A numerical investigation of western boundary currents in subtropical and subpolar gyres with a barotropic model

Dynamics of western boundary currents in the subtropical and subpolar gyres are studied as a source-sink flow of barotropic fluid by means of numerical integration of the time-dependent non-linear vorticity equation. The bottom topography consists of a continental shelf of uniform slope (120 km wide) parallel to the straight western coast and a flat bottom of uniform depth. The steady solution in the case of low Reynolds number (Re≦100) shows the vorticity balance of the western boundary current between theβ-, diffusion-, and bottom relief terms. The cuspidated flow of the western boundary current in the subpolar gyre is observed as a compensating flow for the subtropical western boundary current separating from the western coast. In the case of Re=350, the zonal current separating from the coast meanders with the wave length of the stationary Rossby waves. It is shown that in the present model the separation of the boundary current is controlled by the planetary vorticity (f) of the fluid particle in the boundary flow, with which the same particle flows out the eastern wall at the corresponding latitude. The decrease of the efflux width increases the intensity of the non-linear overshooting of the boundary current separating from the western coast.     

Western boundary current crossing a ridge

Investigated is a possibility of two-dimensional model in the study of the dynamics of the western boundary current by a numerical experiment. Emphasis is laid on the effect of bottom barrier corresponding to the Izu Ridge.The western boundary current in the model is formed by source and sink of the water prescribed at an artificial eastern wall (600 km offshore). The bottom topographyconsists of a continental slope parallel to the straight western coast, and a ridge protruding from the western coast to 500 km offshore (1,500 m deep and 400 km wide). The grid size of 12 km× 25 km (offshore and longshore directions, respectively) resolves both the western boundary current and the bottom topography.The assumption of homogeneity of the water density makes the western boundary current detour along the isobath of the ridge.A steady state solution is obtained under the assumptions that the horizontal velocity does not change direction vertically (equivalent barotropic), and that the geostrophic relationship holds at the bottom. Homogeneity of the water density is not assumed. The solution shows that most of the volume transport of the western boundary current cross the ridge and the current has cyclonic vorticity near the summit of the ridge. It seems to suggest that the investigation by three-dimensional models is neccesary in order to study the complete dynamics of the western boundary current crossing the ridge.     

A theoretical reason to expect inviscid western boundary currents in realistic oceans

The conventional picture of an ocean gyre, based on an ocean with vertical sidewalls, assumes a balance between an input of vorticity by wind stress curl, and a viscous flux of vorticity through the boundary at the same latitude, resulting from a viscous western boundary current which may be significantly modified by nonlinear terms. Potential interactions with topography are also commonly acknowledged as a possible complicating factor. In this idealized picture, the zonal momentum balance is taken to be geostrophic, as numerous model analyses confirm. A theoretical argument is given here which shows that, in an ocean with sloping sidewalls, this geostrophic balance results in bottom pressure torques which balance the wind stress curl at each latitude. This removes the requirement for a viscous western boundary current at each latitude suggesting that the dynamics within a western boundary current may be essentially inviscid. While inviscid western boundary currents have already been found in certain idealized systems, and in one set of diagnostics from an eddy permitting model, the generality of the argument presented here gives a strong reason to believe that these are not special cases. Inviscid western boundary currents are in fact the rule, and the vertical sidewall case is an unrealistic exception.     

The East Caledonian Current: A Case Example for the Intercomparison between AltiKa and In Situ Measurements in a Boundary Current

This paper presents an assessment of SARAL/AltiKa satellite altimeter for the monitoring of a tropical western boundary current in the south-western Pacific Ocean: the East Caledonian Current. We compare surface geostrophic current estimates obtained from two versions of AltiKa along-track sea level height (AVISO 1 Hz and PEACHI 40 Hz) with two kinds of dedicated in situ datasets harvested along the satellite ground tracks: one deep-ocean current-meter mooring deployed in the core of the boundary current and five glider transects. It is concluded that the AltiKa-derived current successfully captures the velocity of the boundary current, with a standard error of 11 cm/s with respect to the in situ data. It also appears important to reference AltiKa sea level anomaly to the latest mean dynamic topography available in our area. Doing so, Ka-band altimetry provides a satisfactory representation of the western boundary current. Thereby, it usefully contributes to observing its variability in such a remote and under-observed ocean region. However, the rather long repeat period of SARAL (35 days) in comparison to the high frequency variability seen in the flow velocity of the boundary current calls for a combined use of SARAL with the other satellite altimetry missions.     

