Propagation of Freshwater Lenses as Buoyant Gravity Currents

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélie Moulin ◽  
James Moum ◽  
Emily Shroyer
Keyword(s):  
Internal Gravity Wave ◽  
Equatorial Indian Ocean ◽  
Wave Theory ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Temperature Anomalies ◽  
Lens Formation ◽  
Freshwater Lenses

<p>Freshwater lenses (FWL) deposited by rain create surface salinity and temperature anomalies that can persist for extended periods of time (> 1 day). The resulting patchiness in near-surface density and sea surface temperature influence upper ocean dynamics and air-sea fluxes of heat. For these reasons, understanding lens formation and evolution has been a focus of recent observational and modeling efforts. The work presented here integrates near-surface ocean and atmosphere time series with remote sensing of sea surface roughness (X-band radar) and precipitation (C-band radar) to describe the formation and temporal evolution of lenses within the equatorial Indian Ocean. Twenty-six FWLs are observed at different stages of their evolution from freshly deposited and actively spreading to older, passively advected features. Salinity anomalies reached -1.2 psu near the surface, while temperature anomalies were observed to be both cool (down to -0.8°C) and warm (up to +0.4°C). The largest density anomaly reached -0.5 kg/m<sup>3</sup>. Remotely-sensed, ship-based radar imagery allows for quantification of the observed propagation speeds of ten lenses, which follow internal gravity wave theory. These results offer a novel perspective on the evolution of FWLs whose dynamics need to be properly accounted for to assess lens longevity, including persistence of salinity and temperature anomalies, as well as influences to air-sea interactions.</p>

Ocean Salinity Aspects of the Ningaloo Niño

2021 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Yaru Guo ◽  
Yuanlong Li ◽  
Fan Wang ◽  
Yuntao Wei
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Sea Surface Salinity ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Ocean Salinity

AbstractNingaloo Niño – the interannually occurring warming episode in the southeast Indian Ocean (SEIO) – has strong signatures in ocean temperature and circulation and exerts profound impacts on regional climate and marine biosystems. Analysis of observational data and eddy-resolving regional ocean model simulations reveals that the Ningaloo Niño/Niña can also induce pronounced variability in ocean salinity, causing large-scale sea surface salinity (SSS) freshening of 0.15–0.20 psu in the SEIO during its warm phase. Model experiments are performed to understand the underlying processes. This SSS freshening is mutually caused by the increased local precipitation (~68%) and enhanced fresh-water transport of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF; ~28%) during Ningaloo Niño events. The effects of other processes, such as local winds and evaporation, are secondary (~18%). The ITF enhances the southward fresh-water advection near the eastern boundary, which is critical in causing the strong freshening (> 0.20 psu) near the Western Australian coast. Owing to the strong modulation effect of the ITF, SSS near the coast bears a higher correlation with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (0.57, 0.77, and 0.70 with Niño-3, Niño-4, and Niño-3.4 indices, respectively) than sea surface temperature (-0.27, -0.42, and -0.35) during 1993-2016. Yet, an idealized model experiment with artificial damping for salinity anomaly indicates that ocean salinity has limited impact on ocean near-surface stratification and thus minimal feedback effect on the warming of Ningaloo Niño.

scholarly journals Result of modeling temperature anomalies on the water surface of the research basin of the institute of hydromechanics NAS of Ukraine

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-45
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Fedorovsky ◽  
Vitalii Filimonov ◽  
Iryna Piestova ◽  
Stanislav Dugin ◽  
Vladyslav Yakymchuk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Surface ◽  
Water Layer ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Aerial Photos ◽  
Temperature Anomalies ◽  
Structural And Textural Parameters ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Hydrocarbon Deposits

The results of the research and physical modeling of temperature anomalies of natural or man-made origin on the water surface are presented.  The information for the research was obtained from the experimental basin of the Institute of Hydromechanics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine from the self-propelled model as the generator of hydrodynamic processes. The information obtained after image processing allowed to significantly expand the existing ideas about the mechanism of formation of anomalies on the open surface with the hydrodynamic disturbances from hydrocarbon deposits and moving submerged object. The interaction of the emerging hydrodynamic disturbances with the near-surface water layer and the occurrence of unmasking temperature anomalies on the open sea surface have a lot in common between the hydrocarbon deposits and the moving submerged object. The application of the difference of the above structural and textural parameters by calculating the value of "entropy" has been proposed as the informative feature for decoding the images of the water surface with the presence of hydrocarbon deposits or moving immersed objects. The decoding of temperature anomalies consists of two stages: learning and proper decoding. The first stage is the supervised learning, during which the system is being researched using the existing set of images, in which only the background and no hydrocarbon deposits or moving submerged object. Training is carried out in order to determine the signs of belonging to the background or hydrocarbon deposits, moving submerged object. It was determined that the background has minimal entropy values, and with the appearance of an anomaly, the entropy grows to the maximum value, after which, as the temperature trace dissipates, it begins to fall to background values. This confirms the informativity of the entropy feature for decoding the optical anomalies of man-made and natural origin on the sea surface from aerial photos.

scholarly journals Response of the Salinity-Stratified Bay of Bengal to Cyclone Phailin

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1121-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dipanjan Chaudhuri ◽  
Debasis Sengupta ◽  
Eric D’Asaro ◽  
R. Venkatesan ◽  
M. Ravichandran
Keyword(s):  
Barrier Layer ◽  
Bay Of Bengal ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Density Stratification ◽  
Upper Ocean ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Cyclone Track ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
One Dimensional

AbstractCyclone Phailin, which developed over the Bay of Bengal in October 2013, was one of the strongest tropical cyclones to make landfall in India. We study the response of the salinity-stratified north Bay of Bengal to Cyclone Phailin with the help of hourly observations from three open-ocean moorings 200 km from the cyclone track, a mooring close to the cyclone track, daily sea surface salinity (SSS) from Aquarius, and a one-dimensional model. Before the arrival of Phailin, moored observations showed a shallow layer of low-salinity water lying above a deep, warm “barrier” layer. As the winds strengthened, upper-ocean mixing due to enhanced vertical shear of storm-generated currents led to a rapid increase of near-surface salinity. Sea surface temperature (SST) cooled very little, however, because the prestorm subsurface ocean was warm. Aquarius SSS increased by 1.5–3 psu over an area of nearly one million square kilometers in the north Bay of Bengal. A one-dimensional model, with initial conditions and surface forcing based on moored observations, shows that cyclone winds rapidly eroded the shallow, salinity-dominated density stratification and mixed the upper ocean to 40–50-m depth, consistent with observations. Model sensitivity experiments indicate that changes in ocean mixed layer temperature in response to Cyclone Phailin are small. A nearly isothermal, salinity-stratified barrier layer in the prestorm upper ocean has two effects. First, near-surface density stratification reduces the depth of vertical mixing. Second, mixing is confined to the nearly isothermal layer, resulting in little or no SST cooling.

scholarly journals A Pilot Climate Sensitivity Study Using the CEN Coupled Adjoint Model (CESAM)

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 2031-2056 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Stammer ◽  
A. Köhl ◽  
A. Vlasenko ◽  
I. Matei ◽  
F. Lunkeit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Climate Sensitivity ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Sensitivity Study ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Temperature Anomalies ◽  
Northern European

