The study of intermediate models for barotropic continental shelf and slope flow fields initiated in Parts I and II is continued. The objective is to investigate the possible use of intermediate models for process and data assimilation studies of nonlinear mesoscale eddy and jet current fields over the continental shelf...
An analysis is presented of low-frequency (<0.4 cpd) fluctuations in currents, temperature and tide gage data collected during the March-September 1976 segment of the CUEA JOINT-II experiment off the coast of Peru. The observations were made near 15°S, a region of particularly strong and persistent coastal upwelling. Conclusions about the...
A two-layer model with an idealized continental shelf and slope bottom topography is utilized to study some properties of the response of stratified coastal regions to meteorological forcing with variations in the alongshore direction. The model is such that the coastline is straight, there are no alongshore variations in the...
A two-dimensional, frictionless, nonlinear model of coastal upwelling is reexamined. The model has been solved previously at steady state and as an initial-value problem. The previous solution to the initial-value problem is inconsistent with the steady-state solution. A new solution to the spinup problem is presented that approaches the existing...
As part of a study of the large-scale response of coastal sea level to atmospheric forcing along the west coast of North America during June–September 1973, Halliwell and Allen calculate space- and time-lagged cross-correlation coefficients Rτζ between adjusted sea level ζ at fixed alongshore locations ζ(y0) and the alongshore component...
Model studies of two-dimensional, time-dependent, wind-forced, stratified downwelling circulation on the continental shelf have shown that the near-bottom offshore flow can develop time- and space-dependent fluctuations involving spatially periodic separation and reattachment of the bottom boundary layer and accompanying recirculation cells. Based primarily on the observation that the potential vorticity...
Satellite along-track sea surface height (SSH) and multisatellite sea surface temperature (SST) maps are assimilated in a coastal ocean circulation model off Oregon. The study period is June–October 2005, featuring intensive separation of the coastal upwelling jets in the eddy-dominated coastal transition zone (CTZ). The data assimilation (DA) system combines...
Velocity measurements from the continental shelf off Oregon taken during the Coastal Upwelling Experiment CUE-2 in the summer of 1973 are utilized to investigate momentum, vorticity and mass balance relationships for subinertial frequency (ω < 0.6 cpd) current fluctuations. Measurements from stations in water of depths of 54, 100 and...
Intermediate models contain physics between that in the primitive equations and that in the quasigeostrophic equations and are capable of representing subinertial frequency motion over O(1) topographic variations typical of the continental slope while filtering out high-frequency gravity-inertial waves. We present here a formulation for stratified flow of a set...
The behavior of low-frequency baroclinic Rossby wave motion in the vicinity of coastal boundaries is investigated using linearized modulated wave theory in a stratified, constant-depth, equatorial β-plane ocean. A primary objective is to obtain an equation that describes large-scale, low-frequency pressure fluctuations along variable geometry ocean boundaries at all latitudes...