Air–sea interaction over ocean fronts and eddies

By R. Small, S. P. Deszoeke, Shang-Ping Xie, Larry W. O'Neill, H. Seo, Q. Song, P. Cornillon, M. Spall, S. Minobe. 2008

756 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Air–sea interaction at ocean fronts and eddies exhibits positive correlation between sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed, and heat fluxes out of the ocean, indicating that the ocean is forcing the atmosphere. This contrasts with larger scale climate modes where the negative correlations suggest that the atmosphere is driving the system. This paper examines the physical processes that lie behind the interaction of sharp SST gradients and the overlying marine atmospheric boundary layer and deeper atmosphere, using high resolution satellite data, field data and numerical models. The importance of different physical mechanisms of atmospheric response to SST gradients, such as the effect of surface stability variations on momentum transfer, pressure gradients, secondary circulations and cloud cover will be assessed. The atmospheric response is known to create small-scale wind stress curl and divergence anomalies, and a discussion of the feedback of these features onto the ocean will also be presented. These processes will be compared and contrasted for different regions such as the Equatorial Front in the Eastern Pacific, and oceanic fronts in mid-latitudes such as the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Agulhas Return Current.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3df2095e559c0a0696c855320766d63083a1fee0

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Citations in the corpus

Satellite Observations of Mesoscale Eddy-Induced Ekman Pumping (2015, methodology): “This air–sea interaction phenomenon is well described in the literature [see, e.g., the reviews by Small et al. (2008), Chelton and Xie (2010), and recent work by O’Neill et al. (2012)].”
Structure and dynamics of decadal anomalies in the wintertime midlatitude North Pacific ocean–atmosphere system (2016, background): “In recent years, observational studies with high-resolution satellite data (Nakamura et al. 2004; Small et al. 2008) and numerical studies with high-resolution GCM (Minobe et al. 2008; Taguchi et al. 2009; Sampe et al. 2010; Czaja and Blunt 2011; Feliks et al. 2004, 2007, 2011) have shown that the…”
Coupled ocean-atmosphere interaction at oceanic mesoscales (2010, methodology): “…coefficient, but this appears to account for only a small fraction of the total observed and modeled SST influence on surface wind stress (Wai and Stage, 1989; Small et al., 2003, 2008; O'Neill et al., 2005; Larry O'Neill, Naval Research Laboratory, and colleagues, pers. comm., 2010 ).”
Challenges and Prospects in Ocean Circulation Models (2019, background): “This feedback takes place via SST (Small et al., 2008) and ocean current/wind shear (Renault et al.”