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  • 1
    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): 1075-1086, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4375.1.
    Description: A quasigeostrophic, two-layer model is used to study the baroclinic circulation around a thin, meridionally elongated island. The flow is driven by either buoyancy forcing or wind stress, each of whose structure would produce an antisymmetric double-gyre flow. The ocean bottom is flat. When the island partially straddles the intergyre boundary, fluid from one gyre is forced to flow into the other. The amount of the intergyre flow depends on the island constant, that is, the value of the geostrophic streamfunction on the island in each layer. That constant is calculated in a manner similar to earlier studies and is determined by the average, along the meridional length of the island, of the interior Sverdrup solution just to the east of the island. Explicit solutions are given for both buoyancy and wind-driven flows. The presence of an island of nonzero width requires the determination of the baroclinic streamfunction on the basin’s eastern boundary. The value of the boundary term is proportional to the island’s area. This adds a generally small additional baroclinic intergyre flow. In all cases, the intergyre flow produced by the island is not related to topographic steering of the flow but rather the pressure anomaly on the island as manifested by the barotropic and baroclinic island constants. The vertical structure of the flow around the island is a function of the parameterization of the vertical mixing in the problem and, in particular, the degree to which long baroclinic Rossby waves can traverse the basin before becoming thermally damped.
    Description: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant OCE 0451086.
    Keywords: Gyres ; Baroclinic flows ; Topographic effects ; Streamfunction ; Orographic effects
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 2
    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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  • 3
    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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  • 4
    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
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 5
    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
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
    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): 380-399, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3728.1.
    Description: Barotropic to baroclinic conversion and attendant phenomena were recently examined at the Kaena Ridge as an aspect of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment. Two distinct mixing processes appear to be at work in the waters above the 1100-m-deep ridge crest. At middepths, above 400 m, mixing events resemble their open-ocean counterparts. There is no apparent modulation of mixing rates with the fortnightly cycle, and they are well modeled by standard open-ocean parameterizations. Nearer to the topography, there is quasi-deterministic breaking associated with each baroclinic crest passage. Large-amplitude, small-scale internal waves are triggered by tidal forcing, consistent with lee-wave formation at the ridge break. These waves have vertical wavelengths on the order of 400 m. During spring tides, the waves are nonlinear and exhibit convective instabilities on their leading edge. Dissipation rates exceed those predicted by the open-ocean parameterizations by up to a factor of 100, with the disparity increasing as the seafloor is approached. These observations are based on a set of repeated CTD and microconductivity profiles obtained from the research platform (R/P) Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP), which was trimoored over the southern edge of the ridge crest. Ocean velocity and shear were resolved to a 4-m vertical scale by a suspended Doppler sonar. Dissipation was estimated both by measuring overturn displacements and from microconductivity wavenumber spectra. The methods agreed in water deeper than 200 m, where sensor resolution limitations do not limit the turbulence estimates. At intense mixing sites new phenomena await discovery, and existing parameterizations cannot be expected to apply.
    Description: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation as a component of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Program. Added support for FLIP was provided by the Office of Naval Research.
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Topographic effects ; Internal waves ; Barotropic flows ; Baroclinic flows
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 2168–2186, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-08.1.
    Description: This paper studies the interaction of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC)–like wind-driven channel flow with a continental slope and a flat-bottomed bay-shaped shelf near the channel’s southern boundary. Interaction between the model ACC and the topography in the second layer induces local changes of the potential vorticity (PV) flux, which further causes the formation of a first-layer PV front near the base of the topography. Located between the ACC and the first-layer slope, the newly formed PV front is constantly perturbed by the ACC and in turn forces the first-layer slope with its own variability in an intermittent but persistent way. The volume transport of the slope water across the first-layer slope edge is mostly directly driven by eddies and meanders of the new front, and its magnitude is similar to the maximum Ekman transport in the channel. Near the bay’s opening, the effect of the topographic waves, excited by offshore variability, dominates the cross-isobath exchange and induces a mean clockwise shelf circulation. The waves’ propagation is only toward the west and tends to be blocked by the bay’s western boundary in the narrow-shelf region. The ensuing wave–coast interaction amplifies the wave amplitude and the cross-shelf transport. Because the interaction only occurs near the western boundary, the shelf water in the west of the bay is more readily carried offshore than that in the east and the mean shelf circulation is also intensified along the bay’s western boundary.
    Description: Y. Zhang acknowledges the support of the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography and NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE- 0451086. J. Pedlosky acknowledges the support of NSF OCE-9901654 and OCE-0451086.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 966–987, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0110.1.
    Description: A key remaining challenge in oceanography is the understanding and parameterization of small-scale mixing. Evidence suggests that topographic features play a significant role in enhancing mixing in the Southern Ocean. This study uses 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel EM-APEX profiling floats to investigate turbulent mixing north of the Kerguelen Plateau, a major topographic feature in the Southern Ocean. A shear–strain finescale parameterization is applied to estimate diapycnal diffusivity in the upper 1600 m of the ocean. The indirect estimates of mixing match direct microstructure profiler observations made simultaneously. It is found that mixing intensities have strong spatial and temporal variability, ranging from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1. This study identifies topographic roughness, current speed, and wind speed as the main factors controlling mixing intensity. Additionally, the authors find strong regional variability in mixing dynamics and enhanced mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current frontal region. This enhanced mixing is attributed to dissipating internal waves generated by the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the topography of the Kerguelen Plateau. Extending the mixing observations from the Kerguelen region to the entire Southern Ocean, this study infers a large water mass transformation rate of 17 Sverdrups (Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) across the boundary of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Upper Circumpolar Deep Water in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This work suggests that the contribution of mixing to the Southern Ocean overturning circulation budget is particularly significant in fronts.
    Description: AM was supported by the joint CSIRO–University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. BMS was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program, jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and CSIRO. KLPs salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2015-10-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Fronts ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixing
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 9
    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): 1610–1631, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0047.1.
    Description: The use of a measure to diagnose submesoscale isopycnal diffusivity by determining the best match between observations of a tracer and simulations with varying small-scale diffusivities is tested. Specifically, the robustness of a “roughness” measure to discriminate between tracer fields experiencing different submesoscale isopycnal diffusivities and advected by scaled altimetric velocity fields is investigated. This measure is used to compare numerical simulations of the tracer released at a depth of about 1.5 km in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean during the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES) field campaign with observations of the tracer taken on DIMES cruises. The authors find that simulations with an isopycnal diffusivity of ~20 m2 s−1 best match observations in the Pacific sector of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), rising to ~20–50 m2 s−1 through Drake Passage, representing submesoscale processes and any mesoscale processes unresolved by the advecting altimetry fields. The roughness measure is demonstrated to be a statistically robust way to estimate a small-scale diffusivity when measurements are relatively sparse in space and time, although it does not work if there are too few measurements overall. The planning of tracer measurements during a cruise in order to maximize the robustness of the roughness measure is also considered. It is found that the robustness is increased if the spatial resolution of tracer measurements is increased with the time since tracer release.
    Description: We thank the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council and the U.S. National Science Foundation for funding the DIMES project.
    Description: 2015-12-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diffusion ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Isopycnal mixing ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Tracers ; Models and modeling ; Model comparison ; Tracers
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 10
    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): 2598–2620, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0249.1.
    Description: Through combining analytical arguments and numerical models, this study investigates the finite-amplitude meanders of shelfbreak fronts characterized by sloping isopycnals outcropping at both the surface and the shelfbreak bottom. The objective is to provide a formula for the meander length scale that can explain observed frontal length scale variability and also be verified with observations. Considering the frontal instability to be a mixture of barotropic and baroclinic instability, the derived along-shelf meander length scale formula is [b1/(1 + a1S1/2)]NH/f, where N is the buoyancy frequency; H is the depth of the front; f is the Coriolis parameter; S is the Burger number measuring the ratio of energy conversion associated with barotropic and baroclinic instability; and a1 and b1 are empirical constants. Initial growth rate of the frontal instability is formulated as [b2(1 + a1S1/2)/(1 + a2αS1/2)]NH/L, where α is the bottom slope at the foot of the front, and a2 and b2 are empirical constants. The formulas are verified using numerical sensitivity simulations, and fitting of the simulated and formulated results gives a1 = 2.69, b1 = 14.65, a2 = 5.1 × 103, and b2 = 6.2 × 10−2. The numerical simulations also show development of fast-growing frontal symmetric instability when the minimum initial potential vorticity is negative. Although frontal symmetric instability leads to faster development of barotropic and baroclinic instability at later times, it does not significantly influence the meander length scale. The derived meander length scale provides a framework for future studies of the influences of external forces on shelfbreak frontal circulation and cross-frontal exchange.