A pilot coupled climate sensitivity study is presented based on the newly developed adjoint coupled climate model, Centrum für Erdsystemforschung und Nachhaltigkeit (CEN) Earth System Assimilation Model (CESAM). To this end the components of the coupled forward model are summarized, and the generation of the adjoint code out of the model forward code through the application of the Transformation of Algorithms in FORTRAN (TAF) adjoint compiler is discussed. It is shown that simulations of the intermediate-complexity CESAM are comparable in quality to CMIP-type coupled climate models, justifying the usage of the model to compute adjoint sensitivities of the northern Europe near-surface temperature to anomalies in surface temperature, sea surface salinity, and sea ice over the North Atlantic and the Arctic on time scales of up to one month. Results confirm that on a time scale of up to a few days surface temperatures over northern Europe are influenced by Atlantic temperature anomalies just upstream of the target location. With increasingly longer time lapse, however, it is the influence of SSTs over the central and western North Atlantic on the overlying atmosphere and the associated changes in storm-track pattern that dominate the evolution of the surface European temperature. Influences of surface salinity and sea ice on the northern European temperature appear to have similar sensitivity mechanisms, invoked indirectly through their influence on near-surface temperature anomalies. The adjoint study thus confirms that the SST’s impact on the atmospheric dynamics, notably storm tracks, is the primary cause for the influence of northern European temperature changes.

scholarly journals On the interchangeability of sea-surface and near-surface air temperature anomalies in climatologies

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Rubino ◽  
Davide Zanchettin ◽  
Francesco De Rovere ◽  
Michael J. McPhaden
Keyword(s):  
Air Temperature ◽  
Surface Air Temperature ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Temperature Anomalies ◽  
Air Temperature Anomalies

scholarly journals Simulated Sea Surface Salinity Variability in the Tropical Indian Ocean

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (24) ◽  
pp. 6542-6554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rashmi Sharma ◽  
Neeraj Agarwal ◽  
Imran M. Momin ◽  
Sujit Basu ◽  
Vijay K. Agarwal
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Equatorial Indian Ocean ◽  
Tropical Indian Ocean ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Sea Surface Salinity ◽  
Surface Salinity ◽  
Salinity Variability

Abstract A long-period (15 yr) simulation of sea surface salinity (SSS) obtained from a hindcast run of an ocean general circulation model (OGCM) forced by the NCEP–NCAR daily reanalysis product is analyzed in the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO). The objective of the study is twofold: assess the capability of the model to provide realistic simulations of SSS and characterize the SSS variability in view of upcoming satellite salinity missions. Model fields are evaluated in terms of mean, standard deviation, and characteristic temporal scales of SSS variability. Results show that the standard deviations range from 0.2 to 1.5 psu, with larger values in regions with strong seasonal transitions of surface currents (south of India) and along the coast in the Bay of Bengal (strong Kelvin-wave-induced currents). Comparison of simulated SSS with collocated SSS measurements from the National Oceanographic Data Center and Argo floats resulted in a high correlation of 0.85 and a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.4 psu. The correlations are quite high (>0.75) up to a depth of 300 m. Daily simulations of SSS compare well with a Research Moored Array for African–Asian–Australian Monsoon Analysis and Prediction (RAMA) buoy in the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean (1.5°S, 90°E) with an RMSE of 0.3 psu and a correlation better than 0.6. Model SSS compares well with observations at all time scales (intraseasonal, seasonal, and interannual). The decorrelation scales computed from model and buoy SSS suggest that the proposed 10-day sampling of future salinity sensors would be able to resolve much of the salinity variability at time scales longer than intraseasonal. This inference is significant in view of satellite salinity sensors, such as Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Aquarius.

scholarly journals Ocean Dynamics May Drive North Atlantic Temperature Anomalies

Eos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Sea Surface Temperature ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Temperature Anomalies

A new analysis of sea surface temperature and salinity over several decades seeks to settle the debate on which of two mechanisms underlies the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

scholarly journals East of Japan, Upper Ocean Waves Follow a Seasonal Cycle

Eos ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Cycle ◽  
Ocean Waves ◽  
Sea Surface Height ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Upper Ocean ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Satellite Mission ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Surface Ocean

The seasonality of fine-scale, near-surface ocean dynamics raises important considerations for an upcoming satellite mission to measure global sea surface height.

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