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.     

Wind Fields over Funka Bay and Their Effect on Water Circulation in the Bay

Horizontal wind fields over Funka Bay during cold air outbreaks were simulated using a 3-D meso-scale atmospheric model. The simulated wind fields over the bay have a positive curl in the north and a negative curl in the south. These wind fields were used to simulate the current in Funka Bay using a barotropic ocean model. The simulated current pattern was composed of two vortices—one with anti-clockwise vorticity in the north and the other with clockwise vorticity in the south—and was in the opposite direction to that simulated by the uniform wind fields. This is because the wind stress curl effect on the vorticity production in Funka Bay opposes and overwhelms the bathymetry torque effect during cold air outbreaks. These results show that the non-uniformity of the wind fields caused by the land topography around a shallow lake or bay cannot be neglected in simulating its currents.     

An analytical diagnostic model of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

ＡｎａｎａｌｙｔｉｃａｌｄｉａｇｎｏｓｔｉｃｍｏｄｅｌｏｆｔｈｅＡｎｔａｒｃｔｉｃＣｉｒｃｕｍｐｏｌａｒＣｕｒｒｅｎｔ￥ＱｉａｏＦａｎｇｌｉ；ＺｈａｎｇＱｉｎｇｈｕａａｎｄＨｅＷｅｎ（ＲｅｃｅｉｖｅｄＮｏｖｅｍｂｅｒ１０，１９９５；ａｃｃｅｐｔｅｄＮ...     

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.     

Circulation in the South China Sea is in a state of forced oscillation: Results from a simple reduced gravity model with a closed boundary

The South China Sea (SCS) is a narrow semi-enclosed basin, ranging from 4°–6°N to 21°–22°N meridionally. It is forced by a strong annual cycle of monsoon-related wind stress. The Coriolis parameter f increases at least three times from the southern basin to the northern basin. As a result, the basin-cross time for the first baroclinic Rossby wave in the southern part of the basin is about 10-times faster than that in the northern part, which plays the most vitally important role in setting the circulation. At the northernmost edge of SCS, the first baroclinic Rossby wave takes slightly less than 1 year to move across the basin, however, it takes only 1–2 months in the southernmost part. Therefore, circulation properties for a station in the model ocean are not solely determined by the forcing at that time instance only; instead, they depend on the information over the past months. The combination of a strong annual cycle of wind forcing and large difference of basin-cross time for the first baroclinic Rossby wave leads to a strong seasonal cycle of the circulation in the SCS, hence, the circulation is dominated by the forced oscillations, rather than the quasi-steady state discussed in many textbooks.The circulation in the SCS is explored in detail by using a simple reduced gravity model forced by seasonally varying zonal wind stress. In particular, for a given time snap the western boundary current in the SCS cannot play the role of balancing mass transport across each latitude nor balancing mechanical energy and vorticity in the whole basin. In a departure from the steady wind-driven circulation discussed in many existing textbooks, the circulation in the SCS is characterized by the imbalance of mechanical energy and vorticity for the whole basin at any part of the seasonal cycle. In particular, the western boundary current in the SCS cannot balance the mass, mechanical energy, and vorticity in the seasonal cycle of the basin. Consequently, the circulation near the western boundary cannot be interpreted in terms of the wind stress and thermohaline forcing at the same time. Instead, circulation properties near the western boundary should be interpreted in terms of the contributions due to the delayed wind stress and the eastern boundary layer thickness. In fact, there is a clear annual cycle of net imbalance of mechanical energy and vorticity source/sink. Results from such a simple model may have important implications for our understanding of the complicated phenomena in the SCS, either from in-situ observations or numerical simulations.     

Wind-driven circulation in the Japan Sea and its influence on the branching of the Tsushima Current

Seasonal variation in the wind-driven circulation in the Japan Sea is studied with reference to the branching of the Tsushima Current using a two-layer model with simplified bottom and coastal topography. The system is driven by wind stress, an inflow corresponding to the Tsushima Current and by the two outflows corresponding to the Tsugaru and Soya Currents.In the first phase, an annual mean wind stress is imposed and a quasi-stationary state is obtained. In the next phase, a seasonally varying wind stress is imposed. Seasonal variation in the wind stress plays an important role in the branching system of the Tsushima Current. In winter, an intensified western boundary current with a prominent inner circulation is formed as a result of a strong wind stress of winter monsoon with negative wind stress curl. In spring to summer, the western boundary current is weak, but the topographic branch along the Japanese coast is intensified. The weak western boundary current is caused by weak wind stress with positive wind stress curl, which induces cyclonic Sverdrup flow in the Japan Sea and causes its western boundary current to flow in the opposite direction to the prescribed northward boundary inflow current. The topographic branch is strongest in late spring and moves offshore in summer, in agreement with the central branch denoted by Kawabe (1982b). Some of the observational features of the Tsushima Current are successfully simulated.     