    Description: WGZ and GGG were supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE-1129125.
    Description: 2016-04-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Instability ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Fronts ; Models and modeling ; Numerical analysis/modeling
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 11
    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
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 12
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 2735-2768, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0134.1.
    Description: In Greenland’s glacial fjords, heat and freshwater are exchanged between glaciers and the ocean. Submarine melting of glaciers has been implicated as a potential trigger for recent glacier acceleration, and observations of ocean heat transport are increasingly being used to infer the submarine melt rates. The complete heat, salt, and mass budgets that underlie such methods, however, have been largely neglected. Here, a new framework for exploring glacial fjord budgets is developed. Building on estuarine studies of salt budgets, the heat, salt, and mass transports through the fjord are decomposed, and new equations for calculating freshwater fluxes from submarine meltwater and runoff are presented. This method is applied to moored records from Sermilik Fjord, near the terminus of Helheim Glacier, to evaluate the dominant balances in the fjord budgets and to estimate freshwater fluxes. Throughout the year, two different regimes are found. In the nonsummer months, advective transports are balanced by changes in heat/salt storage within their ability to measure; freshwater fluxes cannot be inferred as a residual. In the summer, a mean exchange flow emerges, consisting of inflowing Atlantic water and outflowing glacially modified water. This exchange transports heat toward the glacier and is primarily balanced by changes in storage and latent heat for melting ice. The total freshwater flux increases over the summer, reaching 1200 ± 700 m3 s−1 of runoff and 1500 ± 500 m3 s−1 of submarine meltwater from glaciers and icebergs in August. The methods and results highlight important components of fjord budgets, particularly the storage and barotropic terms, that have been not been appropriately considered in previous estimates of submarine melting.
    Description: The data collection and analysis was funded by NSF Grants ARC-0909373, OCE-113008, and OCE-1434041.
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Glaciers ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Coastal flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Freshwater ; Snowmelt/icemelt ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 13
    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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  • 14
    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): 1291-1305, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0160.1.
    Description: Along-stream variations in the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) impact heat and tracer transport, regulate interbasin exchange, and influence closure of the overturning circulation. Topography is primarily responsible for generating deviations from zonal-mean properties, mainly through standing meanders associated with regions of high eddy kinetic energy. Here, an idealized channel model is used to explore the spatial distribution of energy exchange and its relationship to eddy geometry, as characterized by both eddy momentum and eddy buoyancy fluxes. Variations in energy exchange properties occur not only between standing meander and quasi-zonal jet regions, but throughout the meander itself. Both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties, as well as the magnitude of energy exchange terms, undergo abrupt changes along the path of the ACC. These transitions are captured by diagnosing eddy fluxes of energy and by adopting the eddy geometry framework. The latter, typically applied to barotropic stability properties, is applied here in the depth–along-stream plane to include information about both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties of the flow. These simulations reveal that eddy momentum fluxes, and thus barotropic instability, play a leading role in the energy budget within a standing meander. This result suggests that baroclinic instability alone cannot capture the dynamics of ACC standing meanders, a challenge for models where eddy fluxes are parameterized.
    Description: The authors all acknowledge support from NSF OCE-1235488. MKY also acknowledges support from the AMS Graduate Student Fellowship.
    Description: 2017-10-12
    Keywords: Southern Ocean ; Channel flows ; Stability ; Topographic effects ; Eddies ; Mesoscale models
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  • 15
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 883-904, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0084.1.
    Description: The dynamics controlling the along-valley (cross shelf) flow in idealized shallow shelf valleys with small to moderate Burger number are investigated, and analytical scales of the along-valley flows are derived. This paper follows Part I, which shows that along-shelf winds in the opposite direction to coastal-trapped wave propagation (upwelling regime) force a strong up-valley flow caused by the formation of a lee wave. In contrast, along-shelf winds in the other direction (downwelling regime) do not generate a lee wave and consequently force a relatively weak net down-valley flow. The valley flows in both regimes are cyclostrophic with 0(1) Rossby number. A major difference between the two regimes is the along-shelf length scales of the along-valley flows L. In the upwelling regime Ls, depends on the valley width W, and the wavelength lambda(1w) of the coastal-trapped lee wave arrested by the along-shelf flow U-s. In the downwelling regime L depends on the inertial length scale U-s|'f and W-c. The along-valley velocity scale in the upwelling regime, given by V-u approximate to root pi H-c/H-s integral W-c lambda(1w)/2 pi L-x (1+L-x(2)/L-c(2))(-1) e(-(pi Wc)/(lambda 1w),) is based on potential vorticity (PV) conservation and lee-wave dynamics (Hs and H, are the shelf and valley depth scales, respectively, and fis the Coriolis parameter). The velocity scale in the downwelling regime, given by |v(d)| approximate to (H-s/H-s)[1 + (L-x(2)/L-x(2))](-1) fL, is based on PV conservation. The velocity scales are validated by the numerical sensitivity simulations and can be useful for observational studies of along -valley transports. The work provides a framework for investigating cross -shelf transport induced by irregular shelf bathymetry and calls for future studies of this type under realistic environmental conditions and over a broader parameter space.
    Description: Both WGZ and SJL were supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Grant OCE 1154575.WGZis also supported by the NSF Grant OCE 1634965 and SJL by NSF Grant OCE 1558874.
    Description: 2018-10-16
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Waves, oceanic ; Wind stress ; Ocean models
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  • 16
    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): 387-403, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3934.1.
    Description: Marginal sea overflows and the overlying upper ocean are coupled in the vertical by two distinct mechanisms—by an interfacial mass flux from the upper ocean to the overflow layer that accompanies entrainment and by a divergent eddy flux associated with baroclinic instability. Because both mechanisms tend to be localized in space, the resulting upper ocean circulation can be characterized as a β plume for which the relevant background potential vorticity is set by the slope of the topography, that is, a topographic β plume. The entrainment-driven topographic β plume consists of a single gyre that is aligned along isobaths. The circulation is cyclonic within the upper ocean (water columns are stretched). The transport within one branch of the topographic β plume may exceed the entrainment flux by a factor of 2 or more. Overflows are likely to be baroclinically unstable, especially near the strait. This creates eddy variability in both the upper ocean and overflow layers and a flux of momentum and energy in the vertical. In the time mean, the eddies accompanying baroclinic instability set up a double-gyre circulation in the upper ocean, an eddy-driven topographic β plume. In regions where baroclinic instability is growing, the momentum flux from the overflow into the upper ocean acts as a drag on the overflow and causes the overflow to descend the slope at a steeper angle than what would arise from bottom friction alone. Numerical model experiments suggest that the Faroe Bank Channel overflow should be the most prominent example of an eddy-driven topographic β plume and that the resulting upper-layer transport should be comparable to that of the overflow. The overflow-layer eddies that accompany baroclinic instability are analogous to those observed in moored array data. In contrast, the upper layer of the Mediterranean overflow is likely to be dominated more by an entrainment-driven topographic β plume. The difference arises because entrainment occurs at a much shallower location for the Mediterranean case and the background potential vorticity gradient of the upper ocean is much larger.
    Description: SK’s support during the time of his Ph.D. research in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program was provided by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE04-24741. JP and JY have also received support from the Climate Process Team on Gravity Current Entrainment, NSF Grant OCE-0611530. JY has also been supported by NSF Grant OCE-0351055.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Entrainment ; Topographic effects ; Potential vorticity
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  • 17
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 766–789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0141.1.
    Description: Nonlinear energy transfers from the semidiurnal internal tide to high-mode, near-diurnal motions are documented near Kaena Ridge, Hawaii, an energetic generation site for the baroclinic tide. Data were collected aboard the Research Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) over a 35-day period during the fall of 2002, as part of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment (HOME) Nearfield program. Energy transfer terms for a PSI resonant interaction at midlatitude are identified and compared to those for near-inertial PSI close to the M2 critical latitude. Bispectral techniques are used to demonstrate significant energy transfers in the Nearfield, between the low-mode M2 internal tide and subharmonic waves with frequencies near M2/2 and vertical wavelengths of O(120 m). A novel prefilter is used to test the PSI wavenumber resonance condition, which requires the subharmonic waves to propagate in opposite vertical directions. Depth–time maps of the interactions, formed by directly estimating the energy transfer terms, show that energy is transferred predominantly from the tide to subharmonic waves, but numerous reverse energy transfers are also found. A net forward energy transfer rate of 2 × 10−9 W kg−1 is found below 400 m. The suggestion is that the HOME observations of energy transfer from the tide to subharmonic waves represent a first step in the open-ocean energy cascade. Observed PSI transfer rates could account for a small but significant fraction of the turbulent dissipation of the tide within 60 km of Kaena Ridge. Further extrapolation suggests that integrated PSI energy transfers equatorward of the M2 critical latitude may be comparable to PSI energy transfers previously observed near 28.8°N.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2013-10-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Energy transport ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 18
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    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 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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  • 19
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 427–444, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-070.1.
    Description: Between 25 September 2007 and 28 September 2009, a heavily instrumented mooring was deployed in the Labrador Sea, offshore of the location where warm-core, anticyclonic Irminger rings are formed. The 2-year time series offers insight into the vertical and horizontal structure of newly formed Irminger rings and their heat and salt transport into the interior basin. In 2 years, 12 Irminger rings passed by the mooring. Of these, 11 had distinct properties, while 1 anticyclone likely passed the mooring twice. Eddy radii (11–35 km) were estimated using the dynamic height signal of the anticyclones (8–18 cm) together with the observed velocities. The anticyclones show a seasonal cycle in core properties when observed (1.9°C in temperature and 0.07 in salinity at middepth) that has not been described before. The temperature and salinity are highest in fall and lowest in spring. Cold, fresh caps, suggested to be an important source of freshwater, were seen in spring but were almost nonexistent in fall. The heat and freshwater contributions by the Irminger rings show a large spread (from 12 to 108 MJ m−2 and from −0.5 to −4.7 cm, respectively) for two reasons. First, the large range of radii leads to large differences in transported volume. Second, the seasonal cycle leads to changes in heat and salt content per unit volume. This implies that estimates of heat and freshwater transport by eddies should take the distribution of eddy properties into account in order to accurately assess their contribution to the restratification.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Devonshire Foundation.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Anticyclones ; Boundary currents ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Variability ; Seasonal cycle
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  • 20
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 229–245, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0218.1.
    Description: Data from a mooring deployed at the edge of the East Greenland shelf south of Denmark Strait from September 2007 to October 2008 are analyzed to investigate the processes by which dense water is transferred off the shelf. It is found that water denser than 27.7 kg m−3—as dense as water previously attributed to the adjacent East Greenland Spill Jet—resides near the bottom of the shelf for most of the year with no discernible seasonality. The mean velocity in the central part of the water column is directed along the isobaths, while the deep flow is bottom intensified and veers offshore. Two mechanisms for driving dense spilling events are investigated, one due to offshore forcing and the other associated with wind forcing. Denmark Strait cyclones propagating southward along the continental slope are shown to drive off-shelf flow at their leading edges and are responsible for much of the triggering of individual spilling events. Northerly barrier winds also force spilling. Local winds generate an Ekman downwelling cell. Nonlocal winds also excite spilling, which is hypothesized to be the result of southward-propagating coastally trapped waves, although definitive confirmation is still required. The combined effect of the eddies and barrier winds results in the strongest spilling events, while in the absence of winds a train of eddies causes enhanced spilling.
    Description: The authors wish to thank Paula Fratantoni, Frank Bahr, and Dan Torres for processing the mooring data. The mooring array was capably deployed by the crew of the R/V Arni Fridriksson and recovered by the crew of the R/V Knorr. We thank Hedinn Valdimarsson for his assistance in the field work. Ken Brink provided valuable insights regarding the dynamics of shelf waves. Funding for the study was provided by National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0722694, the Arctic Research Initiative of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. We also wish to thank the Natural Environment Research Council for Ph.D. studentship funding, and the University of East Anglia’s Roberts Fund and Royal Meteorological Society for supporting travel for collaboration.
    Description: 2014-07-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Eddies ; Extreme events ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Air-sea interaction
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  • 21
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2773–2789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0031.1.
    Description: Tidal oscillatory salt transport, induced by the correlation between tidal variations in salinity and velocity, is an important term for the subtidal salt balance under the commonly used Eulerian method of salt transport decomposition. In this paper, its mechanisms in a partially stratified estuary are investigated with a numerical model of the Hudson estuary. During neap tides, when the estuary is strongly stratified, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to the hydraulic response of the halocline to the longitudinal variation of topography. This mechanism does not involve vertical mixing, so it should not be regarded as oscillatory shear dispersion, but instead it should be regarded as advective transport of salt, which results from the vertical distortion of exchange flow obtained in the Eulerian decomposition by vertical fluctuations of the halocline. During spring tides, the estuary is weakly stratified, and vertical mixing plays a significant role in the tidal variation of salinity. In the spring tide regime, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to oscillatory shear dispersion. In addition, the transient lateral circulation near large channel curvature causes the transverse tilt of the halocline. This mechanism has little effect on the cross-sectionally integrated tidal oscillatory salt transport, but it results in an apparent left–right cross-channel asymmetry of tidal oscillatory salt transport. With the isohaline framework, tidal oscillatory salt transport can be regarded as a part of the net estuarine salt transport, and the Lagrangian advective mechanism and dispersive mechanism can be distinguished.
    Description: Tao Wang was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (Grant SKLEC-KF201509) and Chinese Scholarship Council. Geyer was supported by by NSF Grant OCE 0926427. Wensheng Jiang was supported by NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (Grant U1406401).
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Dispersion ; Shear structure/flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Models and modeling ; Regional models
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  • 22
    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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  • 23
    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): 327–348, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0112.1.
    Description: Potential vorticity structure in two segments of the North Atlantic’s western boundary current is examined using concurrent, high-resolution measurements of hydrography and velocity from gliders. Spray gliders occupied 40 transects across the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico and 11 transects across the Gulf Stream downstream of Cape Hatteras. Cross-stream distributions of the Ertel potential vorticity and its components are calculated for each transect under the assumptions that all flow is in the direction of measured vertically averaged currents and that the flow is geostrophic. Mean cross-stream distributions of hydrographic properties, potential vorticity, and alongstream velocity are calculated for both the Loop Current and the detached Gulf Stream in both depth and density coordinates. Differences between these mean transects highlight the downstream changes in western boundary current structure. As the current increases its transport downstream, upper-layer potential vorticity is generally reduced because of the combined effects of increased anticyclonic relative vorticity, reduced stratification, and increased cross-stream density gradients. The only exception is within the 20-km-wide cyclonic flank of the Gulf Stream, where intense cyclonic relative vorticity results in more positive potential vorticity than in the Loop Current. Cross-stream gradients of mean potential vorticity satisfy necessary conditions for both barotropic and baroclinic instability within the western boundary current. Instances of very low or negative potential vorticity, which predispose the flow to various overturning instabilities, are observed in individual transects across both the Loop Current and the Gulf Stream.
    Description: Glider operations in the Gulf Stream were supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-0220769. Glider operations in the Gulf of Mexico were supported by BP. R.E.T. was supported by the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists and the Independent Research and Development Program at WHOI.
    Description: 2016-07-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Potential vorticity ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Boundary currents
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  • 24
    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 Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 33 (2016): 839-846, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-15-0221.1.
    Description: During the Shallow Water Acoustic Experiment 2006 (SW06) conducted on the New Jersey continental shelf in the summer of 2006, detailed measurements of the ocean environment were made along a fixed reference track that was parallel to the continental shelf. The time-varying environment induced by nonlinear internal waves (NLIWs) was recorded by an array of moored thermistor chains and by X-band radars from the attending research vessels. Using a mapping technique, the three-dimensional (3D) temperature field for over a month of NLIW events is reconstructed and analyzed to provide a statistical summary of important NLIW parameters, such as the NLIW propagation speed, direction, and amplitude. The results in this paper can be used as a database for studying the NLIW generation, propagation, and fidelity of nonlinear internal wave models.
    Description: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research Ocean Acoustics Program (322OA) through Grants N00014-10-1-0396 and N00014-11-1-0701.
    Description: 2016-10-18
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; North America ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Data processing ; In situ oceanic observations ; Sampling ; Mathematical and statistical techniques ; Statistics
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  • 25
    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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  • 26
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 2938–2950, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0201.1.
