This study investigates the circulation driven by a severe bora wind event in the Gulf of Trieste during the stratification season. A preliminary numerical analysis of the wind driven transport in the surface boundary layer is carried out for an idealized, laterally unbounded, shallow domain. Then, the simulations are focused on the Gulf of Trieste, using a realistic bathymetry and assuming sta...

Despite being the largest High Nitrate Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) region, the Southern Ocean sustains phytoplankton blooms through the summer, when presumably there is sufficient light, but nutrients in the euphotic zone have been depleted. Physical processes that can potentially supply nutrients from subsurface waters to the euphotic zone, and promote phytoplankton growth in the summer, have not b...

In this second part of a two-part study, details of the upper-ocean response within an idealized baroclinic current to a translating tropical cyclone are examined in a series of nonlinear, reduced-gravity numerical simulations. Based on observations obtained as part of a joint NOAA–National Science Foundation (NSF) experiment in Hurricane Lili (2002), the preexisting ocean mass and momentum fie...

Abstract The wind-driven exchange through complex ridges and islands between marginal seas the open ocean is studied using both numerical analytical models. models are forced by a steady, spatially uniform northward wind stress intended to represent large-scale, low-frequency patterns typical of seasonal monsoons in western Pacific Ocean. There an eastward surface Ekman transport out sea westwa...

This article presents a model study of the dynamics icebergs and surface floats in Labrador Sea. The was forced with data on wind above ocean surface, waves, currents. These were obtained from reanalysis near-surface characteristics atmosphere for year 2008. Icebergs launched an area north coast to east Greenland generally move southeastward until they reach boundary current “highway”. After th...

We examine the mean zonal momentum balance in the tropical mid-Pacific using a year of acoustic Doppler current profiler velocities and conductivitytemperature-depth profiler densities from the Hawaii-to-Tahiti Shuttle Experiment. All significant contributions from the mean, annual cycle, and higher-frequency flow fields are determined with the exception of the vertical stresses. We find that e...

The meridional Ekman transport in a zonally reentrant channel may be balanced by diabatic circulations, standing eddies associated with topography, or by Lagrangian mean eddy mass fluxes. A simple model is used to explore the interaction between these mechanisms. A key assumption of this study is that diabatic forcing in the poleward edge of the channel acts to create lighter fluid, as is the c...

The early-to-mid Pliocene (3–5.3 Ma) is the most recent geologic period of significant global warmth. Proxy records of Pliocene sea surface temperature (SST) indicate significant and still unexplained warm anomalies of 3∘C–9∘C in midlatitude eastern boundary currents, where present-day cool temperatures are maintained by wind-driven upwelling. Here we quantify the effect of large-scale Pliocene...

Sea surface temperature (SST) in subtropical eastern boundary upwelling zones is shown to be affected by three main factors: large-scale ocean stratification, upwelling-favorable sea surface wind stress, and the surface concentration (baroclinicity) of the alongshore pressure gradient driving the incoming geostrophic flow which balances the Ekman surface outflow. Pliocene-aged SST proxies sugge...

Wind, wave and current interactions control the boundary fluxes, momentum and energy exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean, and within the water column. The wind wave effect on the circulation is investigated in a threedimensional time-dependant ocean circulation model. This POM (Princeton Ocean Model) based model is implemented with realistic coastlines in South China Sea and emphasize...