Effects of bottom topography and density stratification on variations of western boundary currents caused by periodic change in wind stress

Variations of the western boundary currents induced by a periodic change in wind stress are studied in a two-layer model with a continental slope along the western boundary. The variation of the total transport of the western boundary current over the continental slope shows a considerable phase lag with the wind stress and a decrease in amplitude compared with for the flat bottom ocean, though the interior barotropic response is to adjust almost instantaneously to the wind stress. The total transport variation of the western boundary current is well approximated by the upper layer transport variation. That is, almost complete separation of the upper- and lower-layer flows takes place over the slope, and only the upper layer flow contributes to the change in total transport of the western boundary current. Contributions of the interior barotropic and baroclinic responses to the upper layer transport variation depend on the forcing period. With decrease in the forcing period, the barotropic response becomes relatively important for determining the upper layer transport variation although the amplitude of the variation is smaller.     

Seasonal cooling and blooming in tropical oceans

The relative importance of tropical pelagic algal blooms in not yet fully appreciated and the way they are induced not well understood. The tropical Atlantic supports pelagic blooms together equivalent to the North Atlantic spring bloom. These blooms are driven by thermocline tilting, curl of wind stress and eddy upwelling as the ocean responds to intensified basin-scale winds in boreal summer. The dimensions of the Pacific Ocean are such that seasonal thermocline tilting does not occur, and nutrient conditions are such that tilting might not induce bloom, in any case. Divergence at the equator is a separate process that strengthens the Atlantic bloom, is more prominent in the eastern Pacific, and in the Indian Ocean induces a bloom only in the western part of the ocean. Where western jet currents are retroflected from the coast off Somalia and Brazil, eddy upwelling induces prominent blooms. In the eastward flow of the northern equatorial countercurrents, positive wind curl stress induces Ekman pumping and the induction of algal blooms aligned with the currents. Some apparent algal bloom, such as that seen frequently in CZCS images westwards from Senegal, must be due to interference from airborne dust.     

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.     

Ocean-atmosphere momentum coupling in the Kuroshio Extension observed from space

Using a combination of Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), and Lagrangian drifter measurements, we demonstrate that wind data alone are not sufficient to derive ocean surface stress (momentum flux) over mid-latitude ocean fronts, specifically the Kuroshio Extension. There was no continuous and large-scale stress measurement over ocean until the launch of the scatterometers. Stress had been derived from winds through a drag coefficient, and our concept of stress distribution may be largely influenced by our knowledge of wind distribution. QuikSCAT reveals that the variability of stress could be very different from wind. The spatial coherence between the magnitude of stress and sea surface temperature (SST), between the divergence of surface stress and the downwind SST gradient, and between the vorticity of stress and crosswind SST gradient, are the inherent characteristics of stress (turbulence production by buoyancy) that would exist even under a uniform wind field. The coherence between stress vorticity and SST gradient is masked by the rotation of ocean currents over the Kuroshio meanders. Surface stress rotates in the opposite direction to surface currents because stress is the vector difference between wind and current. The results are in agreement with a previous study of the Agulhas Extension and confirm the unique stress measuring capability of the scatterometer.     

桑沟湾邻近海域岬角潮余流涡对及其产生机理

桑沟湾邻近海域潮余流对该海域物质输运具有重要作用,但由于观测资料不足的限制,该海域潮余流的整体分布状况尚不明确。本文利用22套锚系海流观测资料和高分辨率数值模拟资料,分析了桑沟湾邻近海域潮余流的整体分布特征,并探讨了其产生机理。桑沟湾内潮余流总体上较弱,其邻近海域的潮余流在3个岬角(俚岛,寻山和楮山)附近呈现出显著的潮余流涡对结构,每个岬角的北面存在气旋式潮余流涡,南面存在反气旋式潮余流涡。无论是流速大小还是涡覆盖范围,俚岛和楮山外海潮余流涡对均大于寻山外海的涡对。动力诊断分析表明,岬角附近3对潮余流涡的主要形成机制都是由侧边界摩擦引起的水平剪切作用,底摩擦应力旋度的作用只影响俚岛附近的潮余流涡对,位势涡度守恒的作用都不显著。     

