Ocean models
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  • 22
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    Horizontal density structure and restratification of the Arctic Ocean surface layer (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): 659–668, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0125.1.
    Description: Ice-tethered profiler (ITP) measurements from the Arctic Ocean’s Canada Basin indicate an ocean surface layer beneath sea ice with significant horizontal density structure on scales of hundreds of kilometers to the order 1 km submesoscale. The observed horizontal gradients in density are dynamically important in that they are associated with restratification of the surface ocean when dense water flows under light water. Such restratification is prevalent in wintertime and competes with convective mixing upon buoyancy forcing (e.g., ice growth and brine rejection) and shear-driven mixing when the ice moves relative to the ocean. Frontal structure and estimates of the balanced Richardson number point to the likelihood of dynamical restratification by isopycnal tilt and submesoscale baroclinic instability. Based on the evidence here, it is likely that submesoscale processes play an important role in setting surface-layer properties and lateral density variability in the Arctic Ocean.
    Description: Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Arctic Sciences Section under Awards ARC-0519899, ARC-0856479, and ARC-0806306. Support was also provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Arctic Research Initiative.
    Description: 2012-10-01
    Keywords: Arctic ; Ocean dynamics
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  • 23
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    Strengthening of the Pacific Equatorial Undercurrent in the SODA reanalysis : mechanisms, ocean dynamics, and implications (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 27 (2014): 2405–2416, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00359.1.
    Description: Several recent studies utilizing global climate models predict that the Pacific Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) will strengthen over the twenty-first century. Here, historical changes in the tropical Pacific are investigated using the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) reanalysis toward understanding the dynamics and mechanisms that may dictate such a change. Although SODA does not assimilate velocity observations, the seasonal-to-interannual variability of the EUC estimated by SODA corresponds well with moored observations over a ~20-yr common period. Long-term trends in SODA indicate that the EUC core velocity has increased by 16% century−1 and as much as 47% century−1 at fixed locations since the mid-1800s. Diagnosis of the zonal momentum budget in the equatorial Pacific reveals two distinct seasonal mechanisms that explain the EUC strengthening. The first is characterized by strengthening of the western Pacific trade winds and hence oceanic zonal pressure gradient during boreal spring. The second entails weakening of eastern Pacific trade winds during boreal summer, which weakens the surface current and reduces EUC deceleration through vertical friction. EUC strengthening has important ecological implications as upwelling affects the thermal and biogeochemical environment. Furthermore, given the potential large-scale influence of EUC strength and depth on the heat budget in the eastern Pacific, the seasonal strengthening of the EUC may help reconcile paradoxical observations of Walker circulation slowdown and zonal SST gradient strengthening. Such a process would represent a new dynamical “thermostat” on CO2-forced warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, emphasizing the importance of ocean dynamics and seasonality in understanding climate change projections.
    Description: EJDis supported by NSFGrantsOCE-1031971 and OCE-1233282. KBK is supported by NSF Grant OCE-1233282.
    Description: 2014-09-15
    Keywords: Tropics ; Currents ; Ocean dynamics ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Climate variability ; Reanalysis data
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    The Equatorial Undercurrent and TAO sampling bias from a decade at SEA (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 21 (2014): 2015–2025, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00262.1.
    Description: The NOAA Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) moored array has, for three decades, been a valuable resource for monitoring and forecasting El Niño–Southern Oscillation and understanding physical oceanographic as well as coupled processes in the tropical Pacific influencing global climate. Acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements by TAO moorings provide benchmarks for evaluating numerical simulations of subsurface circulation including the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). Meanwhile, the Sea Education Association (SEA) has been collecting data during repeat cruises to the central equatorial Pacific Ocean (160°–126°W) throughout the past decade that provide useful cross validation and quantitative insight into the potential for stationary observing platforms such as TAO to incur sampling biases related to the strength of the EUC. This paper describes some essential sampling characteristics of the SEA dataset, compares SEA and TAO velocity measurements in the vicinity of the EUC, shares new insight into EUC characteristics and behavior only observable in repeat cross-equatorial sections, and estimates the sampling bias incurred by equatorial TAO moorings in their estimates of the velocity and transport of the EUC. The SEA high-resolution ADCP dataset compares well with concurrent TAO measurements (RMSE = 0.05 m s−1; R2 = 0.98), suggests that the EUC core meanders sinusoidally about the equator between ±0.4° latitude, and reveals a mean sampling bias of equatorial measurements (e.g., TAO) of the EUC’s zonal velocity of −0.14 ± 0.03 m s−1 as well as a ~10% underestimation of EUC volume transport. A bias-corrected monthly record and climatology of EUC strength at 140°W for 1990–2010 is presented.
    Description: The authors thank the NSF Physical Oceanography program (OCE-1233282) and the WHOI Academic Programs Office for funding.
    Description: 2015-03-01
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Tropics ; Currents ; Ocean dynamics ; Buoy observations ; Sampling
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  • 25
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    Spreading of Denmark Strait overflow water in the western subpolar North Atlantic : insights from eddy-resolving simulations with a passive tracer (2016)
    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): 2913–2932, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0179.1.
    Description: The oceanic deep circulation is shared between concentrated deep western boundary currents (DWBCs) and broader interior pathways, a process that is sensitive to seafloor topography. This study investigates the spreading and deepening of Denmark Strait overflow water (DSOW) in the western subpolar North Atlantic using two ° eddy-resolving Atlantic simulations, including a passive tracer injected into the DSOW. The deepest layers of DSOW transit from a narrow DWBC in the southern Irminger Sea into widespread westward flow across the central Labrador Sea, which remerges along the Labrador coast. This abyssal circulation, in contrast to the upper levels of overflow water that remain as a boundary current, blankets the deep Labrador Sea with DSOW. Farther downstream after being steered around the abrupt topography of Orphan Knoll, DSOW again leaves the boundary, forming cyclonic recirculation cells in the deep Newfoundland basin. The deep recirculation, mostly driven by the meandering pathway of the upper North Atlantic Current, leads to accumulation of tracer offshore of Orphan Knoll, precisely where a local maximum of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) inventory is observed. At Flemish Cap, eddy fluxes carry ~20% of the tracer transport from the boundary current into the interior. Potential vorticity is conserved as the flow of DSOW broadens at the transition from steep to less steep continental rise into the Labrador Sea, while around the abrupt topography of Orphan Knoll, potential vorticity is not conserved and the DSOW deepens significantly.
    Description: This work is supported by ONR Award N00014-09-1-0587, the NSF Physical Oceanography Program, and NASA Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Program.
    Description: 2016-06-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Abyssal circulation ; Boundary currents ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Topographic effects
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  • 26
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    Absolute velocity estimates from autonomous underwater gliders equipped with Doppler current profilers (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 34 (2017): 309-333, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-16-0156.1.
    Description: Doppler current profilers on autonomous underwater gliders measure water velocity relative to the moving glider over vertical ranges of O(10) m. Measurements obtained with 1-MHz Nortek acoustic Doppler dual current profilers (AD2CPs) on Spray gliders deployed off Southern California, west of the Galápagos Archipelago, and in the Gulf Stream are used to demonstrate methods of estimating absolute horizontal velocities in the upper 1000 m of the ocean. Relative velocity measurements nearest to a glider are used to infer dive-dependent flight parameters, which are then used to correct estimates of absolute vertically averaged currents to account for the accumulation of biofouling during months-long glider missions. The inverse method for combining Doppler profiler measurements of relative velocity with absolute references to estimate profiles of absolute horizontal velocity is reviewed and expanded to include additional constraints on the velocity solutions. Errors arising from both instrumental bias and decreased abundance of acoustic scatterers at depth are considered. Though demonstrated with measurements from a particular combination of platform and instrument, these techniques should be applicable to other combinations of gliders and Doppler current profilers.
    Description: Spray glider missions were supported by the National Science Foundation (OCE-1232971, OCE-1233282), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA10OAR4320156, NA15OAR4320071), Eastman Chemical Company, the Oceans and Climate Change Institute at WHOI, and the W. Van Alan Clark Jr. Chair for Excellence in Oceanography at WHOI. RET acknowledges additional support for analysis and publication from the National Science Foundation (OCE-1633911).
    Description: 2017-07-31
    Keywords: Currents ; Acoustic measurements/effects ; Data processing ; Data quality control ; Profilers ; Inverse methods
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  • 27
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    The occurrence, drivers, and implications of submesoscale eddies on the Martha’s Vineyard Inner Shelf (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): 2645-2662, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0191.1.
    Description: The occurrence, drivers, and implications of small-scale O(2–5) km diameter coherent vortices, referred to as submesoscale eddies, over the inner shelf south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, are examined using high-frequency (HF), radar-based, high-resolution (400 m) observations of surface currents. Within the 300 km2 study area, eddies occurred at rates of 1 and 4 day−1 in winter and summer, respectively. Most were less than 5 h in duration, smaller than 4 km in diameter, and rotated less than once over their lifespan; 60% of the eddies formed along the eastern edge of study area, adjacent to Wasque Shoal, and moved westward into the interior, often with relative vorticity greater than f. Eddy generation was linked to vortex stretching on the ebb and flood tide as well as the interaction of the spatially variable tide and the wind-driven currents; however, these features had complex patterns of surface divergence and stretching. Eddies located away from Wasque Shoal were related to the movement of wind-driven surface currents, as wind direction controlled where eddies formed as well as density effects. Using an analysis of particles advected within the radar-based surface currents, the observed eddies were found to be generally leaky, losing 60%–80% of particles over their lifespan, but still more retentive than the background flow. As a result, the combined translation and rotational effects of the observed eddies were an important source of lateral exchange for surface waters over the inner shelf.
    Description: The HF radar data utilized here were obtained using internal funding from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The analysis was supported by NSF OCE Grant 1332646.
    Description: 2017-02-19
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Currents ; Eddies ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Radars/Radar observations
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  • 28
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    A note on interior pathways in the meridional overturning circulation (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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): 643-646, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0240.1.