Wave-adjusted boundary condition for longshore current in finite-volume circulation models

Numerical modeling of coastal circulation encompassing the nearshore requires forcing by tide, surface gravity waves, and possibly other factors. In the nearshore, the wave-induced longshore current and setup are dominant hydrodynamic processes, and lateral boundary conditions representing tide and oceanic forcing typically do not include surface-wave contributions. Without proper boundary conditions, significant gradients in current and water level can occur that contaminate the solution in the internal domain. A standard strategy is to place the boundaries far from the site of interest, but this strategy greatly increases computational demands, and it may not be appropriate for long-term simulations. This paper describes a wave-adjusted boundary condition that accounts for wave-induced water level and current acting in combination with tidal forcing. The wave-adjusted boundary condition is demonstrated for an idealized case of a parallel-contour beach and for an engineering application at Ocean City, MD.     

Generating mechanism of the tidal residual current due to the coastal boundary layer

The tidal residual current is produced by a non-linear effect caused by flow separation of the tidal current due to a complicated coastline. This paper shows that the similar non-linear effect is produced also by the coastal boundary layer with a theoretical model having a simple coastline. It is found that the shear of the tidal oscillatory current produces the non-linear effect and its longitudinal gradient generates the tidal residual current flowing from the bay head to the bay mouth inside the boundary layer or shear region. The velocity of the residual current is proportional to the square of tidal current amplitude. Consideration of the generating mechanism suggests that the tidal residual current is generated by the change in depth of the bay.     

Application of Line Boundary Technique to 2D Tidal Current Simulation

To deal with the problems concerning the shore boundary,moving boundary and engineeringboundary which are encountered frequently in 2D tidal current simulation by the finite difference method,theconcept of line boundary is introduced and studied here,and then the line boundary technique in common useis proposed in this paper.Analysis of some calculation cases shows that this technique is practical,effective,and simple in 2D tidal current simulation involving different boundaries.     

An extended variable-grid global ocean circulation model and its preliminary results of the equatorial Pacific circulation

1IntroductionThetropicalPacificOceanplaysanimpor-tantroleintheclimatevariabilitiessuchasElNi-no-SouthernOscillation(ENSO)phenomenon(Chao,1993).ManystudieshavefoundthatthetropicalPacificvariabilitiescanhavesignifi-cantinfluenceontheoceancirculationintheseasadjacenttoChina(Yu,1985;Chaoetal.,1996;Wangetal.,2002).TheseaareaadjacenttoChinaischaracterizedbyitscomplextopog-raphyandnumerousnarrowstraits,andthusre-quiresafinegridtoresolve.Tostudytheinter-actionbetweenthetropicalPacificandChinas…     

Influence of asymmetric wind stress curl on the general ocean circulation using an eddy-resolving quasi-geostrophic model

On the general ocean circulation forced by the asymmetric wind stress curl, the role of the eddies which are detached from the western boundary current is studied using an eddy-resolving two-layered quasi-geostrophic numerical model with free-slip boundary condition. An ideal sinusoidal function is used as the wind stress curl, and amplitude is assumed to be larger over the southern basin than over the northern one. In contrast with the antisymmetric wind forcing, in the asymmetric wind stress case, the subtropical western boundary current overshoots to the north from the zero wind stress curl line. As the asymmetricity of the wind forcing becomes larger, the separation point of the time mean field is located further north. The eddies generated in the region of the subtropical recirculation are advected northward by the western boundary current and they are detached from subtropical gyre. The release of these eddies to the north basin leads to weaken the subtropical recirculation system. From the analysis of the potential vorticity budgets, in the asymmetric case, it is shown that detached eddies play an important role in transporting the negative vorticity which is excessively inputted into the southern basin, to the northern basin, in addition to the terms which transport vorticity in the antisymmetric case, i.e., the vorticity transport by the meander of the jet. Under the free-slip boundary, more than a quarter of that excess vorticity is transported by those detached eddies in some cases.     

A numerical study of the effects of wind forcing on the Chile Current System

A high-resolution, multi-level, primitive equation ocean model is used to examine the response of the coastal region from 22.5°S to 35°S of the Chile Current System to both equatorward and climatological wind forcing. The results from both types of forcing show that an equatorward surface current, a poleward undercurrent, upwelling, meanders, filaments and eddies develop in response to the predominant equatorward wind forcing. When climatological wind forcing is used, an offshore branch of the equatorward surface current is also generated. These features are consistent with available observations of the Chile Current System. The model results support the hypothesis that wind forcing is an important mechanism for generating currents, eddies and filaments in the Chile eastern boundary current system and in other eastern boundary current regions which have predominantly equatorward wind forcing.     