Baroclinic wind adjustment processes in the Mediterranean Sea

The wind-driven general circulation of the Mediterranean Sea is studied using a primitive equation model. The model uses a 0.25° horizontal resolution and eight or 16 levels in the vertical. The model uses the Mediterranean basin geometry, and the Strait of Gibraltar is closed. The vertical density structure is initialized with annual average data, and the temperature and salinity values are fixed at the surface to simulate perpetual annual mean conditions. The wind forcing consists of monthly mean climatological stresses.The results show that the general circulation of the Mediterranean Sea has a multiple time-scale character (seasonal excursions and steady state amplitudes are comparable) and it is composed by sub-basin scale gyres corresponding to the scale of the wind stress curl centers. The steady state circulation (annual mean average) is determined by a Sverdrup balacne modified by viscous effects.The unsteady vertically integrated transport circulation consists of sub-basin scale gyres similar to the steady state transport components, which amplify seasonally and the partial or total reversal of the currents in many subportions of the basin. The gyres can be stationary in position or propagating. This seasonal ocean response is partly constituted by Rossby modes due to the wind stress curl annual harmonic. The baroclinic circulation shows the seasonal shift of the North African Current from a position along the African coasts during winter to the center of the Balearic and Ionian basin during summer.     

Coupling winds to ocean surface currents over the global ocean

A Wind stress–Current Coupled System (WCCS) consisting of the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) and an improved wind stress algorithm based on Donelan et al. [Donelan, W.M., Drennan, Katsaros, K.B., 1997. The air–sea momentum flux in mixed wind sea and swell conditions. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 27, 2087–2099] is developed by using the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF). The WCCS is applied to the global ocean to study the interactions between the wind stress and the ocean surface currents. In this study, the ocean surface current velocity is taken into consideration in the wind stress calculation and air–sea heat flux calculation. The wind stress that contains the effect of ocean surface current velocity will be used to force the HYCOM. The results indicate that the ocean surface velocity exerts an important influence on the wind stress, which, in turn, significantly affects the global ocean surface currents, air–sea heat fluxes, and the thickness of ocean surface boundary layer. Comparison with the TOGA TAO buoy data, the sea surface temperature from the wind–current coupled simulation showed noticeable improvement over the stand-alone HYCOM simulation.     

Sea level response to wind field fluctuation around the tip of the Izu Peninsula

The mechanism of a characteristic sea level response (barotropic coastal ocean response) to wind field fluctuation around the tip of the Izu Peninsula observed during the middle of December 2000 to the middle of January 2001 was investigated based on three types of numerical experiments using the Princeton Ocean Model with various parameters. The response was characterized by the relaxation of sea level falling (rising) during eastward upwelling (westward downwelling) favorable wind regime. Analyses of quasi-realistic numerical model results in terms of the vertically integrated momentum balances and vorticity balance for the barotropic mode revealed that: 1) development/abatement of two anomalous circulations generated around the tip of the Izu Peninsula controls the sea level response through the acceleration/deceleration of a quasi-geostrophic barotropic coastal current between the circulations; 2) nonlinear vorticity advection by the Kuroshio Current and by the coastal current, coupled with vorticity diffusion, decelerates the quasi-geostrophic coastal current in the latter half of the wind regimes, which induces the relaxation of sea level rise/fall. The results of the quasi-realistic numerical experiment suggest that an analysis of the vorticity balance for the barotropic mode contributes to a better understanding of sea level responses to wind in coastal regions with strong currents and complex topography. In addition, a numerical experiment with idealized spatially uniform density stratification and a quasi-realistic wind field shows that if the Kuroshio Current had been shifted far offshore from the Izu Peninsula during the observation period, westward propagating continental shelf waves would have controlled the coastal sea level response.     

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.     

