The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners.
As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
Balancing Volume, Temperature, and Salinity Budgets During 2014–2018 in the Tropical Pacific Ocean State Estimate
-
2023
-
-
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 128(7)
[PDF-11.40 MB]
Details:
-
Journal Title:Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
-
Personal Author:
-
NOAA Program & Office:
-
Description:A state estimate of the tropical Pacific Ocean is used to analyze regional volume, temperature, and salinity budgets during 2014–2018. The simulated ocean state is constrained by both model dynamics and assimilated observations. Comparisons with independent mooring data show that the state estimate is consistent with the observed variability in temperature and velocity. Budgets are analyzed between 5°S and 5°N in the upper 300 m, inside a box defined to represent the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Transports through the faces of this box are quantified to understand the processes responsible for variability in box‐mean properties. Vertical mixing across 300 m is negligible; temperature and salinity tendencies are balanced by surface fluxes and advective divergence, which is decomposed into geostrophic and ageostrophic components. The onset and recovery of the 2015/2016 El Niño event is found to be dominated by anomalous surface fluxes and horizontal advection. During the onset phase, weaker trade winds cause the shallow meridional overturning circulation to slow down, which reduces the poleward transport of heat and leads to upper ocean warming. Anomalous precipitation and advection of fresh water from the western Pacific drive the net freshening of the region. Relaxation from El Niño conditions is dominated by wind‐driven meridional advection at 5°N. As the meridional advection regains strength, Ekman advection efficiently exports the warm, fresh surface water out of the equatorial region. Quantifying the heat and salt transport changes in response to wind variability strengthens our understanding of global ocean heat transport.
-
Keywords:
-
Source:Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 128(7)
-
DOI:
-
ISSN:2169-9275;2169-9291;
-
Format:
-
Publisher:
-
Document Type:
-
Funding:
-
Rights Information:Other
-
Compliance:Library
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