基于海洋调查实测资料的中尺度涡旋识别结果的验证及边界拟合技术

结合卫星高度计资料,本文在海洋中尺度涡旋综合识别法(综合法)的基础上,利用实测资料对识别的涡旋边界和中心点进行比对验证,得出以下结论:(1)通过诊断涡旋识别的边界切线与实测海流矢量的夹角,结果表明综合法识别的涡旋边界形态基本可以反映实测涡旋的水平形态;(2)利用实测海流和温度资料反演涡旋中心,通过与综合法识别的涡旋中心...     

An estimate of water mass transformation in the southern Weddell Sea

Bottom water formation changes the characteristics of water masses entering the southern part of the Weddell Sea through atmosphere-ice-ocean interaction in which both sea and shelf ice play an important role. Modified water, in particular Weddell Sea Bottom Water, recirculates in the west. By comparing the in- and outflowing water masses we have estimated transformation rates on the basis of a data set obtained during the Winter Weddell Gyre Study from September to October 1989. This consisted of a salinity-temperature-depth (CTD) section carried out by R/V “Polarstern” from the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula to Kapp Norvegia and data from three current meter moorings maintained from 1989 to 1990 in the eastern boundary current off Kapp Norvegia. Because of the lack of sufficient direct current measurements in the interior and the western boundary current, it was necessary to derive mass transports on the basis of available data combined with physical and geometrical arguments. At the mooring site barotropic currents were measured. They were extrapolated to the interior under the assumption that wind-driven, baroclinic and barotropic current fields are of similar shape. The location of the gyre centre was determined from drifting buoy tracks and geopoten-tial anomaly. A linear current profile from the eastern boundary current to the centre of the gyre was assumed, and the western outflow was determined according to mass conservation. Different assumptions on the transition from the boundary current to the interior and the location of the centre result in a wide range of transports with most likely values between 20 and 56 Sv. The total mass transport was split into individual water masses. Differences between inflow and outflow result in a transformation rate of 3–4 Sv from Winter and Warm Deep Water to Antarctic and Weddell Sea Bottom Water. The net heat and salt transport across the transect implies heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere of 3–10 W m⁻² and ice formation rates of 0.2–0.35 m year⁻¹.     

南海贯穿流荷载中尺度过程能量学诊断

本文利用南海海洋再分析产品REDOS(Reanalysis Dataset of the South China Sea)和风场资料CCMP(Cross-Calibrated,Multi-Platform),通过能量诊断探讨了越南沿岸南海西边界流(南海贯穿流主体部分)区域夏季(6—9月)涡流相互作用的年际变化特征以及平均流对中尺度过程的贡献。结果显示,在季风和西边界强流、南海贯穿流的共同影响下,越南沿岸东向急流和双涡结构的能量分布和收支有显著的年际差异。尽管涡动能(EKE,Eddy Kinetic Energy)和涡动有效势能(EPE,Eddy available Potential Energy)的量级基本一致,但二者在水平和垂向空间分布上存在明显差异,这与夏季风影响下的南海西部边界流,越南离岸流的上层海洋密度梯度、流速大小和剪切导致的斜压、正压不稳定性等因素相关。同时随着深度的增加,密度梯度变化相对水平速度剪切对海洋涡流过程的影响逐渐凸显。EKE能量收支分析表明,压强与风应力主要做正功,是维持EKE稳定的主要能量来源,而EKE平流项既可以促进涡旋的增长,也会造成涡旋的消耗,对EKE的年际变率影响比较显著。正压不稳定导致的能量转换主要影响南海西部边界流区域,并存在显著年际变化,并且在风和平均流的影响下,沿贯穿流方向存在显著空间分布差异。越南离岸流正异常年,整体呈现平均流向涡旋传递能量;负异常年,出现EKE反哺平均动能的情况。     

宁波-舟山海域污染物扩散的数值模拟

基于宁波-舟山海域潮流场,建立了该海域三维变边界的污染物扩散模型,对COD、无机氮、活性磷酸盐的浓度进行了数值模拟,并对界面源的影响进行了分析。结果表明:污染物浓度在海域内呈由西北向东南方向递减的趋势;COD浓度在大部分海域满足一类水质标准,无机氮和活性磷酸盐浓度在研究海域超出二类水质标准;研究海域的界面源对该海域污染物浓度”贡献”在85%以上。     

Numerical experiment on the circulation in the Japan Sea

By using a rectangular basin of uniform depth with inflow and outflow openings, the circulation in the Japan Sea is investigated numerically. Heat flux through the sea surface is determined from the annual mean atmospheric conditions for the Japan Sea, but no wind stress is considered.In the transient state, the warm water supplied through an inflow opening travels cyclonically along the coast as a density-driven boundary current in a rotating system. In the quasi-steady state, the warm water flows northward as a western boundary current which corresponds to the East Korean Warm Current and gradually separates from the coast as it flows northward. No strong boundary current corresponding to the nearshore branch of the Tsushima Current exists.Under annual mean atmospheric conditions, formation of the deep water characteristic of the Japan Sea and of the thermal front corresponding to the Polar Front do not take place.     

Set-up of deep circulation in multi-level numerical models

The present study investigates the way an ocean filled with homogeneous warm water is cooled by prescribing cold water formation inside the ocean in the southern part of the southern hemisphere using multi-level numerical models. Cooling of the whole ocean starts with introduction of the cold water from the formation region into the deepest part of the ocean in the equatorial and eastern boundary regions by Kelvin wave-type density currents. The cold water along the eastern boundary extends westward as a Rossby wave-type density current setting up an interior poleward flow, and hits the western boundary to form a northward flowing boundary current in the northern hemisphere. Only then does the western boundary current cross the equator. Cooling of the rest of the ocean basin is accomplished by upwellings in the interior and also along the coasts. During this introduction the cold water is mixed with surrounding warm waters, and the thermocline, rather than forming just below the top level where heating is imposed, tends to spread down to deeper depths. Consequently the circulation at a steady state has a significant vertical structure such that the maximum upwelling in the interior occurs in the mid-depths, and only the deeper part of the deep ocean yields the Stommel and Arons circulation pattern. In the equatorial region higher vertical mode motions dominate, and a set of alternating zonal jets forms along the equator.     

Comment on “Why western boundary currents are diffusive: A link between bottom pressure torque and bolus velocity” by C. Eden and D. Olbers

Eden and Olbers have discussed the relationship between bottom pressure torque and bolus velocity in the western boundary current using the vertically truncated BARBI model approach. Here we revisit this issue using the much simpler residual mean framework. The central role played by a density equation that is linearised about a state of rest is discussed, as well as mechanisms required to maintain the baroclinicity of the western boundary current. We conclude that in the framework being considered by Eden and Olbers, frictional processes must play an important role in the western boundary current dynamics, otherwise the baroclinicity of the current is completely removed by the cross-front mixing effect of the eddies. We also derive the form of the Stommel equation obtained by Eden and Olbers in a manner which clarifies the approximations made by these authors. We argue that for their analysis to be valid, the flow must be concentrated in a shallow layer compared to the ocean depth, there must be no density structure at the sea floor, and any overturning circulation, whether directly wind-driven or as a part of the global thermohaline circulation, must be much smaller than the western boundary current transport.     

A modification to the Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory

In order to fulfill the no-slip condition at the western and eastern boundaries of the ocean basin, introduced ＂effective wind stress＂, which has much larger spatial variations towards the boundaries than in the ocean interior. The effective wind stress can thus be decomposed into spatially slow-varying and fast varying components. Careful scale analysis on the classical Munk winddriven ocean circulation theory, which consists of the interior Sverdrup flow and the western boundary current but of no eastern boundary current, shows that the wind stress curl appearing in the Sverdrup equation must have negligible spatial variations. In the present model the spatially slow-varying component of the wind stress appears in the Sverdrup equation, and the spatially fastvarying component becomes the forcing term of the boundary equations. As a result, in addition to the classical Munk solution the present model has an extra term at the western boundary which （Northern Hemisphere） increases the northward transport as well as the southward return transport, and has a term at the eastern boundary corresponding to the eastern boundary current.     

Wind relaxation as possible cause of the South China Sea Warm Current

Winter appearance of a northeastward warm current off the southern coast of China against gale force winds is well documented but lacks a plausible explanation. Relaxation of northeasterly winds is envisaged here as a possible cause of the South China Sea Warm Current in winter. A three-dimensional circulation model for the South China Sea is first driven to equilibrium by climatological forcings. Thereafter, wind forcing is relaxed from the 15th day of each month for 9 days. In winterlike months from December to April, the wind relaxation invariably triggers a northeastward current of which the location and alongshore span are comparable to that of the observed warm current. This current is driven by the pressure gradient along the northwestern boundary of the South China Sea, sea level being high to the southwest and low to the northeast. The sea level gradient is built up by the monsoon-driven southwestward coastal current along the northwestern boundary and, after wind relaxes, triggers a return current and a sea level drop that expand southwestward from the southern coast of China to the east coast of Vietnam. The current is initially barotropic, becoming increasingly baroclinic in time as warm waters from the south are advected northeastward. The model also suggests that the sea level gradient is present in most of the months of the year, but is not as dramatic as in winter to trigger fundamental changes in the circulation of the South China Sea.