The rôle of the complete Coriolis force in cross-equatorial flow of abyssal ocean currents

Ocean currents flowing close to or across the equator are strongly constrained by the change in sign of f, the locally vertical component of the Earth’s rotation vector, across the equator. We investigate these currents using a shallow water model that includes both the locally vertical and locally horizontal components of the Earth’s rotation vector, thus accounting for the complete Coriolis force. We therefore avoid making the so-called “traditional approximation” that retains only the part of the Coriolis force associated with the locally vertical component of the rotation vector. Including the complete Coriolis force contributes an additional term to the fluid’s potential vorticity, which may partially balance the change in sign of f as fluid crosses the equator over suitably shaped bathymetry.We focus on the Antarctic Bottom Water, which crosses the equator northwards in the western Atlantic ocean where the local bathymetry forms an almost-zonal channel. We show that this bathymetry facilitates the current’s equatorial crossing via the action of the “non-traditional” component of the Coriolis force. We illustrate this process using both analytical and numerical solutions for flow of an abyssal current over idealised equatorial topography. We also consider the one-dimensional geostrophic adjustment of a body of fluid across the equator, and show that the “non-traditional” contribution to the fluid’s angular momentum permits a larger cross-equatorial transport. These results underline the importance of including the complete Coriolis force in studies of the equatorial ocean, particularly in the weakly-stratified abyssal ocean where the non-traditional component is most pronounced.     

Numerical experiments on wind-driven circulations and associated transport processes in Suruga Bay

The dynamics of the wind-driven circulations and surface transport processes in Suruga Bay have been examined by performing numerical experiments. While strong winds exist outside the bay, the winds inside the bays are greatly reduced, which generates a strong wind stress curl in winter and autumn. In particular, in winter, a strong positive curl region is located across the bay mouth, and a strong surface circulation with counterclockwise rotation is generated beneath it. The circulation is nearly geostrophic, but is not affected by the bottom topography in the deep bay. It is suggested that intense surface water exchange through the bay mouth occurs in winter, whereas it is not active in the other seasons when no significant vorticity is supplied on the bay mouth from the atmosphere. Moreover, we propose a hypothesis that the atmospheric wind stress curl will cause the frequent appearance of the counterclockwise circulation in winter in the real ocean.     

Interannual variations of the Hawaiian Lee Countercurrent induced by potential vorticity variability in the subsurface

Interannual variations of the Hawaiian Lee Countercurrent (HLCC) in the 2000s were investigated using satellite and Argo profiling float observations. The satellite-observed sea surface height shows that the geostrophic eastward current was anomalously strong to the west away from Hawaii in 2003 and 2005. However, the trade winds and the orographic wind curl dipole in the lee of Hawaii that drives the climatological mean HLCC were not particularly strong in these years, suggesting that the accelerations of the HLCC were not caused by the wind stress curl forcing around Hawaii and subsequent Rossby wave propagation. Using Argo observations, we found negative potential vorticity (PV) anomalies in the subsurface north of the HLCC in these 2 years. The pycnocline is lifted northward as low PV waters of different densities stack up in the vertical, and the HLCC is then accelerated via the thermal wind. The intensification and/or southward intrusion of the eastern subtropical mode water and subtropical mode water seem to have induced negative PV anomalies in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Using high-resolution ocean simulations, we confirmed the migrations of PV anomalies and their contributions to the HLCC accelerations. Although the HLCC is located away from the cores of major mode waters, our results suggest that interannual variations of the HLCC are affected by those of mode waters.     

Recent progress in studies of the South China Sea circulation

The South China Sea (SCS) is a semi-enclosed marginal sea with deep a basin. The SCS is located at low latitudes, where the ocean circulations are driven principally by the Asia-Australia monsoon. Ocean circulation in the SCS is very complex and plays an important role in both the marine environment and climate variability. Due to the monsoon-mountain interactions the seasonal spatial pattern of the sea surface wind stress curl is very specific. These distinct patterns induce different basin-scale circulation and gyre in summer and winter, respectively. The intensified western boundary currents associated with the cyclonic and anticyclonic gyres in the SCS play important roles in the sea surface temperature variability of the basin. The mesoscale eddies in the SCS are rather active and their formation mechanisms have been described in recent studies. The water exchange through the Luzon Strait and other straits could give rise to the relation between the Pacific and the SCS. This paper reviews the research results mentioned above.     

缓变风场驱动下正压环流中的多涡结构

利用正压涡度方程，研究了缓变风场驱动下水平尺度1000km平底方形海盆中海洋环流的响应。结果表明，缓变风场驱动下海洋环流的响应是多涡型的，线性情形下多涡结构表现为共振受迫Rossby波；非线性情形下受迫Rossby波被扭曲，多涡结构是由受迫Rossby波和次海盆尺度的惯性再循环共同构成。无论是稳定风场还是缓变风场，非线性作用越强，环流越趋于不稳定；非线性作用强且水平耗散作用弱时，非线性不稳定过程可能完全掩盖了变化的风旋度向海盆涡度输人的影响，此时风的变化对环流型式不再重要。