HR: 14:10h
AN: OS33D-03 [Abstracts]
TI: Northwest Australian Shelf Dynamics Experiment: Evaporative Dense Water Formation over the
Inner-Shelf
AU: * Shearman, R
EM: shearman@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Oregon State Unversity, College of Oceanic & Atmospheric Sciences, 104 COAS Admin Bldg, Corvallis, OR
97331
United States
AU: * Shearman, R
EM: shearman@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography Department, MS #21, Woods Hole, MA 02543
United States
AU: Brink, K H
EM: kbrink@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography Department, MS #21, Woods Hole, MA 02543
United States
AU: Bahr, F
EM: fbahr@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography Department, MS #21, Woods Hole, MA 02543
United States
AB:
During the June-July 2003 Northwest Australian Shelf Dynamics Experiment, several high-resolution along- and cross-shelf
sections of temperature, salinity, and currents were collected over the inner-shelf (20-50 m water depth), using a towed
undulating instrument platform (MiniBat) and shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP). Additional ship-based
sensors observed air temperature, sea surface temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, downward long and short wave
radiation, and wind speed and direction - from these observations surface heat and freshwater fluxes were estimated. The
inner-shelf is characterized by increasingly cool, salty and dense waters onshore, and a strong front is present near the 25
m isobath. Vertically, inner-shelf waters are characterized by a dramatic two-layer system; a well-mixed surface layer that
shares characteristics with the offshore surface mixed layer and a cool, salty bottom layer that extends from the inner-shelf
front, across the shelf, and detaches along the main thermocline at the shelf break. Analysis of the ship-based
meteorological measurements reveal a large latent heat flux out of the ocean that overwhelms insolation and maintains the
well-mixed surface layer and the cross-shelf structure (increasingly cool, salty and dense water onshore).
DE: 4219 Continental shelf processes
DE: 4504 Air/sea interactions (0312)
DE: 4516 Eastern boundary currents
DE: 4528 Fronts and jets
DE: 4572 Upper ocean processes
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting