Tropical warm pools appear as the primary mode in the distribution of tropical sea surface temperature (SST). Most previous studies have focused on the role of atmospheric processes in homogenizing temperatures in the warm pool and establishing the observed statistical SST distribution. In this paper, a hierarchy of models is used to illustrate both oceanic and atmospheric mechanisms that contr...

The summertime Great Plains low-level jet (LLJ) has been the subject of numerous investigations during the past several decades. Characteristics of the LLJ include nighttime development of a pronounced wind maximum of typically 15–20 m s at levels 300–800 m above the surface and a clockwise rotation of the wind maximum during the course of the night. Maximum frequency of occurrence of the LLJ i...

It is widely thought that changes in both the surface buoyancy fluxes and wind stress drive variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), but that they drive variability on different time scales. For example, wind forcing dominates short-term variability through its effects on Ekman currents and coastal upwelling, whereas buoyancy forcing is important for longer time sc...

Absolute geostrophic currents in the North Pacific Ocean are calculated from the newly gridded Argo profiling float data using the P-vector method for the period of 2004–11. The zonal geostrophic currents based on the Argo profile data are found to be stronger than those based on the traditionalWorld Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09) data. A westward mean geostrophic flow underneath the North Equatorial...

It is widely thought that changes in both the surface buoyancy fluxes and wind stress drive variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), but that they drive variability on different time scales. For example, wind forcing dominates short-term variability through its effects on Ekman currents and coastal upwelling, whereas buoyancy forcing is important for longer time sc...

Abstract The large increase in upper-ocean sampling during the past decade enables improved estimation of the mean meridional volume transport in the midlatitude South Pacific, and hence of the climatically important Meridional Overturning Circulation. Transport is computed using Argo float profile data for geostrophic shear and trajectory data for reference velocities at 1000 m. For the period...

The turning of wind with height and the related cross-isobaric (ageostrophic) flow in the thermally stable stratified boundary layer is analysed from a variety of model results acquired in the first Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS1). From the governing equations in this particular simple case it becomes clear that the cross-isobaric flow ...

On the basis of wind speeds and accelerations derived from U.S. Navy sponsored 300-mb. constant level balloon or transosonde flights made during 1953, 1955, and 1956, statistics are presented on the magnitude of the ageostrophic wind and its variation with latitude and wind speed. These qtatistics indicate that at 300 mb. the average angle between wind and geostrophic wind is 11 degrees ,and th...

We infer circumpolar maps of stress imparted to the ocean by wind, mediated sea-ice, in and around Seasonal Ice Zone (SIZ) Antarctica. In open we compute wind using surface winds from daily atmospheric reanalyses applying bulk formulae. presence sea ice, underlying is computed satellite observations ice concentration drift velocity assuming, first, that geostrophic currents beneath are negligib...

This note studies the response of a simple linear baroclinic coastal-upwelling model to fluctuating longshore winds. Correlations between wind stress and velocities are computed explicitly. It is shown that these correlations depend primarily upon the wind-~ spectrum and that. for a realistic spectrum, the wind stress leads the longshore velocity by approximately one day. The computed correlati...