The impact of high-frequency current variability on dispersion off the eastern Antarctic Peninsula
Abstract
We present observations of high-frequency current variability on the continental shelf and the slope of the Antarctic Peninsula using Lagrangian surface drifters deployed as part of the Antarctic Drifter Experiment: Links to Isobaths and Ecosystems (ADELIE) project. Here we focus on high-frequency processes such as tides and inertial oscillations that are typically smoothed out of large-scale spatially averaged, and/or temporally averaged, observed current fields. We investigate the role that this class of motion plays in the transport of physical or biogeochemical properties. Lateral displacements on the shelf and slope are found to be larger than displacements in deeper waters where tidal currents are negligible. We apply this result in a parameterization of the lateral dispersion during an off-line drifter modeling study. The outcome is an improvement on the modeling of Lagrangian drifting particles compared with a standard random walk scheme.
Additional Information
© 2011 by the American Geophysical Union. Received 28 January 2011; revised 17 August 2011; accepted 19 August 2011; published 17 November 2011. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Peter Niiler, who generously provided drifters for this project, and also in recognition of his many contributions. We thank the officers, scientists and crew of the RRS James Clark Ross, cruise JR158, for contributing to the success of the ADELIE project. We also wish to acknowledge the work of three anonymous reviewers. We thank the Royal Society for funding (grant 2006/R2) this International Joint Project between Mexico and the United Kingdom, the NERC Antarctic Funding Initiative for funding the ADELIE project (grant NE/C50633X/1), the Oceanology Division of CICESE and CICESE Unidad La Paz. A.T. is a SNI grant holder. A.H.H.R. was funded by EU Marie Curie Early Stage Training Fellowship in Antarctic Air-Sea-Ice Science by the European Commission Marie Curie Actions at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey (contract MEST-CT-2004-514159). A.F.T. was supported by a NERC grant (NE/E013171/1). We used the Tide Model Driver Matlab toolbox from Earth & Space Research (ESR; http://www. esr.org/ptm_index.html). HYCOM simulations were performed as part of the Office of Naval Research project Eddy Resolving Global Ocean Prediction Including Tides using challenge and nonchallenge times from the U.S. Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Office on Cray XT5 and IBM P6 computers at the Navy DOD Supercomputing Resource Center, Stennis Space Center.Attached Files
Published - Trasvina2011p16510J_Geophys_Res-Oceans.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 28508
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20111219-085044692
- 2006/R2
- Royal Society
- NE/C50633X/1
- Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
- NE/E013171/1
- Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
- CICESE Oceanology Division
- CICESE Unidad La Paz
- SNI
- Marie Curie Fellowship
- European Commission
- University of East Anglia
- MEST-CT-2004-514159
- British Antarctic Survey
- Created
-
2011-12-19Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences