Dr. Saulo Soares, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. скачать в хорошем качестве

Dr. Saulo Soares, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

¨Meso-to-submesoscale dynamics in the eastern Pacific: insights from currents and sea surface height observations¨ Resumen A range of physical phenomena—including eddies, fronts, and internal waves—shape ocean variability at scales from 200 km down to 1 km. The extent to which this variability is in geostrophic balance determines how well surface currents can be inferred from the new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. I’ll discuss how shipboard ADCP data of opportunity, long-term moored ADCPs, high-frequency radar (HFR) observations, and sea surface height (SSH) from both satellite altimeters and in situ estimates can be combined to quantify the relative contributions of these phenomena. In the eastern tropical Pacific, internal waves, particularly non-stationary internal tides, limit geostrophy to scales longer than 200 km and dominate smaller scales. Off California, however, non-wave processes appear to be as important as internal waves at submesoscales, while other sources of error complicate mesoscale geostrophic velocity estimates. Beyond informing the interpretation of new altimetry measurements, this approach also provides useful benchmarks for high-resolution high-fidelity simulations of submesoscale dynamics. More broadly, the findings emphasize the unique value of direct current measurements for disentangling the processes that shape ocean variability across scales.