    Description: A simple oceanic model is presented for source–sink flow on the β plane to discuss the pathways from source to sink when transport boundary layers have large enough Reynolds numbers to be inertial in their dynamics. A representation of the flow as a Fofonoff gyre, suggested by prior work on inertial boundary layers and eddy-driven circulations in two-dimensional turbulent flows, indicates that even when the source and sink are aligned along the same western boundary the flow must intrude deep into the interior before exiting at the sink. The existence of interior pathways for the flow is thus an intrinsic property of an inertial circulation and is not dependent on particular geographical basin geometry.
    Description: 2018-09-12
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Bottom currents ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity
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    Large changes in sea ice triggered by small changes in Atlantic water temperature (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 31 (2018): 4847-4863, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0802.1.
    Description: The sensitivity of sea ice to the temperature of inflowing Atlantic water across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge is investigated using an eddy-resolving configuration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model with idealized topography. During the last glacial period, when climate on Greenland is known to have been extremely unstable, sea ice is thought to have covered the Nordic seas. The dramatic excursions in climate during this period, seen as large abrupt warming events on Greenland and known as Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events, are proposed to have been caused by a rapid retreat of Nordic seas sea ice. Here, we show that a full sea ice cover and Arctic-like stratification can exist in the Nordic seas given a sufficiently cold Atlantic inflow and corresponding low transport of heat across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge. Once sea ice is established, continued sea ice formation and melt efficiently freshens the surface ocean and makes the deeper layers more saline. This creates a strong salinity stratification in the Nordic seas, similar to today’s Arctic Ocean, with a cold fresh surface layer protecting the overlying sea ice from the warm Atlantic water below. There is a nonlinear response in Nordic seas sea ice to Atlantic water temperature with simulated large abrupt changes in sea ice given small changes in inflowing temperature. This suggests that the DO events were more likely to have occurred during periods of reduced warm Atlantic water inflow to the Nordic seas.
    Description: The research was supported by the Centre for Climate Dynamics at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. The research leading to these results is part of the ice2ice project funded by the European Research Council under the European Community Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 610055.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Arctic ; Sea ice ; Ocean dynamics ; Paleoclimate ; General circulation models
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    Long-term performance of Aanderaa optodes and Sea-Bird SBE-43 dissolved-oxygen sensors bottom mounted at 32 m in Massachusetts Bay (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 24 (2007): 1924-1935, doi:10.1175/JTECH2078.1.
    Description: A field evaluation of two new dissolved-oxygen sensing technologies, the Aanderaa Instruments AS optode model 3830 and the Sea-Bird Electronics, Inc., model SBE43, was carried out at about 32-m water depth in western Massachusetts Bay. The optode is an optical sensor that measures fluorescence quenching by oxygen molecules, while the SBE43 is a Clark polarographic membrane sensor. Optodes were continuously deployed on bottom tripod frames by exchanging sensors every 4 months over a 19-month period. A Sea-Bird SBE43 was added during one 4-month deployment. These moored observations compared well with oxygen measurements from profiles collected during monthly shipboard surveys conducted by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. The mean correlation coefficient between the moored measurements and shipboard survey data was 〉0.9, the mean difference was 0.06 mL L−1, and the standard deviation of the difference was 0.15 mL L−1. The correlation coefficient between the optode and the SBE43 was 〉0.9 and the mean difference was 0.07 mL L−1. Optode measurements degraded when fouling was severe enough to block oxygen molecules from entering the sensing foil over a significant portion of the sensing window. Drift observed in two optodes beginning at about 225 and 390 days of deployment is attributed to degradation of the sensing foil. Flushing is necessary to equilibrate the Sea-Bird sensor. Power consumption by the SBE43 and required pump was 19.2 mWh per sample, and the optode consumed 0.9 mWh per sample, both within expected values based on manufacturers’ specifications.
    Description: This work was funded by the MWRA and USGS.
    Keywords: Instrumentation ; Sensors ; Ocean dynamics ; Ship observations ; In situ observations
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    Observing the Galápagos–EUC interaction : insights and challenges (2011)
    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): 2768–2777, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4461.1.
    Description: Although sustained observations yield a description of the mean equatorial current system from the western Pacific to the eastern terminus of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array, a comprehensive observational dataset suitable for describing the structure and pathways of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) east of 95°W does not exist and therefore climate models are unconstrained in a region that plays a critical role in ocean–atmosphere coupling. Furthermore, ocean models suggest that the interaction between the EUC and the Galápagos Islands (92°W) has a striking effect on the basic state and coupled variability of the tropical Pacific. To this end, the authors interpret historical measurements beginning with those made in conjunction with the discovery of the Pacific EUC in the 1950s, analyze velocity measurements from an equatorial TAO mooring at 85°W, and analyze a new dataset from archived shipboard ADCP measurements. Together, the observations yield a possible composite description of the EUC structure and pathways in the eastern equatorial Pacific that may be useful for model validation and guiding future observation.
    Description: Karnauskas acknowledges the WHOI Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists.
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Currents ; In situ observations ; Model evaluation/performance ; Pacific Ocean ; Tropics
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    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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    An inertial model of the interaction of Ekman layers and planetary islands (2014)
    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): 1398–1406, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-028.1.
    Description: An adiabatic, inertial, and quasigeostrophic model is used to discuss the interaction of surface Ekman transport with an island. The theory extends the recent work of Spall and Pedlosky to include an analytical and nonlinear model for the interaction. The presence of an island that interrupts a uniform Ekman layer transport raises interesting questions about the resulting circulation. The consequential upwelling around the island can lead to a local intake of fluid from the geostrophic region beneath the Ekman layer or to a more complex flow around the island in which the fluid entering the Ekman layer on one portion of the island's perimeter is replaced by a flow along the island's boundary from a downwelling region located elsewhere on the island. This becomes especially pertinent when the flow is quasigeostrophic and adiabatic. The oncoming geostrophic flow that balances the offshore Ekman flux is largely diverted around the island, and the Ekman flux is fed by a transfer of fluid from the western to the eastern side of the island. As opposed to the linear, dissipative model described earlier, this transfer takes place even in the absence of a topographic skirt around the island. The principal effect of topography in the inertial model is to introduce an asymmetry between the circulation on the northern and southern sides of the island. The quasigeostrophic model allows a simple solution to the model problem with topography and yet the resulting three-dimensional circulation is surprisingly complex with streamlines connecting each side of the island.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE Grant 0925061.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Large-scale motions ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Topographic effects
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    On the crossover of boundary currents in an idealized model of the Red Sea (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): 1410–1425, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0192.1.
    Description: The west-to-east crossover of boundary currents has been seen in mean circulation schemes from several past models of the Red Sea. This study investigates the mechanisms that produce and control the crossover in an idealized, eddy-resolving numerical model of the Red Sea. The authors also review the observational evidence and derive an analytical estimate for the crossover latitude. The surface buoyancy loss increases northward in the idealized model, and the resultant mean circulation consists of an anticyclonic gyre in the south and a cyclonic gyre in the north. In the midbasin, the northward surface flow crosses from the western boundary to the eastern boundary. Numerical experiments with different parameters indicate that the crossover latitude of the boundary currents changes with f0, β, and the meridional gradient of surface buoyancy forcing. In the analytical estimate, which is based on quasigeostrophic, β-plane dynamics, the crossover is predicted to lie at the latitude where the net potential vorticity advection (including an eddy component) is zero. Various terms in the potential vorticity budget can be estimated using a buoyancy budget, a thermal wind balance, and a parameterization of baroclinic instability.
    Description: This work is supported by Award USA 00002, KSA 00011, and KSA 00011/02 made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), by National Science Foundation Grants OCE0927017, OCE1154641, and OCE85464100, and by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Program Office.
    Description: 2015-11-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Buoyancy ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics
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    Influences of time-dependent precipitation on water mass transformation, heat fluxes, and deep convection in marginal seas (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): 1822–1842, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0147.1.
    Description: Influences of time-dependent precipitation on water mass transformation and heat budgets in an idealized marginal sea are examined using theoretical and numerical models. The equations proposed by Spall in 2012 are extended to cases with time-dependent precipitation whose form is either a step function or a sinusoidal function. The theory predicts the differences in temperature and salinity between the convective water and the boundary current as well as the magnitudes of heat fluxes into the marginal sea and across the sea surface. Moreover, the theory reveals that there are three inherent time scales: relaxation time scales for temperature and salinity and a precipitation time scale. The relaxation time scales are determined by a steady solution of the theoretical model with steady precipitation. The relaxation time scale for temperature is always smaller than that for salinity as a result of not only the difference in the form of fluxes at the surface but also the variation in the eddy transport from the boundary current. These three time scales and the precipitation amplitude determine the strength of the ocean response to changes in precipitation and the phase relation between precipitation, changes in salinity and temperature, and changes in heat fluxes. It is demonstrated that the theoretical predictions agree qualitatively well with results from the eddy-resolving numerical model. This demonstrates the fundamental role of mesoscale eddies in the ocean response to time-dependent forcing and provides a framework with which to assess the extent to which observed variability in marginal sea convection and water mass transformation are consistent with an external forcing by variations in precipitation.
    Description: This work was initiated at the 2013 WHOI Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer Program, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. This work was also supported by Grant-in-Aid for Research Fellow (25·8466) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology (MEXT), Japan, the Program for Leading Graduate Schools, MEXT, Japan (YY), and by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1232389 (MAS).
    Description: 2016-01-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Deep convection ; Eddies ; Ocean dynamics ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Precipitation
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    The interaction of an eastward-flowing current and an island : sub- and supercritical flow (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): 2806–2819, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0061.1.
