The upper ocean, atmosphere and their interaction over the North Pacific exhibit pronounced decadal to interdecadal variations. A diagnostic equation for analyzing the heat budget for decadal variability in winter sea surface temperature (SST) is derived that can properly account for subsurface geostrophic advection, and strong seasonal cycle in the depth and temperature of the ocean mixed laye...

The dynamics of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) are assessed under present and glacial boundary conditions by investigating the SPG sensitivity to surface wind-stress changes in a coupled climate model. To this end, the gyre transport is decomposed in Ekman, thermohaline, and bottom transports. Surface wind-stress variations are found to play an important indirect role in SPG dynamics th...

[1] Data from the SeaWinds scatterometer on the QuikSCAT satellite are used to estimate upwelling around Cabo Frio, Brazil, due to Ekman transport and Ekman pumping. The region close to shore (up to 200 km from the coast) is characterized by negative wind stress curl (upwelling favorable) year-round, with maximum values during summer, and minimum values during fall. Integrated values from São S...

Sea surface currents and circulation patterns can be estimated globally and in a continuous manner using satellite radar altimeters. This study is concerned with the surface current circulation pattern in the South China Sea. The main data utilized are the tidal amplitudes from co-tidal charts, the sea level anomaly and the wind speed from the Jason-1 satellite altimetry data. Algorithms used t...

The Eastern Tropical and Subtropical Pacific, particularly the coastal region of the western South America, is affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event. In this work ERS-1 and ERS-2 scatterometer data of wind stress climatology are used to study Ekman pumping/suction and transport in the coastal ocean at 15°S off San Juan, Peru. The Princeton Ocean Model (POM) was run to study ...

Tropical instability waves (TIWs) are detected in remotely-sensed sea surface height (SSH), temperature (SST), and wind records of the eastern equatorial Pacific. Analyses of TIW anomaly relationships reveal strong dynamical influence of TIWs within approximately 5 of the equator. The first influence is advective heat flux. The primary forcing of TIW SST anomalies is advection of the meridional...

The performance of coastal altimetry over a wide continental shelf is assessed using multiple-year ocean current observations by moored Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) and high-frequency (HF) radar on the West Florida Shelf. Across-track, surface geostrophic velocity anomalies, derived from the X-TRACK along-track sea level anomalies are compared with the near surface current vector c...

[1] The influence of nearshore wind stress curl on the relative partitioning of bottom boundary layer (BBL) and interior transport within an idealized, two-dimensional coastal upwelling system is studied theoretically and using a numerical model. A nearshore reduction in upwelling favorable wind stress amplitude (1) reduces the width of the inner shelf, (2) reduces the local wind-driven Ekman t...

The Ekman-Taylor problem for the planetary boundary layer is solved in the case of a thermal wind which varies linearly with height. The upper boundary condition is a vanishing ageostrophic wind, while the lower boundary condition is continuity of the stress vector across the interface between the planetary boundary layer and the surface layer. The latter condition is used to determine the magn...

[1] Observations, from the Oregon continental shelf, describe the slumping of a coastal upwelling front in response to a reversal of winds from upwellingto downwellingfavorable. Initially, the front outcropped in a surface mixed layer of depth 10–20 m with a pronounced cross-shelf density gradient. Following wind reversal, both the unbalanced cross-shelf pressure gradient and wind-driven Ekman ...