Two idealized, three-dimensional, analytical models of middepth meridional overturning in a basin with a Southern Hemisphere circumpolar connection are described. In the first, the overturning circulation can be understood as a “pump and valve” system, in which the wind forcing at the latitudes of the circumpolar connection is the pump...
A reduced-gravity model is presented of the warm-water branch of the middepth meridional overturning circulation in a rectangular basin with a circumpolar connection. The model describes the balance between production of warm water by Ekman advection across the circumpolar current, dissipation of warm water by eddy fluxes southward across the...
The effects of wind-forced upwelling and downwelling on the continental shelf off Duck, North Carolina, are studied through experiments with a two-dimensional numerical primitive equation model. Moored and shipboard measurements obtained during August–November 1994 as part of the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) Inner Shelf Study (ISS) are used for model–data...
An unstable, nonlinear baroclinic wave-mean oscillation is found in a strongly supercritical quasigeostrophic f-plane numerical channel model with 3840 Fourier components. The growth of linear disturbances to this time-periodic oscillation is analyzed by computing time-dependent normal modes (Floquet vectors). Two different Newton–Picard methods are used to compute the unstable solution,...
Measurements of surface wind stress by the SeaWinds scatterometer on NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite are analyzed and compared with several different atmospheric model products, from an operational model and two high-resolution nested regional models, during two summer periods, June through September 2000 and 2001, in the coastal region west...
The linear stability of a nearly time-periodic, nonlinear, coastal upwelling–downwelling circulation, over alongshore-uniform topography, driven by a time-periodic wind stress is investigated using numerical methods. The near-periodic alongshore-uniform basic flow is obtained by forcing a primitive equation numerical model of coastal ocean circulation with periodic wind stress. Disturbance growth on...
A simple quasi-equilibrium analytical model is used to explore hypotheses related to observed spatial correlations between sea surface temperatures and wind stress on horizontal scales of 50–500 km. It is argued that a plausible contributor to the observed correlations is the approximate linear relationship between the surface wind stress and...
The predictability of coastal ocean circulation over the central Oregon shelf, a region of strong wind-driven
currents and variable topography, is studied using ensembles of 50-day primitive equation ocean model
simulations with realistic topography, simplified lateral boundary conditions, and forcing from both idealized
and observed wind time series representative of...
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...
The growth of linear disturbances to stable and unstable time-periodic basic states is analyzed in an asymptotic
model of weakly nonlinear, baroclinic wave–mean interaction. In this model, an ordinary differential equation
for the wave amplitude is coupled to a partial differential equation for the zonal-flow correction. Floquet vectors,
the eigenmodes...