    Description: Direct observations in the Southern Ocean report enhanced internal wave activity and turbulence in a kilometer-thick layer above rough bottom topography collocated with the deep-reaching fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Linear theory, corrected for finite-amplitude topography based on idealized, two-dimensional numerical simulations, has been recently used to estimate the global distribution of internal wave generation by oceanic currents and eddies. The global estimate shows that the topographic wave generation is a significant sink of energy for geostrophic flows and a source of energy for turbulent mixing in the deep ocean. However, comparison with recent observations from the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean shows that the linear theory predictions and idealized two-dimensional simulations grossly overestimate the observed levels of turbulent energy dissipation. This study presents two- and three-dimensional, realistic topography simulations of internal lee-wave generation from a steady flow interacting with topography with parameters typical of Drake Passage. The results demonstrate that internal wave generation at three-dimensional, finite bottom topography is reduced compared to the two-dimensional case. The reduction is primarily associated with finite-amplitude bottom topography effects that suppress vertical motions and thus reduce the amplitude of the internal waves radiated from topography. The implication of these results for the global lee-wave generation is discussed.
    Description: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award CMG-1024198.
    Description: 2015-05-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Mixing ; Mountain waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic
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  • 27
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 3033–3053, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0227.1.
    Description: The East Greenland Current (EGC) had long been considered the main pathway for the Denmark Strait overflow (DSO). Recent observations, however, indicate that the north Icelandic jet (NIJ), which flows westward along the north coast of Iceland, is a major separate pathway for the DSO. In this study a two-layer numerical model and complementary integral constraints are used to examine various pathways that lead to the DSO and to explore plausible mechanisms for the NIJ’s existence. In these simulations, a westward and NIJ-like current emerges as a robust feature and a main pathway for the Denmark Strait overflow. Its existence can be explained through circulation integrals around advantageous contours. One such constraint spells out the consequences of overflow water as a source of low potential vorticity. A stronger constraint can be added when the outflow occurs through two outlets: it takes the form of a circulation integral around the Iceland–Faroe Ridge. In either case, the direction of overall circulation about the contour can be deduced from the required frictional torques. Some effects of wind stress forcing are also examined. The overall positive curl of the wind forces cyclonic gyres in both layers, enhancing the East Greenland Current. The wind stress forcing weakens but does not eliminate the NIJ. It also modifies the sign of the deep circulation in various subbasins and alters the path by which overflow water is brought to the Faroe Bank Channel, all in ways that bring the idealized model more in line with observations. The sequence of numerical experiments separates the effects of wind and buoyancy forcing and shows how each is important.
    Description: This study has been supported by National Science Foundation (OCE0927017 and ARC1107412).
    Description: 2015-06-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Channel flows ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects
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  • 28
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 413–426, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0117.1.
    Description: Salinity and temperature profiles from drifting ice-tethered profilers in the Beaufort gyre region of the Canada Basin are used to characterize and quantify the regional near-inertial internal wave field over one year. Vertical displacements of potential density surfaces from the surface to 750-m depth are tracked from fall 2006 to fall 2007. Because of the time resolution and irregular sampling of the ice-tethered profilers, near-inertial frequency signals are marginally resolved. Complex demodulation is used to determine variations with a time scale of several days in the amplitude and phase of waves at a specified near-inertial frequency. Characteristics and variability of the wave field over the course of the year are investigated quantitatively and related to changes in surface wind forcing and sea ice cover.
    Description: The ITP program and J. Toole’s contributions were supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Arctic Observing Network. We acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-11-1-0454) for this study. Support for H. Dosser was also provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Arctic ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Internal waves ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 29
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 1356–1375, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0259.1.
    Description: Eddy–mean flow interactions along the Kuroshio Extension (KE) jet are investigated using a vorticity budget of a high-resolution ocean model simulation, averaged over a 13-yr period. The simulation explicitly resolves mesoscale eddies in the KE and is forced with air–sea fluxes representing the years 1995–2007. A mean-eddy decomposition in a jet-following coordinate system removes the variability of the jet path from the eddy components of velocity; thus, eddy kinetic energy in the jet reference frame is substantially lower than in geographic coordinates and exhibits a cross-jet asymmetry that is consistent with the baroclinic instability criterion of the long-term mean field. The vorticity budget is computed in both geographic (i.e., Eulerian) and jet reference frames; the jet frame budget reveals several patterns of eddy forcing that are largely attributed to varicose modes of variability. Eddies tend to diffuse the relative vorticity minima/maxima that flank the jet, removing momentum from the fast-moving jet core and reinforcing the quasi-permanent meridional meanders in the mean jet. A pattern associated with the vertical stretching of relative vorticity in eddies indicates a deceleration (acceleration) of the jet coincident with northward (southward) quasi-permanent meanders. Eddy relative vorticity advection outside of the eastward jet core is balanced mostly by vertical stretching of the mean flow, which through baroclinic adjustment helps to drive the flanking recirculation gyres. The jet frame vorticity budget presents a well-defined picture of eddy activity, illustrating along-jet variations in eddy–mean flow interaction that may have implications for the jet’s dynamics and cross-frontal tracer fluxes.
    Description: A. S. Delman (ASD) and J. L. McClean (JLM) were supported by NSF Grant OCE-0850463 and Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DE-FG02-05ER64119. ASD and J. Sprintall were also supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF), Grant NNX13AM93H. JLM was also supported by U.S. DOE Office of Science grant entitled “Ultra-High Resolution Global Climate Simulation” via a Los Alamos National Laboratory subcontract. S. R. Jayne was supported by NSF Grant OCE-0849808. Computational resources for the model run were provided by NSF Resource Grants TG-OCE110013 and TG-OCE130010.
    Description: 2015-11-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Pacific Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Forcing ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Jets ; Models and modeling ; General circulation models
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  • 30
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    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 Hahn, L. C., Storelvmo, T., Hofer, S., Parfitt, R., & Ummenhofer, C. C. Importance of Orography for Greenland cloud and melt response to atmospheric blocking. Journal of Climate, 33(10), (2020): 4187-4206, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0527.1.
    Description: More frequent high pressure conditions associated with atmospheric blocking episodes over Greenland in recent decades have been suggested to enhance melt through large-scale subsidence and cloud dissipation, which allows more solar radiation to reach the ice sheet surface. Here we investigate mechanisms linking high pressure circulation anomalies to Greenland cloud changes and resulting cloud radiative effects, with a focus on the previously neglected role of topography. Using reanalysis and satellite data in addition to a regional climate model, we show that anticyclonic circulation anomalies over Greenland during recent extreme blocking summers produce cloud changes dependent on orographic lift and descent. The resulting increased cloud cover over northern Greenland promotes surface longwave warming, while reduced cloud cover in southern and marginal Greenland favors surface shortwave warming. Comparison with an idealized model simulation with flattened topography reveals that orographic effects were necessary to produce area-averaged decreasing cloud cover since the mid-1990s and the extreme melt observed in the summer of 2012. This demonstrates a key role for Greenland topography in mediating the cloud and melt response to large-scale circulation variability. These results suggest that future melt will depend on the pattern of circulation anomalies as well as the shape of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
    Description: This research was supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellow program, by the U.S. National Science Foundation under AGS-1355339 to C.C.U., and by the European Research Council through Grant 758005.
    Keywords: Ice sheets ; Blocking ; Cloud cover ; Topographic effects ; Climate change ; Climate variability
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  • 31
    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): 834-849, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0179.1.
    Description: A hydrostatic numerical model with alongshore-uniform barotropic M2 tidal boundary forcing and idealized shelfbreak canyon bathymetries is used to study internal-tide generation and onshore propagation. A control simulation with Mid-Atlantic Bight representative bathymetry is supported by other simulations that serve to identify specific processes. The canyons and adjacent slopes are transcritical in steepness with respect to M2 internal wave characteristics. Although the various canyons are symmetrical in structure, barotropic-to-baroclinic energy conversion rates Cυ are typically asymmetrical within them. The resulting onshore-propagating internal waves are the strongest along beams in the horizontal plane, with the stronger beam in the control simulation lying on the side with higher Cυ. Analysis of the simulation results suggests that the cross-canyon asymmetrical Cυ distributions are caused by multiple-scattering effects on one canyon side slope, because the phase variation in the spatially distributed internal-tide sources, governed by variations in the orientation of the bathymetry gradient vector, allows resonant internal-tide generation. A less complex, semianalytical, modal internal wave propagation model with sources placed along the critical-slope locus (where the M2 internal wave characteristic is tangent to the seabed) and variable source phasing is used to diagnose the physics of the horizontal beams of onshore internal wave radiation. Model analysis explains how the cross-canyon phase and amplitude variations in the locally generated internal tides affect parameters of the internal-tide beams. Under the assumption that strong internal tides on continental shelves evolve to include nonlinear wave trains, the asymmetrical internal-tide generation and beam radiation effects may lead to nonlinear internal waves and enhanced mixing occurring preferentially on one side of shelfbreak canyons, in the absence of other influencing factors.
