Cold anticyclonic eddies formed from cold pool water in the southern Middle Atlantic Bight

AVHRR satellite imagery of the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight during May 1993 revealed a large area of cold water over the shelf break and slope that appeared to spin up into a series of southward propagating anticyclonic eddies. The eddies had diameters of 35–45 km at the surface and moved southward at about 20 cm/sec. A radial TOYO CTD (to 50m) and ADCP velocity (to 400m) transect was conducted across the southern-most of these eddies. The upper 50 meters had minimum temperatures of less than 7°C and salinities of about 33 pss, characteristics similar to cold pool waters usually found over the continental shelf. ADCP velocity data from one of the eddies revealed anticyclonic flow extending to a depth of about 250m. The transport of cold pool water by the eddies was estimated to be 0.1 to 0.2 Sv which is of the same order as the annual mean alongshore transport of shelf water in this region. The origin of the deeper water within the eddy is unlikely to be the continental shelf because the shelf break is less than 100 m. The depth and velocity profiles along the TOYO transect were consistent with the constant potential vorticity eddy model of Flierl (1979) although the source of the eddy kinetic energy is uncertain. The cause for the exodus of cold pool water from the shelf, which extended northward to at least 38°N, is unclear but must involve the establishment of an alongshore baroclinic pressure gradient against the usual southwestward shelf flow. It is possible that the intrusion of Gulf Stream waters onto the shelf near Cape Hatteras was a precursor of this off shelf transport. The southern-most eddy was marked by high biological productivity and very high oxygen supersaturation. The phytoplankton bloom detected within the exported cold pool water, located over the continental slope, suggests a mechanism whereby production fueled by nutrients derived from the shelf can be locally exported into deep water.     

Great South Bay After Sandy: Changes in Circulation and Flushing due to New Inlet

The coastal ocean model FVCOM is applied to quantify the changes in circulation, flushing, and exposure time in Great South Bay, New York, after Superstorm Sandy breached the barrier island in 2012. Since then, the lagoon system is connected to the Atlantic via five instead of four inlets. The model simulations are run on two high-resolution unstructured grids, one for the pre-breach configuration, one including the new inlet, with tidal-only forcing, and summer and winter forcing conditions. Despite its small cross-sectional size, the breach has a relatively large net inflow that leads to a strengthening of the along-bay through-flow in Great South Bay (GSB); the tidally driven volume transport in central GSB quadrupled. The seasonal forcing scenarios show that the southwesterly sea breeze in summer slows down the tidally driven flow, while the forcing conditions in winter are highly variable, and the circulation is dependent on wind direction and offshore sea level. Changes in flushing and exposure time associated with the modified transport patterns are evaluated using a Eulerian passive tracer technique. Results show that the new inlet produced a significant decrease in flushing time (approximately 35% reduction under summer wind conditions and 20% reduction under winter wind conditions). Maps of exposure time reflect the local changes in circulation and flushing.     

Fast-drift shadow events in Jupiter's decametric radio spectra

High-resolution dynamic spectra of Jovian S-bursts frequently reveal sloping gaps crossing bands of L-burst emission with drift rates comparable to those of S-bursts. These “fast-drift shadow” (FDS) events are often sharply bounded on one edge by an S-burst, and sometimes on both edges by a pair of S-bursts emanating from a common vertex. It is suggested that the investigation of such S- and L-burst interactions may provide new insights of considerable importance in the search for the Jovian decametric emission mechanism.     

Millisecond structures in solar radio emission close to 264 MHz

High-time resolution spectral measurements of solar radio emission close to 264 MHz are reported. Instrumental resolutions of the order of a few kHz in frequency and tenths of milliseconds in time were used to resolve the burst fine structure in the time-frequency plane. Fine structures, having narrow bandwidths and durations of some 5 to 30 ms, have been observed mostly in association with type I and type III bursts. These very short duration bursts have negative frequency drifts of about - 50 to- 60 MHz s^-1. They can occur individually or in small groups where they sometimes display a quasi-periodicity of a few milliseconds.     

A Review of Coastal Fog Microphysics During C-FOG

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Our goal is to provide an overview of the microphysical measurements made during the C-FOG (Toward Improving Coastal Fog Prediction) field project. In addition, we...     

A Hydraulic Model for Multiple-Bay-Inlet Systems on Barrier Islands

In this study, we apply the traditional hydraulic engineering approach to model an inter-connected multiple-bay-inlet system that can represent the Great South Bay-Moriches Bay system on Long Island, New York. We show that the hydraulic model captures the essential physics of the system, despite its apparent simplicity in mathematical expressions. The model gives good estimates of bay tidal transmissions, including the tidal ranges, phase lags, and the flood-ebb asymmetry behavior in Moriches Bay. The hydraulic modeling results compare well with the simulations from a 3D coastal ocean circulation model, in particular the changes in bay tides due to the breach of Old Inlet by Hurricane Sandy. The modeled inlet discharge rates are in good agreement with the observations.     

High resolution spectral analysis of the Jovian decametric radiation. II. The band-like emissions

An analysis of the bandlike Jovian decametric emission is presented. A model for the active region that accounts for the observed radiation characteristics is described using the measured parameters of the bandlike emission and a model of the Jovian magnetic field. The active region is characterized not only by the fact that an upward-flowing electron stream is caused to radiate in this region, but the stream itself is broken into radiating electron bunches within the active region. Observed undulations of the emission band on the time-frequency plane are interpreted as motions of the active region along a flux tube. The instantaneous location of the active region along the flux tube shows a dependence on the density of the stream entering the active region. The mechanism responsible for density modulation of the stream appears to be common to both the bandlike and simple-S-burst emission types.     

High resolution spectral analyses of the Jovian decametric radiation. I. Burst morphology and drift rates

Morphological analyses of high resolution spectral recordings of Jovian decametric radiation show a regime of phenomena not seen at lower resolutions. Observed emissions range from narrowband (50 kHz) simple quasiperiodic bursts to wideband emissions (extending over a 500 kHz passband) exhibiting complex structural detail. Assuming gyroemission from electrons in a dipole field for which the magnetic moment is 10 Gauss R_J³, drift rate measurements of the bursts indicate that the source size is of the order of 600 km and its location is near R = 1.3 R_J at a colatitude of 27.3°. The measurements suggest that the emitting electrons belong to a population having a very specific equatorial pitch angle near 3.5°. This study concludes that it may be possible to verify gyroemission as the mechanism responsible for the decametric radiation.     

Coastal-Fog Microphysics Using In-Situ Observations and GOES-R Retrievals

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - The objective of this work is to evaluate GOES-R (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R series) data-based fog conditions which occurred during the C-FOG...