Physiographic influences on dense shelf-water cascading down the Antarctic continental slope

On the dynamics of dense water descending a continental slope

Eddy generation and jet formation via dense water outflows across the Antarctic continental slope

Along various stretches of the Antarctic margins, dense Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) escapes its formation sites and descends the continental slope. This export necessarily raises the isopycnals associated with lighter density classes over the continental slope, resulting in density surfaces that connect the near-freezing waters of the continental shelf to the much warmer CDW at mid-depth offs...

Ocean processes at the Antarctic continental slope

The Antarctic continental shelves and slopes occupy relatively small areas, but, nevertheless, are important for global climate, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem functioning. Processes of water mass transformation through sea ice formation/melting and ocean-atmosphere interaction are key to the formation of deep and bottom waters as well as determining the heat flux beneath ice shelves. Cli...

Topographic vorticity waves forced by Antarctic dense shelf water outflows

We use numerical simulations to investigate excitation of topographic vorticity waves (TVWs) along the Antarctic continental slope by outflows of dense shelf water through troughs. Idealized models show that wave frequency depends on the amount of stretching in the ambient fluid over the outflow and on background along-slope mean flow. Frequency is higher for steeper bottom slope, larger outflo...

Distribution of Upper Circumpolar Deep Water on the warming continental shelf of the West Antarctic Peninsula

We use autonomous underwater vehicles to characterize the spatial distribution of Upper Circumpolar Deep Water (UCDW) on the continental shelf of the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and present the first near-synoptic measurements of mesoscale features (eddies) containing UCDW on the WAP. Thirty-three subsurface eddies with widths on the order of 10 km were detected during four glider deployment...