    Description: All three authors were supported by Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grant N00014-11-1-0701. WGZ was additionally supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant OCE-1154575, and TFD was additionally supported by NSF Grant OCE-1060430.
    Description: 2014-09-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Internal waves ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Models and modeling ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 32
    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): 2593–2616, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0120.1.
    Description: The first direct estimate of the rate at which geostrophic turbulence mixes tracers across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is presented. The estimate is computed from the spreading of a tracer released upstream of Drake Passage as part of the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES). The meridional eddy diffusivity, a measure of the rate at which the area of the tracer spreads along an isopycnal across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, is 710 ± 260 m2 s−1 at 1500-m depth. The estimate is based on an extrapolation of the tracer-based diffusivity using output from numerical tracers released in a one-twentieth of a degree model simulation of the circulation and turbulence in the Drake Passage region. The model is shown to reproduce the observed spreading rate of the DIMES tracer and suggests that the meridional eddy diffusivity is weak in the upper kilometer of the water column with values below 500 m2 s−1 and peaks at the steering level, near 2 km, where the eddy phase speed is equal to the mean flow speed. These vertical variations are not captured by ocean models presently used for climate studies, but they significantly affect the ventilation of different water masses.
    Description: NSF support through Awards OCE-1233832, OCE-1232962, and OCE-1048926 is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2015-04-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diffusion ; Eddies ; Ocean circulation ; Turbulence ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Isopycnal mixing
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  • 33
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 551-568, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0047.1.
    Description: There exists a good deal of indirect evidence, from several locations around the world, that there is a substantial eddy field over continental shelves. These eddies appear to have typical swirl velocities of a few centimeters per second and have horizontal scales of perhaps 5–10 km. These eddies are weak compared to typical, wind-driven, alongshore flows but often seem to dominate middepth cross-shelf flows. The idea that motivates the present contribution is that the alongshore wind stress ultimately energizes these eddies by means of baroclinic instabilities, even in cases where obvious intense fronts do not exist. The proposed sequence is that alongshore winds over a stratified ocean cause upwelling or downwelling, and the resulting horizontal density gradients are strong enough to fuel baroclinic instabilities of the requisite energy levels. This idea is explored here by means of a sequence of idealized primitive equation numerical model studies, each driven by a modest, nearly steady, alongshore wind stress applied for about 5–10 days. Different runs vary wind forcing, stratification, bottom slope, bottom friction, and Coriolis parameter. All runs, both upwelling and downwelling, are found to be baroclinically unstable and to have scales compatible with the underlying hypothesis. The model results, combined with physically based scalings, show that eddy kinetic energy generally increases with bottom slope, stratification, wind impulse (time integral of the wind stress), and inverse Coriolis parameter. The dominant length scale of the eddies is found to increase with increasing eddy kinetic energy and to decrease with Coriolis parameter.
    Description: This work was supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and by the National Science Foundation, Physical Oceanography section through Grant OCE-1433953.
    Description: 2016-06-09
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Variability ; Oceanic variability
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  • 34
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1309-1321, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0068.1.
    Description: Direct measurements of oceanic turbulent parameters were taken upstream of and across Drake Passage, in the region of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts. Values of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate ε estimated by microstructure are up to two orders of magnitude lower than previously published estimates in the upper 1000 m. Turbulence levels in Drake Passage are systematically higher than values upstream, regardless of season. The dissipation of thermal variance χ is enhanced at middepth throughout the surveys, with the highest values found in northern Drake Passage, where water mass variability is the most pronounced. Using the density ratio, evidence for double-diffusive instability is presented. Subject to double-diffusive physics, the estimates of diffusivity using the Osborn–Cox method are larger than ensemble statistics based on ε and the buoyancy frequency.
    Description: This work was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
    Description: 2016-10-05
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mixing ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Fronts ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 35
    Publication Date: 2023-02-28
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12),(2022): 3199-3219, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0009.1.
    Description: The abyssal overturning circulation is thought to be primarily driven by small-scale turbulent mixing. Diagnosed water-mass transformations are dominated by rough topography “hotspots,” where the bottom enhancement of mixing causes the diffusive buoyancy flux to diverge, driving widespread downwelling in the interior—only to be overwhelmed by an even stronger upwelling in a thin bottom boundary layer (BBL). These water-mass transformations are significantly underestimated by one-dimensional (1D) sloping boundary layer solutions, suggesting the importance of three-dimensional physics. Here, we use a hierarchy of models to generalize this 1D boundary layer approach to three-dimensional eddying flows over realistically rough topography. When applied to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Brazil Basin, the idealized simulation results are roughly consistent with available observations. Integral buoyancy budgets isolate the physical processes that contribute to realistically strong BBL upwelling. The downward diffusion of buoyancy is primarily balanced by upwelling along the sloping canyon sidewalls and the surrounding abyssal hills. These flows are strengthened by the restratifying effects of submesoscale baroclinic eddies and by the blocking of along-ridge thermal wind within the canyon. Major topographic sills block along-thalweg flows from restratifying the canyon trough, resulting in the continual erosion of the trough’s stratification. We propose simple modifications to the 1D boundary layer model that approximate each of these three-dimensional effects. These results provide local dynamical insights into mixing-driven abyssal overturning, but a complete theory will also require the nonlocal coupling to the basin-scale circulation.
    Description: We acknowledge funding support from National Science Foundation Awards 1536515, 1736109, and 2149080. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant 174530.
    Description: 2023-05-18
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Diapycnal mixing ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
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  • 36
    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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  • 37
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(4), (2020): 887-905, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0110.1.
    Description: The Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) encounters the Galápagos Archipelago on the equator as it flows eastward across the Pacific. The impact of the Galápagos Archipelago on the EUC in the eastern equatorial Pacific remains largely unknown. In this study, the path of the EUC as it reaches the Galápagos Archipelago is measured directly using high-resolution observations obtained by autonomous underwater gliders. Gliders were deployed along three lines that define a closed region with the Galápagos Archipelago as the eastern boundary and 93°W from 2°S to 2°N as the western boundary. Twelve transects were simultaneously occupied along the three lines during 52 days in April–May 2016. Analysis of individual glider transects and average sections along each line show that the EUC splits around the Galápagos Archipelago. Velocity normal to the transects is used to estimate net horizontal volume transport into the volume. Downward integration of the net horizontal transport profile provides an estimate of the time- and areal-averaged vertical velocity profile over the 52-day time period. Local maxima in vertical velocity occur at depths of 25 and 280 m with magnitudes of (1.7 ± 0.6) × 10−5 m s−1 and (8.0 ± 1.6) × 10−5 m s−1, respectively. Volume transport as a function of salinity indicates that water crossing 93°W south (north) of 0.4°S tends to flow around the south (north) side of the Galápagos Archipelago. Comparisons are made between previous observational and modeling studies with differences attributed to effects of the strong 2015/16 El Niño event, the annual cycle of local winds, and varying longitudes between studies of the equatorial Pacific.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation (Grants OCE-1232971 and OCE-1233282) and the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program (Grant 80NSSC17K0443).
    Keywords: Tropics ; Boundary currents ; Topographic effects ; Transport ; Upwelling/downwelling ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 38
    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(1), (2021): 247-266, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0098.1.
