Quantifying Boundary Transports in the Arabian Sea

Abstract

The effort will focus on merging high-­?resolution XBT transects with Argo float profiles and trajectories, and altimetric data sets to characterize the spatial and temporal variability of the circulation in the northern Arabian Sea. The scientific goal of the proposed effort is to (1) Obtain estimates and their errors of the upper ocean volume transport in the WBC system of the Arabian Sea on seasonal to interannual time scales; and (2) Identify the main forcing mechanisms that control the transport variability of the Somali Current and the exchange and partitioning between the contiguous current systems. We will investigate how much of the Somali Current system variability can be attributed to locally generated forcing (for example, from wind stress curl) versus remotely generated forcing (for example, from propagation and reflection of planetary waves). Ultimately, this will enable a better representation and prediction in numerical and theoretical models of the structure and evolution of the circulation in this region, including the time-­?dependent variability.

Document Details

Document Type
DoD Grant Award
Publication Date
Aug 12, 2016
Source ID
N000141512313

Entities

People

  • Janet Sprintall

Organizations

  • Office of Naval Research
  • United States Navy
  • University of California, San Diego

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Coastal Oceanography
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Oceanography.