Upwelling and downwelling driven by the North Equatorial Countercurrent and internal waves at Hatohobei Island and Helen Reef, Palau

Author(s):  
T. M. Shaun Johnston ◽  
Patrick L. Colin
Author(s):  
Rodney Pinna ◽  
Andrew Weatherald ◽  
John Grulich ◽  
Beverley F. Ronalds

The Goodwyn Interfield Pipeline was laid on the Australian North West Shelf, connecting the Goodwyn and North Rankin platforms, in 1993. It is operated by Woodside Energy Limited, and is used to transport hydrocarbon fluid from the Goodwyn and Echo/Yodel fields to the North Rankin A platform, which is connect to onshore processing facilities by the 140 km North Rankin trunkline. This pipeline was expected to self-bury along the majority of its length. After nine years however, some sections of the pipeline have experienced significant self-burial, however, other sections remain exposed. The first part of this paper details the results collected from annual surveys of the pipeline, while the second part looks at modelling the self-burial process. The effect of internal waves is found to be a key driver in the self-burial process.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 1067-1079 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Clément ◽  
E. Frajka-Williams ◽  
K. L. Sheen ◽  
J. A. Brearley ◽  
A. C. Naveira Garabato

AbstractDespite the major role played by mesoscale eddies in redistributing the energy of the large-scale circulation, our understanding of their dissipation is still incomplete. This study investigates the generation of internal waves by decaying eddies in the North Atlantic western boundary. The eddy presence and decay are measured from the altimetric surface relative vorticity associated with an array of full-depth current meters extending ~100 km offshore at 26.5°N. In addition, internal waves are analyzed over a topographic rise from 2-yr high-frequency measurements of an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP), which is located 13 km offshore in 600-m deep water. Despite an apparent polarity independence of the eddy decay observed from altimetric data, the flow in the deepest 100 m is enhanced for anticyclones (25.2 cm s−1) compared with cyclones (−4.7 cm s−1). Accordingly, the internal wave field is sensitive to this polarity-dependent deep velocity. This is apparent from the eddy-modulated enhanced dissipation rate, which is obtained from a finescale parameterization and exceeds 10−9 W kg−1 for near-bottom flows greater than 8 cm s−1. The present study underlines the importance of oceanic western boundaries for removing the energy of low-mode westward-propagating eddies to higher-mode internal waves.


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