    Description: An eastward-flowing current of a homogeneous fluid with velocity U, contained in a channel of width L, impinges on an island of width of O(L), and the resulting interaction and dynamics are studied for values of the supercriticality parameter, b = βL2/U, both larger and smaller than π2. The former case is subcritical with respect to Rossby waves, and the latter is supercritical. The nature of the flow field depends strongly on b, and in particular, the nature of the flow around the island and the proportion of the flow passing to the north or south of the island are sensitive to b and to the position of the island in the channel. The problem is studied analytically in a relatively simple, nonlinear quasigeostrophic and adiabatic framework and numerically with a shallow-water model that allows a qualitative extension of the results to the equator. Although the issues involved are motivated by the interaction of the Equatorial Undercurrent and the Galapagos Islands, the analysis presented here focuses on the fundamental issue of the distinctive nature of the flow as a function of Rossby wave criticality.
    Description: Supported by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0959381.
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Waves, oceanic
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    Impact of two plumes’ interaction on submarine melting of tidewater glaciers : a laboratory study (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): 361–367, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0171.1.
    Description: Idealized laboratory experiments investigate the glacier–ocean boundary dynamics near a vertical glacier in a two-layer stratified fluid. Discharge of meltwater runoff at the base of the glacier (subglacial discharge) enhances submarine melting. In the laboratory, the effect of multiple sources of subglacial discharge is simulated by introducing freshwater at freezing temperature from two point sources at the base of an ice block representing the glacier. The buoyant plumes of cold meltwater and subglacial discharge water entrain warm ambient water, rise vertically, and interact within a layer of depth H2 if the distance between the sources x0 is smaller than H2α/0.35, where α is the entrainment constant. The plume water detaches from the glacier face at the interface between the two layers and/or at the free surface, as confirmed by previous numerical studies and field observations. A plume model is used to explain the observed nonmonotonic dependence of submarine melting on the sources’ separation. The distance between the two sources influences the entrainment of warm water in the plumes and consequently the amount of submarine melting and the final location of the meltwater within the water column. Two interacting plumes located very close together are observed to melt approximately half as much as two independent plumes. The inclusion, or parameterization, of the dynamics regulating multiple plumes’ interaction is therefore necessary for a correct estimate of submarine melting. Hence, the distribution and number of sources of subglacial discharge may play an important role in glacial melt rates and fjord stratification and circulation.
    Description: Support to C.C. was given by the NSF Project OCE-1130008 and OCE-1434041. V.M.G. received support from the “Gori” Fellowship.
    Description: 2016-07-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Glaciers ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Buoyancy ; Entrainment ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Models and modeling ; Laboratory/physical models
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    Shelf–open ocean exchange forced by wind jets (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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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    On the weakly nonlinear Ekman layer : thickness and flux (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): 1334-1339, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3830.1.
    Description: The first-order effects of nonlinearity on the thickness and frictionally driven flux in the Ekman layer are described for the case of an Ekman layer on a solid, flat plate driven by an overlying geostrophic flow as well as the Ekman layer on a free surface driven by a wind stress in the presence of a deep geostrophic current. In both examples, the fluid is homogeneous. Particular attention is paid to the effect of nonlinearity in determining the thickness of the Ekman layer in both cases. An analytical expression for the Ekman layer thickness as a function of Rossby number is given when the Rossby number is small. The result is obtained by insisting that the perturbation expansion of the Ekman problem in powers of the Rossby number remains uniformly valid. There are two competing physical effects. The relative vorticity of the geostrophic currents tends to reduce the width of the layer, but the vertical velocity induced in the layer can fatten or thin the layer depending on the sign of the vertical velocity. The regularized expansion is shown to give, to lowest order, expressions for the flux in agreement with earlier calculations.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Ekman pumping/transport ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Dynamics ; Ocean dynamics
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    Anisotropic material transport by eddies and eddy-driven currents in a model of the North Atlantic (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 Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 3162-3175, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4239.1.
    Description: This study analyzes anisotropic properties of the material transport by eddies and eddy-driven zonal jets in a general circulation model of the North Atlantic through the analysis of Lagrangian particle trajectories. Spreading rates—defined here as half the rate of change in the particle dispersion—in the zonal direction systematically exceed the meridional rates by an order of magnitude. Area-averaged values for the upper-ocean zonal and meridional spreading rates are approximately 8100 and 1400 m2 s−1, respectively, and in the deep ocean they are 2400 and 200 m2 s−1. The results demonstrate that this anisotropy is mainly due to the action of the transient eddies and not to the shear dispersion associated with the time-mean jets. This property is consistent with the fact that eddies in this study have zonally elongated shapes. With the exception of the upper-ocean subpolar gyre, eddies also cause the superdiffusive zonal spreading, significant variations in the spreading rate in the vertical and meridional directions, and the difference between the westward and eastward spreading.
    Description: Funding for IK was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0346178, 0749722, and 0842834. Funding for PB was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0344094 and OCE 0725796 and by the research grant from the Newton Trust of the University of Cambridge. For JP the acknowledgement is to NSF OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Transport ; Currents ; North Atlantic Ocean
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    A model of multiple zonal jets in the oceans : dynamical and kinematical analysis (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 Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 2711-2734, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4093.1.
    Description: Multiple alternating zonal jets observed in the ocean are studied with an idealized quasigeostrophic zonal-channel model, with the supercritical, zonal background flow imposed. Both eastward and westward background flows with vertical shear are considered. The underlying nonlinear dynamics is illuminated with analysis of the vertical-mode interactions and time-mean eddy fluxes. Interactions between the vertical modes are systematically studied. The barotropic component of the jets is maintained by both barotropic–barotropic and baroclinic–baroclinic time-mean interactions; thus, the barotropic component of the jets cannot be accurately simulated with a randomly forced barotropic model. The roles of the vertical-mode interactions in driving the baroclinic component of the jets are also characterized. Not only the first but also the second baroclinic mode is found to be important for maintaining the baroclinic component of the jets, whereas the barotropic component of the jets is maintained mostly by the barotropic and first baroclinic modes. The properties of the eddy forcing were systematically studied. It is shown that the baroclinic component of the jets is maintained by Reynolds stress forcing and resisted by form stress forcing only in the eastward background flow. In the westward background flow, the jets are maintained by form stress forcing and resisted by Reynolds stress forcing. The meridional scaling and kinematical properties of the jets are studied as well as the roles of meridional boundaries. The Rhines scaling for meridional spacing of the jets is not generally confirmed, and it is also shown that there are multiple stable equilibria with different numbers of the time-mean jets. It is also found that the jets are associated with alternating weak barriers to the meridional material transport, but the locations of these barriers are not unique and depend on the direction of the background flow and depth. Finally, if the channel is closed with meridional walls, then the jets become more latent but the eddy forcing properties do not change qualitatively.
    Description: 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. Funding for IK was provided by NSF Grants OCE 0346178 and 0749722. Funding for JP was provided by NSF Grant OCE 0451086.
    Keywords: Ocean dynamics ; Jets ; Kinematics
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    An oceanic current against the wind : how does Taiwan island steer warm water into the East China Sea? (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): 2563-2569, doi:10.1175/JPO3134.1.
    Description: Along the Taiwan Strait (〈100 m in depth) a northeastward flow persists in all seasons despite the annually averaged wind stress that is strongly southwestward. The forcing mechanism of this countercurrent is examined by using a simple ocean model. The results from a suite of experiments demonstrate that it is the Kuroshio that plays the deciding role for setting the flow direction along the Taiwan Strait. The momentum balance along the strait is mainly between the wind stress, friction, and pressure gradient. Since both wind stress and friction act against the northward flow, it is most likely the pressure gradient that forces the northward flow, as noted in some previous studies. What remains unknown is why there is a considerable pressure difference between the southern and northern strait. The Kuroshio flows along the east coast of Taiwan, and thus the western boundary current layer dynamics applies there. Integrating the momentum equation along Taiwan’s east coast shows that there must be a pressure difference between the southern and the northern tip of Taiwan to counter a considerable friction exerted by the mighty Kuroshio. This same pressure difference is also felt on the other side of the island where it forces the northward flow through Taiwan Strait. The model shows that the local wind stress acts to dampen this northward flow. This mechanism can be illustrated by an integral constraint for flow around an island.
    Description: This study has been supported by National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-0351055.
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Wind ; Currents
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    Transport and dynamics of the Panay Sill overflow in the Philippine Seas (2011)
    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): 2679–2695, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4395.1.
    Description: Observations of stratification and currents between June 2007 and March 2009 reveal a strong overflow between 400- and 570-m depth from the Panay Strait into the Sulu Sea. The overflow water is derived from approximately 400 m deep in the South China Sea. Temporal mean velocity is greater than 0.75 m s−1 at 50 m above the 570-m Panay Sill. Empirical orthogonal function analysis of a mooring time series shows that the flow is dominated by the bottom overflow current with little seasonal variance. The overflow does not descend below 1250 m in the Sulu Sea but rather settles above high-salinity deep water derived from the Sulawesi Sea. The mean observed overflow transport at the sill is 0.32 × 106 m3 s−1. The observed transport was used to calculate a bulk diapycnal diffusivity of 4.4 × 10−4 m2 s−1 within the Sulu Sea slab (575–1250 m) ventilated from Panay Strait. Analysis of Froude number variation across the sill shows that the flow is hydraulically controlled. A suitable hydraulic control model shows overflow transport equivalent to the observed overflow. Thorpe-scale estimates show turbulent dissipation rates up to 5 × 10−7 W kg−1 just downstream of the supercritical to subcritical flow transition, suggesting a hydraulic jump downstream of the sill.
    Description: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-09-1-0582 to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; Grants ONR-13759000 and N00014-09-1-0582 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Grant ONR-N00014-06-1-0690 to Scripps Institute of Oceanography; and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
    Keywords: Transport ; Dynamics ; Topographic effects ; Currents ; Empirical orthogonal functions
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    Near-surface transport pathways in the north Atlantic Ocean : looking for throughput from the subtropical to the subpolar gyre (2011)
    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): 911–925, doi:10.1175/2011JPO4498.1.