    Description: This study focuses on mechanisms of shelf valley bathymetry affecting the spread of riverine freshwater in the nearshore region. In the context of Changjiang River, a numerical model is used with different no-tide idealized configurations to simulate development of unforced river plumes over a sloping bottom, with and without a shelf valley off the estuary mouth. All simulated freshwater plumes are surface-trapped with continuously growing bulges near the estuary mouth and narrow coastal currents downstream. The simulations indicate that a shelf valley tends to compress the bulge along the direction of the valley long axis and modify the incident angle of the bulge flow impinging toward the coast, which then affects the strength of the coastal current. The bulge compression results from geostrophic adjustment and isobath-following tendency of the depth-averaged flow in the bulge region. Generally, the resulting change in the direction of the bulge impinging flow enhances down-shelf momentum advection and freshwater delivery into the coastal current. Sensitivity simulations with altered river discharges Q, Coriolis parameter, shelf bottom slope, valley geometry, and ambient stratification show that enhancement of down-shelf freshwater transport in the coastal current, ΔQc, increases with increasing valley depth within the bulge region and decreasing slope Burger number of the ambient shelf. Assuming potential vorticity conservation, a scaling formula of ΔQc/Q is developed, and it agrees well with results of the sensitivity simulations. Mechanisms of valley influences on unforced river plumes revealed here will help future studies of topographic influence on river plumes under more realistic conditions.
    Description: This work is conducted by Canbo Xiao and Weifeng (Gordon) Zhang during CX’s one-year visit at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in 2018–19. CX was supported by China Scholarship Council.
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Buoyancy ; Coastal flows ; Topographic effects ; Runoff ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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  • 39
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 417-437, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0055.1.
    Description: In the stratified ocean, turbulent mixing is primarily attributed to the breaking of internal waves. As such, internal waves provide a link between large-scale forcing and small-scale mixing. The internal wave field north of the Kerguelen Plateau is characterized using 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats. Altogether, 46 coherent features are identified in the EM-APEX velocity profiles and interpreted in terms of internal wave kinematics. The large number of internal waves analyzed provides a quantitative framework for characterizing spatial variations in the internal wave field and for resolving generation versus propagation dynamics. Internal waves observed near the Kerguelen Plateau have a mean vertical wavelength of 200 m, a mean horizontal wavelength of 15 km, a mean period of 16 h, and a mean horizontal group velocity of 3 cm s−1. The internal wave characteristics are dependent on regional dynamics, suggesting that different generation mechanisms of internal waves dominate in different dynamical zones. The wave fields in the Subantarctic/Subtropical Front and the Polar Front Zone are influenced by the local small-scale topography and flow strength. The eddy-wave field is influenced by the large-scale flow structure, while the internal wave field in the Subantarctic Zone is controlled by atmospheric forcing. More importantly, the local generation of internal waves not only drives large-scale dissipation in the frontal region but also downstream from the plateau. Some internal waves in the frontal region are advected away from the plateau, contributing to mixing and stratification budgets elsewhere.
    Description: A.M. was supported by the joint CSIRO-University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. K.L.P.’s salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds. B.M.S. was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program.
    Description: 2016-06-07
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Internal waves ; Mixing ; Wave properties ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 40
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 569-582, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0048.1.
    Description: Continental shelf baroclinic instability energized by fluctuating alongshore winds is treated using idealized primitive equation numerical model experiments. A spatially uniform alongshore wind, sinusoidal in time, alternately drives upwelling and downwelling and so creates highly variable, but slowly increasing, available potential energy. For all of the 30 model runs, conducted with a wide range of parameters (varying Coriolis parameter, initial stratification, bottom friction, forcing period, wind strength, and bottom slope), a baroclinic instability and subsequent eddy field develop. Model results and scalings show that the eddy kinetic energy increases with wind amplitude, forcing period, stratification, and bottom slope. The dominant alongshore length scale of the eddy field is essentially an internal Rossby radius of deformation. The resulting depth-averaged alongshore flow field is dominated by the large-scale, periodic wind forcing, while the cross-shelf flow field is dominated by the eddy variability. The result is that correlation length scales for alongshore flow are far greater than those for cross-shelf velocity. This scale discrepancy is qualitatively consistent with midshelf observations by Kundu and Allen, among others.
    Description: This work was funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and by the National Science Foundation, Physical Oceanography section through Grant OCE-1433953.
    Description: 2016-06-09
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Variability ; Oceanic variability
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  • 41
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    American Meteorological Society
    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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  • 42
    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): 1717-1734, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0124.1.
    Description: The contribution of warm-core anticyclones shed by the Irminger Current off West Greenland, known as Irminger rings, to the restratification of the upper layers of the Labrador Sea is investigated in the 1/12° Family of Linked Atlantic Models Experiment (FLAME) model. The model output, covering the 1990–2004 period, shows strong similarities to observations of the Irminger Current as well as ring observations at a mooring located offshore of the eddy formation region in 2007–09. An analysis of fluxes in the model shows that while the majority of heat exchange with the interior indeed occurs at the site of the Irminger Current instability, the contribution of the coherent Irminger rings is modest (18%). Heat is provided to the convective region mainly through noncoherent anomalies and enhanced local mixing by the rings facilitating further exchange between the boundary and interior. The time variability of the eddy kinetic energy and the boundary to interior heat flux in the model are strongly correlated to the density gradient between the dense convective region and the more buoyant boundary current. In FLAME, the density variations of the boundary current are larger than those of the convective region, thereby largely controlling changes in lateral fluxes. Synchronous long-term trends in temperature in the boundary and the interior over the 15-yr simulation suggest that the heat flux relative to the temperature of the interior is largely steady on these time scales.
    Description: The authors were supported in this work by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Anticyclones ; Boundary currents ; Convection ; Eddies ; Fluxes
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  • 43
    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): 1306–1328, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0191.1.
    Description: The ice–ocean system is investigated on inertial to monthly time scales using winter 2009–10 observations from the first ice-tethered profiler (ITP) equipped with a velocity sensor (ITP-V). Fluctuations in surface winds, ice velocity, and ocean velocity at 7-m depth were correlated. Observed ocean velocity was primarily directed to the right of the ice velocity and spiraled clockwise while decaying with depth through the mixed layer. Inertial and tidal motions of the ice and in the underlying ocean were observed throughout the record. Just below the ice–ocean interface, direct estimates of the turbulent vertical heat, salt, and momentum fluxes and the turbulent dissipation rate were obtained. Periods of elevated internal wave activity were associated with changes to the turbulent heat and salt fluxes as well as stratification primarily within the mixed layer. Turbulent heat and salt fluxes were correlated particularly when the mixed layer was closest to the freezing temperature. Momentum flux is adequately related to velocity shear using a constant ice–ocean drag coefficient, mixing length based on the planetary and geometric scales, or Rossby similarity theory. Ekman viscosity described velocity shear over the mixed layer. The ice–ocean drag coefficient was elevated for certain directions of the ice–ocean shear, implying an ice topography that was characterized by linear ridges. Mixing length was best estimated using the wavenumber of the beginning of the inertial subrange or a variable drag coefficient. Analyses of this and future ITP-V datasets will advance understanding of ice–ocean interactions and their parameterizations in numerical models.
    Description: Support for this study and the overall ITP program was provided by the National Science Foundation and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Support for S. Cole was partially though the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Devonshire Foundation.
    Description: 2014-11-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Arctic ; Sea ice ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Oceanic mixed layer
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 44
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 319–342, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-095.1.
    Description: The California Undercurrent (CUC), a poleward-flowing feature over the continental slope, is a key transport pathway along the west coast of North America and an important component of regional upwelling dynamics. This study examines the poleward undercurrent and alongshore pressure gradients in the northern California Current System (CCS), where local wind stress forcing is relatively weak. The dynamics of the undercurrent are compared in the primitive equation Navy Coastal Ocean Model and a linear coastal trapped wave model. Both models are validated using hydrographic data and current-meter observations in the core of the undercurrent in the northern CCS. In the linear model, variability in the predominantly equatorward wind stress along the U.S. West Coast produces episodic reversals to poleward flow over the northern CCS slope during summer. However, reproducing the persistence of the undercurrent during late summer requires additional incoming energy from sea level variability applied south of the region of the strongest wind forcing. The relative importance of the barotropic and baroclinic components of the modeled alongshore pressure gradient changes with latitude. In contrast to the southern and central portions of the CCS, the baroclinic component of the alongshore pressure gradient provides the primary poleward force at CUC depths over the northern CCS slope. At time scales from weeks to months, the alongshore pressure gradient force is primarily balanced by the Coriolis force associated with onshore flow.
    Description: This work was supported by grants to B. Hickey from the Coastal Ocean Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (NA17OP2789 and NA09NOS4780180) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) (OCE0234587 and OCE0942675) as part of the Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms Pacific Northwest (ECOHAB PNW) and Pacific Northwest Toxin (PNWTOX) projects. I. Shulman was supported by the Naval Research Laboratory.
    Description: 2014-07-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Continental shelf/slope ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Coastal flows ; Models and modeling ; Model evaluation/performance ; Variability ; Intraseasonal variability ; Seasonal variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 45
    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): 1545-1571, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0509.1.
    Description: Three sediment records of sea surface temperature (SST) are analyzed that originate from distant locations in the North Atlantic, have centennial-to-multicentennial resolution, are based on the same reconstruction method and chronological assumptions, and span the past 15 000 yr. Using recursive least squares techniques, an estimate of the time-dependent North Atlantic SST field over the last 15 kyr is sought that is consistent with both the SST records and a surface ocean circulation model, given estimates of their respective error (co)variances. Under the authors’ assumptions about data and model errors, it is found that the 10°C mixed layer isotherm, which approximately traces the modern Subpolar Front, would have moved by ~15° of latitude southward (northward) in the eastern North Atlantic at the onset (termination) of the Younger Dryas cold interval (YD), a result significant at the level of two standard deviations in the isotherm position. In contrast, meridional movements of the isotherm in the Newfoundland basin are estimated to be small and not significant. Thus, the isotherm would have pivoted twice around a region southeast of the Grand Banks, with a southwest–northeast orientation during the warm intervals of the Bølling–Allerød and the Holocene and a more zonal orientation and southerly position during the cold interval of the YD. This study provides an assessment of the significance of similar previous inferences and illustrates the potential of recursive least squares in paleoceanography.
    Description: OM acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation. CW acknowledges support from the European Research Council ERC Grant ACCLIMATE 339108.
    Description: 2016-08-19
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; North Atlantic Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Fronts ; Mathematical and statistical techniques ; Inverse methods ; Kalman filters ; Variability ; Climate variability ; Oceanic variability
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  • 46
    Publication Date: 2022-06-03
    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): 3663–3678, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0058.1.
    Description: The wind-driven exchange through complex ridges and islands between marginal seas and the open ocean is studied using both numerical and analytical models. The models are forced by a steady, spatially uniform northward wind stress intended to represent the large-scale, low-frequency wind patterns typical of the seasonal monsoons in the western Pacific Ocean. There is an eastward surface Ekman transport out of the marginal sea and westward geostrophic inflows into the marginal sea. The interaction between the Ekman transport and an island chain produces strong baroclinic flows along the island boundaries with a vertical depth that scales with the ratio of the inertial boundary layer thickness to the baroclinic deformation radius. The throughflows in the gaps are characterized by maximum transport in the center gap and decreasing transports toward the southern and northern tips of the island chain. An extended island rule theory demonstrates that throughflows are determined by the collective balance between viscosity on the meridional boundaries and the eastern side boundary of the islands. The outflowing transport is balanced primarily by a shallow current that enters the marginal sea along its equatorward boundary. The islands can block some direct exchange and result in a wind-driven overturning cell within the marginal sea, but this is compensated for by eastward zonal jets around the southern and northern tips of the island chain. Topography in the form of a deep slope, a ridge, or shallow shelves around the islands alters the current pathways but ultimately is unable to limit the total wind-driven exchange between the marginal sea and the open ocean.
    Description: This research is supported in part by the China Scholarship Council (201906330102). H. G. is financially supported by the China Scholarship Council to study at WHOI for 2 years as a guest student. M. A. S. is supported by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1922538.
    Keywords: Ekman pumping/transport ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects
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  • 47
    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): 2797-2814, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0326.1.
    Description: Hydrographic measurements recently acquired along the thalweg of the Lifamatola Passage combined with historical moored velocity measurements immediately downstream of the sill are used to study the hydraulics, transport, mixing, and entrainment in the dense overflow. The observations suggest that the mean overflow is nearly critical at the mooring site, suggesting that a weir formula may be appropriate for estimating the overflow transport. Our assessment suggests that the weir formulas corresponding to a rectangular, triangular, or parabolic cross section all result in transports very close to the observation, suggesting their potential usage in long-term monitoring of the overflow transport or parameterizing the transport in numerical models. Analyses also suggest that deep signals within the overflow layer are blocked by the shear flow from propagating upstream, whereas the shallow wave modes of the full-depth continuously stratified flow are able to propagate upstream from the Banda Sea into the Maluku Sea. Strong mixing is found immediately downstream of the sill crest, with Thorpe-scale-based estimates of the mean dissipation rate within the overflow up to 1.1 × 10−7 W kg−1 and the region-averaged diapycnal diffusivity within the downstream overflow in the range of 2.3 × 10−3 to 10.1 × 10−3 m2 s−1. Mixing in the Lifamatola Passage results in 0.6–1.2-Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) entrainment transport added to the overflow, enhancing the deep-water renewal in the Banda Sea. A bulk diffusivity coefficient estimated in the deep Banda Sea yields 1.6 × 10−3 ± 5 × 10−4 m2 s−1, with an associated downward turbulent heat flux of 9 W m−2.
    Description: This study is supported by NSFC (91858204), the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB42000000), NSFC(41720104008, 41421005, 41876025), QMSNL (2018SDKJ0104-02), and the Shandong Provincial projects (U1606402). L. Pratt was supported by the U.S. NSF Grant OCE-1657870.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Entrainment ; Internal waves ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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  • 48
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    Unknown
    American Meteorological Society
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(12), (2019): 3061-3068, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0172.1.
    Description: The calculation of energy flux in coastal trapped wave modes is reviewed in the context of tidal energy pathways near the coast. The significant barotropic pressures and currents associated with coastal trapped wave modes mean that large errors in estimating the wave flux are incurred if only the baroclinic component is considered. A specific example is given showing that baroclinic flux constitutes only 10% of the flux in a mode-1 wave for a reasonable choice of stratification and bathymetry. The interpretation of baroclinic energy flux and barotropic-to-baroclinic conversion at the coast is discussed: in contrast to the open ocean, estimates of baroclinic energy flux do not represent a wave energy flux; neither does conversion represent the scattering of energy from the tidal Kelvin wave to higher modes.
    Description: This work was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship, and by NSF under Grant OCE-1756781. I am grateful to K. Brink for the many useful conversations that contributed to this work and to J. Toole for providing detailed comments on an early version of this paper. The comments of three anonymous reviewers were very helpful in improving this paper.
    Description: 2020-06-03
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Tides
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  • 49
    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(3), (2020): 715-726, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0021.1.
    Description: Closing the overturning circulation of bottom water requires abyssal transformation to lighter densities and upwelling. Where and how buoyancy is gained and water is transported upward remain topics of debate, not least because the available observations generally show downward-increasing turbulence levels in the abyss, apparently implying mean vertical turbulent buoyancy-flux divergence (densification). Here, we synthesize available observations indicating that bottom water is made less dense and upwelled in fracture zone valleys on the flanks of slow-spreading midocean ridges, which cover more than one-half of the seafloor area in some regions. The fracture zones are filled almost completely with water flowing up-valley and gaining buoyancy. Locally, valley water is transformed to lighter densities both in thin boundary layers that are in contact with the seafloor, where the buoyancy flux must vanish to match the no-flux boundary condition, and in thicker layers associated with downward-decreasing turbulence levels below interior maxima associated with hydraulic overflows and critical-layer interactions. Integrated across the valley, the turbulent buoyancy fluxes show maxima near the sidewall crests, consistent with net convergence below, with little sensitivity of this pattern to the vertical structure of the turbulence profiles, which implies that buoyancy flux convergence in the layers with downward-decreasing turbulence levels dominates over the divergence elsewhere, accounting for the net transformation to lighter densities in fracture zone valleys. We conclude that fracture zone topography likely exerts a controlling influence on the transformation and upwelling of bottom water in many areas of the global ocean.
    Description: The data used in this study were collected in the context of several projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), in particular BBTRE (OCE-9415589 and OCE-9415598) and DoMORE (OCE-1235094). Funding for the analysis was provided as part of the NSF DoMORE and DECIMAL (OCE-1735618) projects. Author Ijichi is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Overseas Research Fellow. Comments on an early draft of this paper by Jim Ledwell and Bryan Kaiser, as well as topical discussions with Jörn Callies and Trevor McDougall, are gratefully acknowledged. The paper was greatly improved during the review process, in particular because of the critical comments from one of the two anonymous reviewers.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Topographic effects ; Turbulence ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
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  • 50
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    Unknown
    American Meteorological Society
    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): 3599-3621, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0085.1.
    Description: At continental margins, energetic deep-ocean eddies can transport shelf water offshore in filaments that wrap around the eddy. One example is that of Gulf Stream warm-core rings interacting with the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf. The rate at which shelf water is exported in these filaments is a major unknown in regional budgets of volume, heat, and salt. This unknown transport is constrained using a series of idealized primitive equation numerical experiments wherein a surface-intensified anticyclonic eddy interacts with idealized shelf–slope topography. There is no shelfbreak front in these experiments, and shelf water is tracked using a passive tracer. When anticyclones interact with shelf–slope topography, they suffer apparent intrusions of shelf–slope water, resulting in a subsurface maximum in offshore transport. The simulations help construct an approximate model for the filament of exported water that originates inshore of any given isobath. This model is then used to derive an expression for the total volume of shelf–slope water transported by the eddy across that isobath. The transport scales with water depth, radius, and azimuthal velocity scale of the eddy. The resulting expression can be used with satellite-derived eddy properties to estimate approximate real-world transports ignoring the presence of a shelfbreak front. The expression assumes that the eddy’s edge is at the shelf break, a condition not always satisfied by real eddies.
    Description: The research presented here was funded by NSF Grants OCE-1059632 and OCE-1433953. Funding support from the Academic Programs Office, and WHOI is also gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2017-06-08
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Advection ; Dynamics ; Eddies ; Topographic effects
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  • 51
    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): 2927-2947, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0083.1.
    Description: Motivated by observations in Hudson shelf valley showing stronger onshore than offshore flows, this study investigates wind-driven flows in idealized shallow shelf valleys. This first part of a two-part sequence focuses on the mechanism of the asymmetrical flow response in a valley to along-shelf winds of opposite directions. Model simulations show that (i) when the wind is in the opposite direction to coastal-trapped wave (CTW) phase propagation, the shelf flow turns onshore in the valley and generates strong up-valley transport and a standing meander on the upstream side (in the sense of CTW phase propagation) of the valley, and (ii) when the wind is in the same direction as CTW phase propagation, the flow forms a symmetric onshore detour pattern over the valley with negligible down-valley transport. Comparison of the modeled upstream meanders in the first scenario with CTW characteristics confirms that the up-valley flow results from CTWs being arrested by the wind-driven shelf flow establishing lee waves. The valley bathymetry generates an initial excessive onshore pressure gradient force that drives the up-valley flow and induces CTW lee waves that sustain the up-valley flow. When the wind-driven shelf flow aligns with CTW phase propagation, the initial disturbance generated in the valley propagates away, allowing the valley flow to adjust to roughly follow isobaths. Because of the similarity in the physical setup, this mechanism of arrested CTWs generating stronger onshore than offshore flow is expected to be applicable to the flow response in slope canyons to along-isobath background flows of opposite directions.
    Description: WGZ and SJL were supported by the National Science Foundation through GrantOCE1154575.WGZ is also supported by the NSF Grant OCE 1634965 and SJL by NSF Grant OCE 1558874.
    Description: 2018-06-08
    Keywords: Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Transport ; Vertical motion ; Waves, oceanic ; Wind stress
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  • 52
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019):1463-1483, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0213.1.
    Description: A set of float trajectories, deployed at 1500- and 2500-m depths throughout the deep Gulf of Mexico from 2011 to 2015, are analyzed for mesoscale processes under the Loop Current (LC). In the eastern basin, December 2012–June 2014 had 〉40 floats per month, which was of sufficient density to allow capturing detailed flow patterns of deep eddies and topographic Rossby waves (TRWs), while two LC eddies formed and separated. A northward advance of the LC front compresses the lower water column and generates an anticyclone. For an extended LC, baroclinic instability eddies (of both signs) develop under the southward-propagating large-scale meanders of the upper-layer jet, resulting in a transfer of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) to the lower layer. The increase in lower-layer EKE occurs only over a few months during meander activity and LC eddy detachment events, a relatively short interval compared with the LC intrusion cycle. Deep EKE of these eddies is dispersed to the west and northwest through radiating TRWs, of which examples were found to the west of the LC. Because of this radiation of EKE, the lower layer of the eastern basin becomes relatively quiescent, particularly in the northeastern basin, when the LC is retracted and a LC eddy has departed. A mean west-to-east, anticyclone–cyclone dipole flow under a mean LC was directly comparable to similar results from a previous moored LC array and also showed connections to an anticlockwise boundary current in the southeastern basin.
    Description: The authors were supported by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Contract M08PC20043 to Leidos, Inc., Raleigh, NC. The authors also wish to acknowledge the enthusiastic support of Dr. Alexis Lugo-Fernández, the BOEM Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative, during the study into the Deep Circulation of the Gulf of Mexico, using Lagrangian Methods. Thanks go to the captains and crews of the R/V Pelican and B/O Justo Sierra, J. Malbrough (LUMCON), J. Singer (Leidos), J. Valdes (WHOI), B. Guest (WHOI), and the CANEK group (CICESE).
    Description: 2020-05-29
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Eddies ; Instability ; Lagrangian circulation/transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Topographic effects
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  • 53
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of [publisher] for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Farrar, J. T., Durland, T., Jayne, S. R., & Price, J. F. Long-distance radiation of Rossby Waves from the equatorial current system. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 51(6), (2021): 1947–1966, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0048.1.
    Description: Measurements from satellite altimetry are used to show that sea surface height (SSH) variability throughout much of the North Pacific Ocean is coherent with the SSH signal of the tropical instability waves (TIWs) that result from instabilities of the equatorial currents. This variability has regular phase patterns consistent with freely propagating barotropic Rossby waves radiating energy away from the unstable equatorial currents, and the waves clearly propagate from the equatorial region to at least 30°N. The pattern of SSH variance at TIW frequencies exhibits remarkable patchiness on scales of hundreds of kilometers, which we interpret as being due to the combined effects of wave reflection, refraction, and interference. North of 40°N, more than 6000 km from the unstable equatorial currents, the SSH field remains coherent with the near-equatorial SSH variability, but it is not as clear whether the variability at the higher latitudes is a simple result of barotropic wave radiation from the tropical instability waves. Even more distant regions, as far north as the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula of eastern Russia, have SSH variability that is significantly coherent with the near-equatorial instabilities. The variability is not well represented in the widely used gridded SSH data product commonly referred to as the AVISO or DUACS product, and this appears to be a result of spatial variations in the filtering properties of the objective mapping scheme.
    Description: This work was supported by NASA Grants NNX13AE46G, NNX14AM71G, and NNX17AH54G.
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Barotropic flows ; Instability ; Planetary waves ; Rossby waves ; Topographic effects
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  • 54
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 294–312, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0104.1.
    Description: Model analyses of an alongshelf flow over a continental shelf and slope reveal upwelling near the shelf break. A stratified, initially uniform, alongshelf flow undergoes a rapid adjustment with notable differences onshore and offshore of the shelf break. Over the shelf, a bottom boundary layer and an offshore bottom Ekman transport develop within an inertial period. Over the slope, the bottom offshore transport is reduced from the shelf’s bottom transport by two processes. First, advection of buoyancy downslope induces vertical mixing, destratifying, and thickening the bottom boundary layer. The downward-tilting isopycnals reduce the geostrophic speed near the bottom. The reduced bottom stress weakens the offshore Ekman transport, a process known as buoyancy shutdown of the Ekman transport. Second, the thickening bottom boundary layer and weakening near-bottom speeds are balanced by an upslope ageostrophic transport. The convergence in the bottom transport induces adiabatic upwelling offshore of the shelf break. For a time period after the initial adjustment, scalings are identified for the upwelling speed and the length scale over which it occurs. Numerical experiments are used to test the scalings for a range of initial speeds and stratifications. Upwelling occurs within an inertial period, reaching values of up to 10 m day−1 within 2 to 7 km offshore of the shelf break. Upwelling drives an interior secondary circulation that accelerates the alongshelf flow over the slope, forming a shelfbreak jet. The model results are compared with upwelling estimates from other models and observations near the Middle Atlantic Bight shelf break.
    Description: J. Benthuysen acknowledges support from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (CE110001028) and the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, where this work was initiated.
    Description: 2015-07-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mixing ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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