HR: 14:55h
AN: OS23B-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Statistical Analysis of Wave and Vorticity Fronts Observed in Altimeter and Ocean (ECCO) Model Data
AU: Glazman, R
EM: reg@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 300-323, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: * Piryatinska, A
EM: alpiryat@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mail Stop 300-323, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AB: A new statistical approach to analyzing large-scale oceanic motions in the absence of statistical spatial homogeneity in the meridional direction is developed and illustrated using a 12-year series of satellite altimeter observations in the Tropical Pacific between 20°S and 20°N. These results are then compared with similar results derived from ECCO-model data products. Our special treatment of meridional variations permits quantitative characterization of latitudinally alternating, zonally elongated features of the sea surface height (SSH) field. These features are due primarily to baroclinic quasi-geostrophic motions such as highly irregular Rossby waves forming a background of soliton turbulence. Their wavefronts are analyzed for the first time. To this end, we use the phase shift information derived through a cross-spectral analysis of SSH variations along pairs of neighboring latitudes (0.5 to 1 deg apart). Spectral and cross-spectral properties are estimated separately for several relatively narrow bands of timescales (from semi- to multi-annual) which are clearly distinguishable in the frequency spectra of both westward and eastward motions. Of particular interest are our intercomparisons of altimeter- and model-based spectral composition of equatorial dynamics, of the position of vorticity fronts (which is a by-product of the present analysis), and of the parameters of equatorial solitons.
DE: 4231 Equatorial oceanography
DE: 4275 Remote sensing and electromagnetic processes (0689, 2487, 3285, 4455, 6934)
DE: 4528 Fronts and jets
DE: 4554 Planetary waves
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005