    Description: Motivated by discrepancies between Eulerian transport estimates and the behavior of Lagrangian surface drifters, near-surface transport pathways and processes in the North Atlantic are studied using a combination of data, altimetric surface heights, statistical analysis of trajectories, and dynamical systems techniques. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the subtropical-to-subpolar intergyre fluid exchange. The velocity field used in this study is composed of a steady drifter-derived background flow, upon which a time-dependent altimeter-based perturbation is superimposed. This analysis suggests that most of the fluid entering the subpolar gyre from the subtropical gyre within two years comes from a narrow region lying inshore of the Gulf Stream core, whereas fluid on the offshore side of the Gulf Stream is largely prevented from doing so by the Gulf Stream core, which acts as a strong transport barrier, in agreement with past studies. The transport barrier near the Gulf Stream core is robust and persistent from 1992 until 2008. The qualitative behavior is found to be largely independent of the Ekman drift.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grants CMG-82469600 and CMG-82579600 and by the Office of Naval Research Grant ONR-13108700.
    Keywords: Atlantic Ocean ; Transport ; Gyres ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Tracers ; Currents ; Meridional overturning circulation
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    Upper-ocean response to Hurricane Frances (2004) observed by Profiling EM-APEX floats (2011)
    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): 1041–1056, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4313.1.
    Description: Three autonomous profiling Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats were air deployed one day in advance of the passage of Hurricane Frances (2004) as part of the Coupled Boundary Layer Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST)-High field experiment. The floats were deliberately deployed at locations on the hurricane track, 55 km to the right of the track, and 110 km to the right of the track. These floats provided profile measurements between 30 and 200 m of in situ temperature, salinity, and horizontal velocity every half hour during the hurricane passage and for several weeks afterward. Some aspects of the observed response were similar at the three locations—the dominance of near-inertial horizontal currents and the phase of these currents—whereas other aspects were different. The largest-amplitude inertial currents were observed at the 55-km site, where SST cooled the most, by about 2.2°C, as the surface mixed layer deepened by about 80 m. Based on the time–depth evolution of the Richardson number and comparisons with a numerical ocean model, it is concluded that SST cooled primarily because of shear-induced vertical mixing that served to bring deeper, cooler water into the surface layer. Surface gravity waves, estimated from the observed high-frequency velocity, reached an estimated 12-m significant wave height at the 55-km site. Along the track, there was lesser amplitude inertial motion and SST cooling, only about 1.2°C, though there was greater upwelling, about 25-m amplitude, and inertial pumping, also about 25-m amplitude. Previously reported numerical simulations of the upper-ocean response are in reasonable agreement with these EM-APEX observations provided that a high wind speed–saturated drag coefficient is used to estimate the wind stress. A direct inference of the drag coefficient CD is drawn from the momentum budget. For wind speeds of 32–47 m s−1, CD ~ 1.4 × 10−3.
    Description: The Office of Naval Research supported the development of the EM-APEX float system through SBIR Contract N00014-03-C-0242 to Webb Research Corporation and with a subcontract to APL-UW. Sanford and J. Girton were supported by the Office of Naval Research through GrantsN00014-04-1-0691 and N00014- 07-1-024, and J. Price was supported through Grant N00014-04-1-0109.
    Keywords: Hurricanes ; Ocean dynamics ; Profilers ; Air-sea interactions
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    Reconstructing the ocean's interior from surface data (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): 1611–1626, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0204.1.
    Description: A new method is proposed for extrapolating subsurface velocity and density fields from sea surface density and sea surface height (SSH). In this, the surface density is linked to the subsurface fields via the surface quasigeostrophic (SQG) formalism, as proposed in several recent papers. The subsurface field is augmented by the addition of the barotropic and first baroclinic modes, whose amplitudes are determined by matching to the sea surface height (pressure), after subtracting the SQG contribution. An additional constraint is that the bottom pressure anomaly vanishes. The method is tested for three regions in the North Atlantic using data from a high-resolution numerical simulation. The decomposition yields strikingly realistic subsurface fields. It is particularly successful in energetic regions like the Gulf Stream extension and at high latitudes where the mixed layer is deep, but it also works in less energetic eastern subtropics. The demonstration highlights the possibility of reconstructing three-dimensional oceanic flows using a combination of satellite fields, for example, sea surface temperature (SST) and SSH, and sparse (or climatological) estimates of the regional depth-resolved density. The method could be further elaborated to integrate additional subsurface information, such as mooring measurements.
    Description: JW and AM were supported by NASA (NNX12AD47G) and NSF (OCE 0928617). JLM was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy under DE-GF0205ER64119. GRF is supported by OCE-0752346 and JHL by NORSEE (Nordic Seas Eddy Exchanges) funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
    Description: 2014-02-01
    Keywords: Eddies ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Surface pressure ; Surface temperature ; Inverse methods
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  • 47
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    Coral reef drag coefficients – water depth dependence (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1061-1075, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0248.1.
    Description: A major challenge in modeling the circulation over coral reefs is uncertainty in the drag coefficient because existing estimates span two orders of magnitude. Current and pressure measurements from five coral reefs are used to estimate drag coefficients based on depth-average flow, assuming a balance between the cross-reef pressure gradient and the bottom stress. At two sites wind stress is a significant term in the cross-reef momentum balance and is included in estimating the drag coefficient. For the five coral reef sites and a previous laboratory study, estimated drag coefficients increase as the water depth decreases consistent with open channel flow theory. For example, for a typical coral reef hydrodynamic roughness of 5 cm, observational estimates, and the theory indicate that the drag coefficient decreases from 0.4 in 20 cm of water to 0.005 in 10 m of water. Synthesis of results from the new field observations with estimates from previous field and laboratory studies indicate that coral reef drag coefficients range from 0.2 to 0.005 and hydrodynamic roughnesses generally range from 2 to 8 cm. While coral reef drag coefficients depend on factors such as physical roughness and surface waves, a substantial fraction of the scatter in estimates of coral reef drag coefficients is due to variations in water depth.
    Description: The Red Sea field program was supported by Awards USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by KAUST to S. Lentz and J. Churchill. The Palau field program was funded by NSF Award OCE-1220529.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Currents ; Wind stress ; Boundary layer ; Sea level ; Tides
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    Estuarine exchange flow is related to mixing through the salinity variance budget (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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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    Deep eddies in the Gulf of Mexico observed with floats (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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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    Influence of the meridional shifts of the Kuroshio and the Oyashio Extensions on the atmospheric circulation (2011)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 24 (2011): 762-777, doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3731.1.
    Description: The meridional shifts of the Oyashio Extension (OE) and of the Kuroshio Extension (KE), as derived from high-resolution monthly sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in 1982–2008 and historical temperature profiles in 1979–2007, respectively, are shown based on lagged regression analysis to significantly influence the large-scale atmospheric circulation. The signals are independent from the ENSO teleconnections, which were removed by seasonally varying, asymmetric regression onto the first three principal components of the tropical Pacific SST anomalies. The response to the meridional shifts of the OE front is equivalent barotropic and broadly resembles the North Pacific Oscillation/western Pacific pattern in a positive phase for a northward frontal displacement. The response may reach 35 m at 250 hPa for a typical OE shift, a strong sensitivity since the associated SST anomaly is 0.5 K. However, the amplitude, but not the pattern or statistical significance, strongly depends on the lag and an assumed 2-month atmospheric response time. The response is stronger during fall and winter and when the front is displaced southward. The response to the northward KE shifts primarily consists of a high centered in the northwestern North Pacific and hemispheric teleconnections. The response is also equivalent barotropic, except near Kamchatka, where it tilts slightly westward with height. The typical amplitude is half as large as that associated with OE shifts.
    Description: This work was supported in part by the L’Institut universitaire de France (CF), the WHOI Heyman fellowship, and the NASAGrant withAwardNNX09AF35G(Y.-O. K), and grants through NOAA’s Climate Variability and Predictability Program (MAA).
    Keywords: Atmospheric circulation ; Currents
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    Four current meter models compared in strong currents in Drake Passage (2014)
    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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 30 (2013): 2465–2477, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00032.1.
    Description: Seven current meters representing four models on a stiffly buoyed mooring were placed for an 11-month deployment to intercompare their velocity measurements: two vector-measuring current meters (VMCMs), two Aanderaa recording current meter (RCM) 11s, two Aanderaa SEAGUARDs, and a Nortek Aquadopp. The current meters were placed 6-m apart from each other at about 4000-m depth in an area of Drake Passage expected to have strong currents, nearly independent of depth near the bottom. Two high-current events occurred in bursts of semidiurnal pulses lasting several days, one with peak speeds up to 67 cm s−1 and the other above 35 cm s−1. The current-speed measurements all agreed within 7% of the median value when vector averaged over simultaneous time intervals. The VMCMs, chosen as the reference measurements, were found to measure the median of the mean-current magnitudes. The RCM11 and SEAGUARD current speeds agreed within 2% of the median at higher speeds (35–67 cm s−1), whereas in lower speed ranges (0–35 cm s−1) the vector-averaged speeds for the RCM11 and SEAGUARD were 4%–5% lower and 3%–5% higher than the median, respectively. The shorter-record Aquadopp current speeds were about 6% higher than the VMCMs over the range (0–40 cm s−1) encountered.
    Description: This work was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grants ANT-0635437 and ANT-0636493.
    Description: 2014-04-01
    Keywords: Currents ; Acoustic measurements/effects ; In situ oceanic observations ; Instrumentation/sensors
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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
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    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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    Frontogenesis and variability in Denmark Strait and its influence on overflow water (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(7), (2019): 1889-1904, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0053.1.
