HR: 16:20h
AN: OS54A-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Diagnostic Studies of Mesoscale Variability in the Florida Current at the Downstream Boundary of the Intra-Americas Sea (IAS)
AU: * Mooers, C N
EM: cmooers@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: OPEL/AMP/RSMAS/University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149- 1098, United States
AU: Bang, I
EM: ibang@rsmas.miami.edu
AF: OPEL/AMP/RSMAS/University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149- 1098, United States
AB: Most of the throughflow of the Intra-Americas Sea (IAS) passes through the Straits of Florida as the Florida Current. The Florida Current forms an intense jet and frontal system along the shelfbreak of the East Florida Shelf. It exhibits extrinsic variability associated with tides, synoptic weather systems, and seasonal and longer- term variations of atmospheric forcing and oceanic general circulation. The Florida Current also exhibits intrinsic variability associated with dynamical instabilities resulting in the formation of the well-known cyclonic Florida Current frontal eddies (FCFEs), their less well-known anticyclonic counterparts, and meanders on time scales similar to those of the synoptic atmospheric forcing. Here, the results of a limited-area, two-year numerical simulation using the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) [with mesoscale-admitting resolution; realistic bottom topography for the Straits of Florida; and realistic tidal, atmospheric, and open boundary forcing] are used for diagnostic studies of the aforementioned Florida Current variability. The simulations are validated against various types of observations and then used to examine processes beyond the scope and grasp of available observations. For example, powerful downwelling events occur along the East Florida Shelf (and upwelling events along the Bahamas) as the consequence of the passage of wintertime cold fronts which available observations can only partially characterize, while the simulations provide a much more comprehensive view of the associated countercurrent flows and related phenomena. Overall, a scientific strategy of diagnostic analyses based on numerical simulations is illustrated that should prove useful in improving the understanding of how other elements of the Gulf Stream System interact with the continental shelf and slope regions of the IAS.
UR: http:efsis.rsmas.miami.edu
DE: 4219 Continental shelf and slope processes (3002)
DE: 4255 Numerical modeling (0545, 0560)
DE: 4520 Eddies and mesoscale processes
DE: 4528 Fronts and jets
DE: 4576 Western boundary currents
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly