THE IMPACT OF INTERNAL WAVE AND SUBMESOSCALE VARIABILITY ON DIURNAL CYCLING AND AIR-SEA INTERACTIONS
Abstract
The diurnal variability in sea surface temperature (SST) in the low latitude ocean influences intraseasonal variability in the atmosphere. The accurate representation of such atmospheric variability ~e.g. the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) or the Monsoon Intrase"asonal Oscillation (MISO)~ is a major challenge for coupled ocean-atmosphere models, but critical for effective forecasting and thus" relevant to Naval operational concerns. Diurnal variability in SST depends both on local surface forcing as well as the character o"f upper ocean variability, which is often influenced by non-local dynamics. Here I propose to use a unique, globally distributed set"" of observations of the surface ocean to investigate diurnal cycling in the surface ocean. This dataset, gathered by the Wirewalker"" wave-powered profiling vehicle over the course of a number of ONR Departmental Research Initiatives, NSF experiments, and coastal d""eployments, iscomposed of rapid profiling of temperature, salinity, optical characteristics, turbulentmicrostructure, and velocity"", and is particularly well-suited for the investigation of diurnalcycling. These data, once assembled and quality controlled, will"" be analyzed with the aim of diagnosing the influence of internal waves (particularly near inertial internal wave shear), submesosca""le lateral variability, and barrier layer-type stratification on the evolution of diurnal sea-surface temperature. The data will be"" used to constrain a variety of 1-D mixed layer models, and test the potential of various parameterizations of non-local influence o"n the diurnal cycle. The aim is to develop an improved representation of SST in difficult to model~but critical to accurately represent~regions of the equatorial Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. Efforts to this end will be augmented by a proposed SIO graduate student. I expect his or her participation in this project will comprise the bulk of their PhD dissertation. The unique nature of the obs"ervations that have been collected, my technical and research expertise, and the timely natureof this research assures a major impa""ct from the proposed effort. This proposal will improve parameterizations of diurnal cycling in coupled ocean-atmosphere models, a k""nown deficiency, which should lead to significantly more skillful forecasts of intraseasonal oscillations. An improvement in forecas""ts of this variability is directly relevant to Naval operations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 29, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712987
Entities
People
- Andrew J. Lucas
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of California, San Diego