    Description: A high-resolution numerical model, together with in situ and satellite observations, is used to explore the nature and dynamics of the dominant high-frequency (from one day to one week) variability in Denmark Strait. Mooring measurements in the center of the strait reveal that warm water “flooding events” occur, whereby the North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC) propagates offshore and advects subtropical-origin water northward through the deepest part of the sill. Two other types of mesoscale processes in Denmark Strait have been described previously in the literature, known as “boluses” and “pulses,” associated with a raising and lowering of the overflow water interface. Our measurements reveal that flooding events occur in conjunction with especially pronounced pulses. The model indicates that the NIIC hydrographic front is maintained by a balance between frontogenesis by the large-scale flow and frontolysis by baroclinic instability. Specifically, the temperature and salinity tendency equations demonstrate that the eddies act to relax the front, while the mean flow acts to sharpen it. Furthermore, the model reveals that the two dense water processes—boluses and pulses (and hence flooding events)—are dynamically related to each other and tied to the meandering of the hydrographic front in the strait. Our study thus provides a general framework for interpreting the short-time-scale variability of Denmark Strait Overflow Water entering the Irminger Sea.
    Description: MAS was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grants OCE-1558742 and OCE-1534618. RSP, PL, and DM were supported by NSF under Grants OCE-1558742 and OCE-1259618. WJvA was supported by the Helmholtz Infrastructure Initiative FRAM. TWNH and MA were supported by NSF under Grants OCE-1633124 and OCE-118123.
    Description: 2020-07-01
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Topographic effects
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    Potential vorticity dynamics of the arctic halocline (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(9), (2020): 2491-2506, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-20-0056.1.
    Description: An idealized two-layer shallow water model is applied to the study of the dynamics of the Arctic Ocean halocline. The model is forced by a surface stress distribution reflective of the observed wind stress pattern and ice motion and by an inflow representing the flow of Pacific Water through Bering Strait. The model reproduces the main elements of the halocline circulation: an anticyclonic Beaufort Gyre in the western basin (representing the Canada Basin), a cyclonic circulation in the eastern basin (representing the Eurasian Basin), and a Transpolar Drift between the two gyres directed from the upwind side of the basin to the downwind side of the basin. Analysis of the potential vorticity budget shows a basin-averaged balance primarily between potential vorticity input at the surface and dissipation at the lateral boundaries. However, advection is a leading-order term not only within the anticyclonic and cyclonic gyres but also between the gyres. This means that the eastern and western basins are dynamically connected through the advection of potential vorticity. Both eddy and mean fluxes play a role in connecting the regions of potential vorticity input at the surface with the opposite gyre and with the viscous boundary layers. These conclusions are based on a series of model runs in which forcing, topography, straits, and the Coriolis parameter were varied.
    Description: This study was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OPP-1822334. Comments and suggestions from two anonymous referees greatly helped to improve the paper.
    Description: 2021-02-17
    Keywords: Eddies ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity ; Shallow-water equations
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    The equatorial current system west of the Galapagos Islands during the 2014-16 El Niño as observed by underwater gliders (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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): 3-17, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0064.1.
    Description: The strong El Niño of 2014–16 was observed west of the Galápagos Islands through sustained deployment of underwater gliders. Three years of observations began in October 2013 and ended in October 2016, with observations at longitudes 93° and 95°W between latitudes 2°N and 2°S. In total, there were over 3000 glider-days of data, covering over 50 000 km with over 12 000 profiles. Coverage was superior closer to the Galápagos on 93°W, where gliders were equipped with sensors to measure velocity as well as temperature, salinity, and pressure. The repeated glider transects are analyzed to produce highly resolved mean sections and maps of observed variables as functions of time, latitude, and depth. The mean sections reveal the structure of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), the South Equatorial Current, and the equatorial front. The mean fields are used to calculate potential vorticity Q and Richardson number Ri. Gradients in the mean are strong enough to make the sign of Q opposite to that of planetary vorticity and to have Ri near unity, suggestive of mixing. Temporal variability is dominated by the 2014–16 El Niño, with the arrival of depressed isopycnals documented in 2014 and 2015. Increases in eastward velocity advect anomalously salty water and are uncorrelated with warm temperatures and deep isopycnals. Thus, vertical advection is important to changes in heat, and horizontal advection is relevant to changes in salt. Implications of this work include possibilities for future research, model assessment and improvement, and sustained observations across the equatorial Pacific.
    Description: We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (OCE-1232971, OCE-1233282) and the Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NA13OAR4830216).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Tropics ; Currents ; El Nino ; In situ oceanic observations
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    On the predictability of sea surface height around Palau (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    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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    Kinematic structure and dynamics of the Denmark Strait Overflow from ship-based observations (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): 3235–3251, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0095.1.
    Description: The dense outflow through Denmark Strait is the largest contributor to the lower limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, yet a description of the full velocity field across the strait remains incomplete. Here we analyze a set of 22 shipboard hydrographic–velocity sections occupied along the Látrabjarg transect at the Denmark Strait sill, obtained over the time period 1993–2018. The sections provide the first complete view of the kinematic components at the sill: the shelfbreak East Greenland Current (EGC), the combined flow of the separated EGC, and the North Icelandic Jet (NIJ), and the northward-flowing North Icelandic Irminger Current (NIIC). The total mean transport of overflow water is 3.54 ± 0.29 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), comparable to previous estimates. The dense overflow is partitioned in terms of water mass constituents and flow components. The mean transports of the two types of overflow water—Atlantic-origin Overflow Water and Arctic-origin Overflow Water—are comparable in Denmark Strait, while the merged NIJ–separated EGC transports 55% more water than the shelfbreak EGC. A significant degree of water mass exchange takes place between the branches as they converge in Denmark Strait. There are two dominant time-varying configurations of the flow that are characterized as a cyclonic state and a noncyclonic state. These appear to be wind-driven. A potential vorticity analysis indicates that the flow through Denmark Strait is subject to symmetric instability. This occurs at the top of the overflow layer, implying that the mixing/entrainment process that modifies the overflow water begins at the sill.
    Description: Funding for the study was provided by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants OCE-1259618, OCE-1756361, and OCE-1558742. The German research cruises were financially supported through various EU Projects (e.g. THOR, NACLIM) and national projects (most recently TRR 181 “Energy Transfer in Atmosphere and Ocean” funded by the German Research Foundation and RACE II “Regional Atlantic Circulation and Global Change” funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research). GWKM acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. LP was supported by NSF Grant OCE-1657870.
    Keywords: Currents ; Instability ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Potential vorticity
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    On the origins of the oceanic ultraviolet catastrophe (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-09-25
    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(4), (2022): 597–616, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0121.1.
    Description: We provide a first-principles analysis of the energy fluxes in the oceanic internal wave field. The resulting formula is remarkably similar to the renowned phenomenological formula for the turbulent dissipation rate in the ocean, which is known as the finescale parameterization. The prediction is based on the wave turbulence theory of internal gravity waves and on a new methodology devised for the computation of the associated energy fluxes. In the standard spectral representation of the wave energy density, in the two-dimensional vertical wavenumber–frequency (m–ω) domain, the energy fluxes associated with the steady state are found to be directed downscale in both coordinates, closely matching the finescale parameterization formula in functional form and in magnitude. These energy transfers are composed of a “local” and a “scale-separated” contributions; while the former is quantified numerically, the latter is dominated by the induced diffusion process and is amenable to analytical treatment. Contrary to previous results indicating an inverse energy cascade from high frequency to low, at odds with observations, our analysis of all nonzero coefficients of the diffusion tensor predicts a direct energy cascade. Moreover, by the same analysis fundamental spectra that had been deemed “no-flux” solutions are reinstated to the status of “constant-downscale-flux” solutions. This is consequential for an understanding of energy fluxes, sources, and sinks that fits in the observational paradigm of the finescale parameterization, solving at once two long-standing paradoxes that had earned the name of “oceanic ultraviolet catastrophe.”
    Description: The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the ONR Grant N00014-17-1-2852. YL gratefully acknowledges support from NSF DMS Award 2009418.
    Description: 2022-09-25
    Keywords: Ocean ; Gravity waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean dynamics ; Mixing ; Fluxes ; Isopycnal coordinates ; Nonlinear models
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    Turbulent mixing variability in an energetic standing meander of the Southern Ocean (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-08-29
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(8), (2022): 1593-1611, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0180.1.
    Description: This study presents novel observational estimates of turbulent dissipation and mixing in a standing meander between the Southeast Indian Ridge and the Macquarie Ridge in the Southern Ocean. By applying a finescale parameterization on the temperature, salinity, and velocity profiles collected from Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats in the upper 1600 m, we estimated the intensity and spatial distribution of dissipation rate and diapycnal mixing along the float tracks and investigated the sources. The indirect estimates indicate strong spatial and temporal variability of turbulent mixing varying from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1 in the upper 1600 m. Elevated turbulent mixing is mostly associated with the Subantarctic Front (SAF) and mesoscale eddies. In the upper 500 m, enhanced mixing is associated with downward-propagating wind-generated near-inertial waves as well as the interaction between cyclonic eddies and upward-propagating internal waves. In the study region, the local topography does not play a role in turbulent mixing in the upper part of the water column, which has similar values in profiles over rough and smooth topography. However, both remotely generated internal tides and lee waves could contribute to the upward-propagating energy. Our results point strongly to the generation of turbulent mixing through the interaction of internal waves and the intense mesoscale eddy field.
    Description: The observations were funded through grants from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP170102162) and Australia’s Marine National Facility. Surface drifters were provided by Dr. Shaun Dolk of the Global Drifter Program. AC was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. AC, HEP, and NLB acknowledge support from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy National Environmental Science Program and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes. KP acknowledges the support from the National Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Ocean dynamics
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    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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    Role of the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio–Oyashio systems in large-scale atmosphere–ocean interaction : a review (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 23 (2010): 3249-3281, doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3343.1.
    Description: Ocean–atmosphere interaction over the Northern Hemisphere western boundary current (WBC) regions (i.e., the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, Oyashio, and their extensions) is reviewed with an emphasis on their role in basin-scale climate variability. SST anomalies exhibit considerable variance on interannual to decadal time scales in these regions. Low-frequency SST variability is primarily driven by basin-scale wind stress curl variability via the oceanic Rossby wave adjustment of the gyre-scale circulation that modulates the latitude and strength of the WBC-related oceanic fronts. Rectification of the variability by mesoscale eddies, reemergence of the anomalies from the preceding winter, and tropical remote forcing also play important roles in driving and maintaining the low-frequency variability in these regions. In the Gulf Stream region, interaction with the deep western boundary current also likely influences the low-frequency variability. Surface heat fluxes damp the low-frequency SST anomalies over the WBC regions; thus, heat fluxes originate with heat anomalies in the ocean and have the potential to drive the overlying atmospheric circulation. While recent observational studies demonstrate a local atmospheric boundary layer response to WBC changes, the latter’s influence on the large-scale atmospheric circulation is still unclear. Nevertheless, heat and moisture fluxes from the WBCs into the atmosphere influence the mean state of the atmospheric circulation, including anchoring the latitude of the storm tracks to the WBCs. Furthermore, many climate models suggest that the large-scale atmospheric response to SST anomalies driven by ocean dynamics in WBC regions can be important in generating decadal climate variability. As a step toward bridging climate model results and observations, the degree of realism of the WBC in current climate model simulations is assessed. Finally, outstanding issues concerning ocean–atmosphere interaction in WBC regions and its impact on climate variability are discussed.
    Description: Funding for LT was provided by the NASA-sponsored Ocean Surface Topography Science Team, under Contract 1267196 with the University of Washington, administered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. HN was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid 18204044 by the Japan Society for Promotion for Science (JSPS) and the Global Environment Research Fund (S-5) of the Japanese Ministry of Environment. YK was supported by the Kerr Endowed Fund and Penzance Endowed Fund.
    Keywords: Currents ; Sea surface temperature ; Anomalies ; Large-scale motions ; Oceanic mixed layer ; Northern Hemisphere
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    Diapycnal mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (2011)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 241-246, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4557.1.
    Description: The vertical dispersion of a tracer released on a density surface near 1500-m depth in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current west of Drake Passage indicates that the diapycnal diffusivity, averaged over 1 yr and over tens of thousands of square kilometers, is (1.3 ± 0.2) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Diapycnal diffusivity estimated from turbulent kinetic energy dissipation measurements about the area occupied by the tracer in austral summer 2010 was somewhat less, but still within a factor of 2, at (0.75 ± 0.07) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Turbulent diapycnal mixing of this intensity is characteristic of the midlatitude ocean interior, where the energy for mixing is believed to derive from internal wave breaking. Indeed, despite the frequent and intense atmospheric forcing experienced by the Southern Ocean, the amplitude of finescale velocity shear sampled about the tracer was similar to background amplitudes in the midlatitude ocean, with levels elevated to only 20%–50% above the Garrett–Munk reference spectrum. These results add to a long line of evidence that diapycnal mixing in the interior middepth ocean is weak and is likely too small to dictate the middepth meridional overturning circulation of the ocean.
    Description: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grants OCE-0622825,OCE-0622670, OCE-0622630, and OCE-0623177.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Currents ; Antarctica ; Ocean circulation ; Meridional overturning circulation
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    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
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    The Arctic Ocean spices up (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1277-1284, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0027.1.
    Description: The contemporary Arctic Ocean differs markedly from midlatitude, ice-free, and relatively warm oceans in the context of density-compensating temperature and salinity variations. These variations are invaluable tracers in the midlatitudes, revealing essential fundamental physical processes of the oceans, on scales from millimeters to thousands of kilometers. However, in the cold Arctic Ocean, temperature variations have little effect on density, and a measure of density-compensating variations in temperature and salinity (i.e., spiciness) is not appropriate. In general, temperature is simply a passive tracer, which implies that most of the heat transported in the Arctic Ocean relies entirely on the ocean dynamics determined by the salinity field. It is shown, however, that as the Arctic Ocean warms up, temperature will take on a new role in setting dynamical balances. Under continued warming, there exists the possibility for a regime shift in the mechanisms by which heat is transported in the Arctic Ocean. This may result in a cap on the storage of deep-ocean heat, having profound implications for future predictions of Arctic sea ice.
    Description: Support was provided by the National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs Award 1350046 and Office of Naval Research Grant Number N00014-12-1-0110.
    Description: 2016-10-05
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Arctic ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Ocean dynamics
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    Two modes of Gulf Stream variability revealed in the last two decades of satellite altimeter data (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): 149–163, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0136.1.
    Description: Monthly mapped sea level anomalies (MSLAs) of the NW Atlantic in the region immediately downstream of the Gulf Stream (GS) separation point reveal a leading mode in which the path shifts approximately 100 km meridionally about a nominal latitude of 39°N, producing coherent sea level anomaly (SLA) variability from 72° to 50°W. This mode can be captured by use of a simple 16-point index based on SLA data taken along the maximum of the observed variability in the region 33°–46°N and 45°–75°W. The GS shifts between 2010 and 2012 are the largest of the last decade and equal to the largest of the entire record. The second group of EOF modes of variability describes GS meanders, which propagate mainly westward interrupted by brief periods of eastward or stationary meanders. These meanders have wavelengths of approximately 400 km and can be seen in standard EOFs by spatial phase shifting of a standing meander pattern in the SLA data. The spectral properties of these modes indicate strong variability at interannual and longer periods for the first mode and periods of a few to several months for the meanders. While the former is quite similar to a previous use of the altimeter for GS path, the simple index is a useful measure of the large-scale shifts in the GS path that is quickly estimated and updated without changes in previous estimates. The time-scale separation allows a low-pass filtered 16-point index to be reflective of large-scale, coherent shifts in the GS path.
    Description: Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información (ACIISI) grant program of Apoyo al Personal Investigador en Formación and NSF Grant OCE-0726720
    Description: 2014-07-01
    Keywords: Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Indices ; Ocean dynamics ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Altimetry ; Mathematical and statistical techniques ; Empirical orthogonal functions
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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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    The air-launched autonomous micro observer (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-08-05
    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 the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39(4), (2022): 491–502, https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-21-0046.1.
    Description: The Air-Launched Autonomous Micro Observer (ALAMO) is a versatile profiling float that can be launched from an aircraft to make temperature and salinity observations of the upper ocean for over a year with high temporal sampling. Similar in dimensions and weight to an airborne expendable bathythermograph (AXBT), but with the same capability as Argo profiling floats, ALAMOs can be deployed from an A-sized (sonobuoy) launch tube, the stern ramp of a cargo plane, or the door of a small aircraft. Unlike an AXBT, however, the ALAMO float directly measures pressure, can incorporate additional sensors, and is capable of performing hundreds of ocean profiles compared to the single temperature profile provided by an AXBT. Upon deployment, the float parachutes to the ocean, releases the air-deployment package, and immediately begins profiling. Ocean profile data along with position and engineering information are transmitted via the Iridium satellite network, automatically processed, and then distributed by the Global Telecommunications System for use by the operational forecasting community. The ALAMO profiling mission can be modified using the two-way Iridium communications to change the profiling frequency and depth. Example observations are included to demonstrate the ALAMO’s utility.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration under Grants NA13OAR4830233 (as part of CINAR Sandy Supplemental funding from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013) and NA14OAR4320158 and by Office of Naval Research under Grants N0001416WX01384, N0001416WX01262, and N000141512293. ALAMO floats are commercially available from MRV Systems, LLC (https://www.mrvsys.com).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Hurricanes ; Ocean dynamics ; Mixed layer ; Aircraft observations ; Instrumentation/sensors
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    Whither the Chukchi Slope Current? (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 1717-1732, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0273.1.
    Description: Recent measurements and modeling indicate that roughly half of the Pacific-origin water exiting the Chukchi Sea shelf through Barrow Canyon forms a westward-flowing current known as the Chukchi Slope Current (CSC), yet the trajectory and fate of this current is presently unknown. In this study, through the combined use of shipboard velocity data and information from five profiling floats deployed as quasi-Lagrangian particles, we delve further into the trajectory and the fate of the CSC. During the period of observation, from early September to early October 2018, the CSC progressed far to the north into the Chukchi Borderland. The northward excursion is believed to result from the current negotiating Hanna Canyon on the Chukchi slope, consistent with potential vorticity dynamics. The volume transport of the CSC, calculated using a set of shipboard transects, decreased from approximately 2 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) to near zero over a period of 4 days. This variation can be explained by a concomitant change in the wind stress curl over the Chukchi shelf from positive to negative. After turning northward, the CSC was disrupted and four of the five floats veered offshore, with one of the floats permanently leaving the current. It is hypothesized that the observed disruption was due to an anticyclonic eddy interacting with the CSC, which has been observed previously. These results demonstrate that, at times, the CSC can get entrained into the Beaufort Gyre.
    Description: This work was principally supported by the Stratified Ocean Dynamics of the Arctic (SODA) program under ONR Grant N000141612450. S.B. wants to thank Labex iMust for supporting his research. R.S.P. acknowledges U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OPP-1702371, OPP-1733564, and PLR-1303617. P.L. acknowledges National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant NA14-OAR4320158. M.L. acknowledges National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 41706025 and 41506018. T.P. thanks ENS de Lyon for travel support funding. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of Steve Jayne, Pelle Robins, and Alex Ekholm at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for preparation, deployment, and data provision for the ALTO floats. Chanhyung Jeon assisted in preparing and deploying the floats. The invaluable support of the crew of the R/V Sikuliaq is also gratefully acknowledged.
    Keywords: Arctic ; Continental shelf/slope ; Currents ; Mixing
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    Structure and variability of the shelfbreak East Greenland Current north of Denmark Strait (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): 2631-2646, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0062.1.
