Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) heat exchange project: A summary report

A pilot data center to compute ocean atmosphere heat exchange over the tropical ocean is prposed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in response to the scientific needs of the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Program. Optimal methods will be used to estimate sea surface temperature (SET), surface wind speed, and humidity from spaceborne observations. A monthly summary of these parameters will be used to compute ocean atmosphere latent heat exchanges. Monthly fields of surface heat flux over tropical oceans will be constructed using estimations of latent heat exchanges and short wave radiation from satellite data. Verification of all satellite data sets with in situ measurements at a few locations will be provided. The data center will be an experimental active archive where the quality and quantity of data required for TOGA flux computation are managed. The center is essential to facilitate the construction of composite data sets from global measurements taken from different sensors on various satellites. It will provide efficient utilization and easy access to the large volume of satellite data available for studies of ocean atmosphere energy exchanges

Deepening of the wind-mixed layer

A model is given that describes the local response of the upper ocean to an imposed surface wind stress and heat flux…

The heat budget of tropical ocean warm-water pools

In the tropics, large warm pools of near-surface water are enclosed by continental land boundaries and constant annual mean temperature surfaces at depth. Water which enters such a volume is of the same temperature as the water which leaves it and hence no net heat can accumulate by mean advection; the ocean surface heat flux into this volume is balanced by turbulent transport out of it...

Influence of warm SST anomalies formed in the eastern Pacific subduction zone on recent El Niño events

Anomalous April–June warm surface water in the eastern Pacific convergence zone (the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) subducts and depresses the thermocline as a single waveform. This waveform propagates toward the equator much more quickly (reaching the equator in 1.5–2.5 years) than the normal transit time (5–10 years) of the meridional overturning cell. The movements of the sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies that occurred before the 1997 and 2009 El Niños can be clearly traced to the area south of 20°N using the altimeter sea-level signals. Upon arriving near the Pacific equator, these warm water anomalies can contribute to the formation of the El Niño by lowering the depth of the thermocline. The time required for a subducted SST anomaly to drift 3000 km to the equator depends upon its initial location and on the distribution of the SST anomalies near the western coast of North America. The subducted warm SST anomalies observed before the El Niños of 1982 and 1997 took 12 months to reach the equator. Longer drift times of 24 months were indicated for the 1972, 1986, 1993, 2003, 2006 and 2009 events. The thermocline depressions that drift toward the equator in the eastern Pacific are shown to be a major energy source for the onset of the El Niño in the central and eastern Pacific. This study presents a theory that could expand our understanding of the onset mechanism of the El Niño episode

Formation of an inertial current on a continental shelf

The simplest problem in the formation of an inertial stratified western-boundary current on a continental shelf is examined by numerical treatment of the three-dimensional conservation equations. An offshore countercurrent appears as the predominant feature of the flow

Circulation in a wind-swept and cooled ocean

A two-layer model of circulation is developed in an open-ocean basin where a vertically homogeneous layer overlays a thermoclinic region. In the latter, the temperature changes in an exponential manner to a constant abyssal value. The motions are driven by an Ekman suction and cooling (or heating) of the ocean surface...

Dynamic topography and recirculation of the North Atlantic

Maps of the dynamic topography of the North Atlantic are used to show the baroclinic component of the general circulation at different depths. The subtropical region of simple Sverdruptype circulation is delineated. A region of strong baroclinic recirculation, particularly at middepth, is identified at the northwestern edge of the subtropical gyre. At higher latitudes, the middepth topographic high of the recirculation regime fills the entire width of the ocean...

Does the Sverdrup relation account for the Mid-Atlantic circulation?

A comparison is made between the geostrophic transport across selected latitudes in the North Atlantic Ocean and the theoretical transport as derived from the Sverdrup relationship. In the subtropical gyre these agree to within the error estimates. At 32°N and 24°N the interior geostrophic transports compare well with the measured values in the Florida Straits off Jacksonville

Energetics of the Florida Current

During the summer of 1974, fifty free-drop transport profiles and STD/XBT profiles were carried out in the Florida Current at 14 stations along the 25°51.00\u27N latitude. From these data and from the historical free-drop data 12 km to the south, a computation is made of the energy flow from the mean current to the fluctuations over the entire cross-section of the Florida Straits. Statistically significant areas of both potential and kinetic energy conversion are computed...