    Description: Data from a mooring array deployed north of Denmark Strait from September 2011 to August 2012 are used to investigate the structure and variability of the shelfbreak East Greenland Current (EGC). The shelfbreak EGC is a surface-intensified current situated just offshore of the east Greenland shelf break flowing southward through Denmark Strait. This study identified two dominant spatial modes of variability within the current: a pulsing mode and a meandering mode, both of which were most pronounced in fall and winter. A particularly energetic event in November 2011 was related to a reversal of the current for nearly a month. In addition to the seasonal signal, the current was associated with periods of enhanced eddy kinetic energy and increased variability on shorter time scales. The data indicate that the current is, for the most part, barotropically stable but subject to baroclinic instability from September to March. By contrast, in summer the current is mainly confined to the shelf break with decreased eddy kinetic energy and minimal baroclinic conversion. No other region of the Nordic Seas displays higher levels of eddy kinetic energy than the shelfbreak EGC north of Denmark Strait during fall. This appears to be due to the large velocity variability on mesoscale time scales generated by the instabilities. The mesoscale variability documented here may be a source of the variability observed at the Denmark Strait sill.
    Description: Support for this work was provided by the Norwegian Research Council under Grant Agreement 231647 (LH and KV) and the Bergen Research Foundation under Grant BFS2016REK01 (KV). Additional funding was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-0959381 and OCE-1558742 (RP).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Arctic ; Boundary currents ; Currents ; Stability ; Oceanic variability
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    On the development of SWOT in situ calibration/validation for short-wavelength ocean topography (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-11-01
    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 the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39(5), (2022): 595–617, https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-21-0039.1.
    Description: The future Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission aims to map sea surface height (SSH) in wide swaths with an unprecedented spatial resolution and subcentimeter accuracy. The instrument performance needs to be verified using independent measurements in a process known as calibration and validation (Cal/Val). The SWOT Cal/Val needs in situ measurements that can make synoptic observations of SSH field over an O(100) km distance with an accuracy matching the SWOT requirements specified in terms of the along-track wavenumber spectrum of SSH error. No existing in situ observing system has been demonstrated to meet this challenge. A field campaign was conducted during September 2019–January 2020 to assess the potential of various instruments and platforms to meet the SWOT Cal/Val requirement. These instruments include two GPS buoys, two bottom pressure recorders (BPR), three moorings with fixed conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) and CTD profilers, and a glider. The observations demonstrated that 1) the SSH (hydrostatic) equation can be closed with 1–3 cm RMS residual using BPR, CTD mooring and GPS SSH, and 2) using the upper-ocean steric height derived from CTD moorings enable subcentimeter accuracy in the California Current region during the 2019/20 winter. Given that the three moorings are separated at 10–20–30 km distance, the observations provide valuable information about the small-scale SSH variability associated with the ocean circulation at frequencies ranging from hourly to monthly in the region. The combined analysis sheds light on the design of the SWOT mission postlaunch Cal/Val field campaign.
    Description: The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). All authors are supported by the SWOT project. J. T. Farrar was partially supported by NASA NNX16AH76G.
    Description: 2022-11-01
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Altimetry ; Global positioning systems (GPS) ; In situ oceanic observations ; Ship observations
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    Coupled ocean–atmosphere offshore decay scale of cold SST signals along upwelling eastern boundaries (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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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    Decadal to multidecadal variability of the mixed layer to the south of the Kuroshio Extension region (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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 Climate 33(17), (2020): 7697-7714, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0115.1.
    Description: The decadal to multidecadal mixed layer variability is investigated in a region south of the Kuroshio Extension (130°E–180°, 25°–35°N), an area where the North Pacific subtropical mode water forms, during 1948–2012. By analyzing the mixed layer heat budget with different observational and reanalysis data, here we show that the decadal to multidecadal variability of the mixed layer temperature and mixed layer depth is covaried with the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), instead of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). The mixed layer temperature has strong decadal to multidecadal variability, being warm before 1970 and after 1990 (AMO positive phase) and cold during 1970–90 (AMO negative phase), and so does the mixed layer depth. The dominant process for the mixed layer temperature decadal to multidecadal variability is the Ekman advection, which is controlled by the zonal wind changes related to the AMO. The net heat flux into the ocean surface Qnet acts as a damping term and it is mainly from the effect of latent heat flux and partially from sensible heat flux. While the wind as well as mixed layer temperature decadal changes related to the PDO are weak in the western Pacific Ocean. Our finding proposes the possible influence of the AMO on the northwestern Pacific Ocean mixed layer variability, and could be a potential predictor for the decadal to multidecadal climate variability in the western Pacific Ocean.
    Description: Xiaopei Lin is supported by the China’s national key research and development projects (2016YFA0601803) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41925025 and U1606402). Baolan Wu is supported by the China Scholarship Council (201806330010). Lisan Yu thanks NOAA for support for her study on climate change and variability.
    Keywords: Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary currents ; Hadley circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Teleconnections
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    Influences of precipitation on water mass transformation and deep convection (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 1684–1700, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0230.1.
    Description: The influences of precipitation on water mass transformation and the strength of the meridional overturning circulation in marginal seas are studied using theoretical and idealized numerical models. Nondimensional equations are developed for the temperature and salinity anomalies of deep convective water masses, making explicit their dependence on both geometric parameters such as basin area, sill depth, and latitude, as well as on the strength of atmospheric forcing. In addition to the properties of the convective water, the theory also predicts the magnitude of precipitation required to shut down deep convection and switch the circulation into the haline mode. High-resolution numerical model calculations compare well with the theory for the properties of the convective water mass, the strength of the meridional overturning circulation, and also the shutdown of deep convection. However, the numerical model also shows that, for precipitation levels that exceed this critical threshold, the circulation retains downwelling and northward heat transport, even in the absence of deep convection.
    Description: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation underGrantsOCE-0850416, OCE-0959381, andOCE-0859381.
    Description: 2013-04-01
    Keywords: Boundary currents ; Deep convection ; Eddies ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Stability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    The wavenumber–frequency content of resonantly excited equatorial waves (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    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): 1834–1858, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0234.1.
    Description: The theoretical resonant excitation of equatorial inertia–gravity waves and mixed Rossby–gravity waves is examined. Contrary to occasionally published expectations, solutions show that winds that are broadband in both zonal wavenumber and frequency do not in general produce peaks in the wavenumber–frequency spectrum of sea surface height (SSH) at wavenumbers associated with vanishing zonal group velocity. Excitation of total wave energy in inertia–gravity modes by broadband zonal winds is virtually wavenumber independent when the meridional structure of the winds does not impose a bias toward negative or positive zonal wavenumbers. With increasing wavenumber magnitude |k|, inertia–gravity waves asymptote toward zonally propagating pure gravity waves, in which the magnitude of meridional velocity υ becomes progressively smaller relative to the magnitude of zonal velocity u and pressure p. When the total wave energy is independent of wavenumber, this effect produces a peak in |υ|2 near the wavenumber where group velocity vanishes, but a trough in |p|2 (or SSH variance). Another consequence of the shift toward pure gravity wave structure is that broadband meridional winds excite inertia–gravity modes progressively less efficiently as |k| increases and υ becomes less important to the wave structure. Broadband meridional winds produce a low-wavenumber peak in total wave energy leading to a subtle elevation of |p|2 at low wavenumbers, but this is due entirely to the decrease in the forcing efficiency of meridional winds with increasing |k|, rather than to the vanishing of the group velocity. Physical conditions that might alter the above conclusions are discussed.
    Description: This research was funded by NASA Grant NNX10AO93G.
    Description: 2013-05-01
    Keywords: Inertia-gravity waves ; Ocean dynamics
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    An idealized modeling study of the midlatitude variability of the wind-driven meridional overturning circulation (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(8),(2021): 2425–2441, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0317.1.
    Description: The frequency and latitudinal dependence of the midlatitude wind-driven meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is studied using theory and linear and nonlinear applications of a quasigeostrophic numerical model. Wind forcing is varied either by changing the strength of the wind or by shifting the meridional location of the wind stress curl pattern. At forcing periods of less than the first-mode baroclinic Rossby wave basin crossing time scale, the linear response in the middepth and deep ocean is in phase and opposite to the Ekman transport. For forcing periods that are close to the Rossby wave basin crossing time scale, the upper and deep MOC are enhanced, and the middepth MOC becomes phase shifted, relative to the Ekman transport. At longer forcing periods the deep MOC weakens and the middepth MOC increases, but eventually for long enough forcing periods (decadal) the entire wind-driven MOC spins down. Nonlinearities and mesoscale eddies are found to be important in two ways. First, baroclinic instability causes the middepth MOC to weaken, lose correlation with the Ekman transport, and lose correlation with the MOC in the opposite gyre. Second, eddy thickness fluxes extend the MOC beyond the latitudes of direct wind forcing. These results are consistent with several recent studies describing the four-dimensional structure of the MOC in the North Atlantic Ocean.
    Description: This study was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1947290.
    Description: 2022-01-13
    Keywords: Eddies ; Large-scale motions ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Planetary waves
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    How spice is stirred in the Bay of Bengal (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(9), (2020): 2669-2688, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0077.1
    Description: The scale-dependent variance of tracer properties in the ocean bears the imprint of the oceanic eddy field. Anomalies in spice (which combines anomalies in temperature T and salinity S on isopycnal surfaces) act as passive tracers beneath the surface mixed layer (ML). We present an analysis of spice distributions along isopycnals in the upper 200 m of the ocean, calculated with over 9000 vertical profiles of T and S measured along ~4800 km of ship tracks in the Bay of Bengal. The data are from three separate research cruises—in the winter monsoon season of 2013 and in the late and early summer monsoon seasons of 2015 and 2018. We present a spectral analysis of horizontal tracer variance statistics on scales ranging from the submesoscale (~1 km) to the mesoscale (~100 km). Isopycnal layers that are closer to the ML-base exhibit redder spectra of tracer variance at scales ≲10 km than is predicted by theories of quasigeostrophic turbulence or frontogenesis. Two plausible explanations are postulated. The first is that stirring by submesoscale motions and shear dispersion by near-inertial waves enhance effective horizontal mixing and deplete tracer variance at horizontal scales ≲10 km in this region. The second is that the spice anomalies are coherent with dynamical properties such as potential vorticity, and not interpretable as passively stirred.
    Description: We are grateful to the captain and crew of the R/V Roger Revelle and the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, and all ASIRI-OMM and MISO-BOB scientists. We thank Prof. Andrew Thompson and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions that improved the manuscript. This work was carried out under the Office of Naval Research’s Air-Sea Interaction Regional Initiative (ASIRI) and Monsoon Intra-Seasonal Oscillations in the Bay of Bengal (MISO-BOB) research initiatives, in collaboration with the Indian Ministry of Earth Science’s Ocean Mixing and Monsoons (OMM) initiative supported by the Monsoon Mission. Support came from ONR Grants N00014-16-1-2470, N00014-13-1-0451, N00014-17-1-2390 (G.S.J. and A.M.), N00014-14-1-0455 (J.M. and J.N), N00014-17-1-2511 (J.M.), N00014-13-1-0489, N00014-17-1-2391 (A.L.), N00014-15-1-2634 (E.S.), N00014-13-1-0456, N00014-17-1-2355 (A.T.), and N00014-13-1-0453, N00014-17-1-2880 (J.F.).
    Description: 2021-02-28
    Keywords: Ocean dynamics ; Thermocline ; Water masses/storage ; In situ oceanic observations ; Tracers ; Spectral analysis/models/distribution
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    Hurricane Sally (2020) shifts the ocean thermal structure across the inner core during rapid intensification over the shelf (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(11), (2022): 2841–2852, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0025.1.
    Description: Prediction of rapid intensification in tropical cyclones prior to landfall is a major societal issue. While air–sea interactions are clearly linked to storm intensity, the connections between the underlying thermal conditions over continental shelves and rapid intensification are limited. Here, an exceptional set of in situ and satellite data are used to identify spatial heterogeneity in sea surface temperatures across the inner core of Hurricane Sally (2020), a storm that rapidly intensified over the shelf. A leftward shift in the region of maximum cooling was observed as the hurricane transited from the open gulf to the shelf. This shift was generated, in part, by the surface heat flux in conjunction with the along- and across-shelf transport of heat from storm-generated coastal circulation. The spatial differences in the sea surface temperatures were large enough to potentially influence rapid intensification processes suggesting that coastal thermal features need to be accounted for to improve storm forecasting as well as to better understand how climate change will modify interactions between tropical cyclones and the coastal ocean.
    Description: This research was made possible by the NOAA RESTORE Science Program (NA17NOS4510101 and NA19NOS4510194) and the NASA Physical Oceanography program (80NSSC21K0553 and WBS 281945.02.25.04.67) and NOAA IOOS program via GCOOS (NA16NOS0120018). The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
    Keywords: Seas/gulfs/bays ; Atmosphere–ocean interaction ; Currents ; Tropical cyclones ; Buoy observations ; In situ oceanic observations
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    A time-dependent Sverdrup relation and its application to the Indian Ocean (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-11-27
    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): 1233-1244, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0223.1.
    Description: The Sverdrup relation is the backbone of wind-driven circulation theory; it is a simple relation between the meridional transport of the wind-driven circulation in the upper ocean and the wind stress curl. However, the relation is valid for steady circulation only. In this study, a time-dependent Sverdrup relation is postulated, in which the meridional transport in a time-dependent circulation is the sum of the local wind stress curl term and a time-delayed term representing the effect of the eastern boundary condition. As an example, this time-dependent Sverdrup relation is evaluated through its application to the equatorial circulation in the Indian Ocean, using reanalysis data and a reduced gravity model. Close examination reveals that the southward Somali Current occurring during boreal winter is due to the combination of the local wind stress curl in the Arabian Sea and delayed signals representing the time change of layer thickness at the eastern boundary.
    Description: This work is supported by NSFC (41822602, 41976016, 42005035, 42076021), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB42000000, XDA 20060502), Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0306), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515011534), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS, ISEE2021ZD01, and LTOZZ2002. The numerical simulation is supported by the High-Performance Computing Division in the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology.
    Description: 2022-11-27
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Rossby waves ; Wind stress curl
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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
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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
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    Deep-current intraseasonal variability interpreted as topographic Rossby waves and deep eddies in the Xisha Islands of the South China Sea (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-12-16
    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(7), (2022): 1415–1430. https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0147.1.
    Description: Strong subinertial variability near a seamount at the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea was revealed by mooring observations from January 2017 to January 2018. The intraseasonal deep flows presented two significant frequency bands, with periods of 9–20 and 30–120 days, corresponding to topographic Rossby waves (TRWs) and deep eddies, respectively. The TRW and deep eddy signals explained approximately 60% of the kinetic energy of the deep subinertial currents. The TRWs at the Ma, Mb, and Mc moorings had 297, 262, and 274 m vertical trapping lengths, and ∼43, 38, and 55 km wavelengths, respectively. Deep eddies were independent from the upper layer, with the largest temperature anomaly being 〉0.4°C. The generation of the TRWs was induced by mesoscale perturbations in the upper layer. The interaction between the cyclonic–anticyclonic eddy pair and the seamount topography contributed to the generation of deep eddies. Owing to the potential vorticity conservation, the westward-propagating tilted interface across the eddy pair squeezed the deep-water column, thereby giving rise to negative vorticity west of the seamount. The strong front between the eddy pair induced a northward deep flow, thereby generating a strong horizontal velocity shear because of lateral friction and enhanced negative vorticity. Approximately 4 years of observations further confirmed the high occurrence of TRWs and deep eddies. TRWs and deep eddies might be crucial for deep mixing near rough topographies by transferring mesoscale energy to small scales.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (92158204, 91958202, 42076019, 41776036, 91858203), the Open Project Program of State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography (project LTOZZ2001), and Key Special Project for Introduced Talents Team of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (GML2019ZD0304).
    Description: 2022-12-16
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Intraseasonal variability
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    Potential Vorticity and Instability in the Pacific Equatorial Undercurrent West of the Galápagos Archipelago (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2023-02-01
    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): 1927-1943, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0124.1.
    Description: The Galápagos Archipelago lies on the equator in the path of the eastward flowing Pacific Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). When the EUC reaches the archipelago, it upwells and bifurcates into a north and south branch around the archipelago at a latitude determined by topography. Since the Coriolis parameter (f) equals zero at the equator, strong velocity gradients associated with the EUC can result in Ertel potential vorticity (Q) having sign opposite that of planetary vorticity near the equator. Observations collected by underwater gliders deployed just west of the Galápagos Archipelago during 2013–16 are used to estimate Q and to diagnose associated instabilities that may impact the Galápagos Cold Pool. Estimates of Q are qualitatively conserved along streamlines, consistent with the 2.5-layer, inertial model of the EUC by Pedlosky. The Q with sign opposite of f is advected south of the Galápagos Archipelago when the EUC core is located south of the bifurcation latitude. The horizontal gradient of Q suggests that the region between 2°S and 2°N above 100 m is barotropically unstable, while limited regions are baroclinically unstable. Conditions conducive to symmetric instability are observed between the EUC core and the equator and within the southern branch of the undercurrent. Using 2-month and 3-yr averages, e-folding time scales are 2–11 days, suggesting that symmetric instability can persist on those time scales.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grants OCE-1232971 and OCE-1233282), the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program (Grant 80NSSC17K0443), and the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NA13OAR4830216). Color maps are from Thyng et al. (2016).
    Description: 2023-02-01
    Keywords: Currents ; In situ oceanic observations ; Instability ; Mixing ; Ocean dynamics ; Pacific Ocean ; Potential vorticity ; Tropics
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
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  • 83
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    On characterizing ocean kinematics from surface drifters (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2023-02-01
    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 the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39(8), (2022): 1183-1198, https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-21-0068.1.
    Description: Horizontal kinematic properties, such as vorticity, divergence, and lateral strain rate, are estimated from drifter clusters using three approaches. At submesoscale horizontal length scales O(1–10)km, kinematic properties become as large as planetary vorticity f, but challenging to observe because they evolve on short time scales O(hourstodays). By simulating surface drifters in a model flow field, we quantify the sources of uncertainty in the kinematic property calculations due to the deformation of cluster shape. Uncertainties arise primarily due to (i) violation of the linear estimation methods and (ii) aliasing of unresolved scales. Systematic uncertainties (iii) due to GPS errors, are secondary but can become as large as (i) and (ii) when aspect ratios are small. Ideal cluster parameters (number of drifters, length scale, and aspect ratio) are determined and error functions estimated empirically and theoretically. The most robust method—a two-dimensional, linear least squares fit—is applied to the first few days of a drifter dataset from the Bay of Bengal. Application of the length scale and aspect-ratio criteria minimizes errors (i) and (ii), and reduces the total number of clusters and so computational cost. The drifter-estimated kinematic properties map out a cyclonic mesoscale eddy with a surface, submesoscale fronts at its perimeter. Our analyses suggest methodological guidance for computing the two-dimensional kinematic properties in submesoscale flows, given the recently increasing quantity and quality of drifter observations, while also highlighting challenges and limitations.
    Description: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Departmental Research Initiative ASIRI under Grant N00014-13-1-0451 (SE and AM) and Grant N00014-13-1-0477 (VH and LC). The authors thank the captain and crew of the R/V Roger Revelle, and Andrew Lucas with the Multiscale Ocean Dynamics group at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography for providing the FastCTD data collected in 2015, which was supported by ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0489, as well as Eric D’Asaro for helpful discussions and Lance Braasch for assistance with the drifter dataset. AM and SE further thank NSF (Grant OCE-I434788) and ONR (Grant N00014-16-1-2470) for support. VH and LC were additionally supported by ONR Grants N00014-15-1-2286, N00014-14-1-0183, N00014-19-1-26-91 and NOAA Global Drifter Program (GDP) Grant NA15OAR4320071.
    Description: 2023-02-01
    Keywords: Indian Ocean ; Eddies ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Fronts ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
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