Renault L., Dewitte Boris, Marchesiello Patrick, Illig Serena, Echevin Vincent, Cambon Gildas, Ramos M., Astudillo O., Minnis P., Ayers J.K. (2012). Upwelling response to atmospheric coastal jets off central Chile : a modeling study of the October 2000 event. Journal of Geophysical Research. Oceans, 117, p. C02030. ISSN 0148-0227.
Titre du document
Upwelling response to atmospheric coastal jets off central Chile : a modeling study of the October 2000 event
Renault L., Dewitte Boris, Marchesiello Patrick, Illig Serena, Echevin Vincent, Cambon Gildas, Ramos M., Astudillo O., Minnis P., Ayers J.K.
Source
Journal of Geophysical Research. Oceans, 2012,
117, p. C02030 ISSN 0148-0227
The spatial and temporal variability of nearshore winds in eastern boundary current systems affect the oceanic heat balance that drives sea surface temperature changes. In this study, regional atmospheric and oceanic simulations are used to document such processes during an atmospheric coastal jet event off central Chile. The event is well reproduced by the atmospheric model and is associated with the migration of an anomalous anticyclone in the southeastern Pacific region during October 2000. A robust feature of the simulation is a sharp coastal wind dropoff, which is insensitive to model resolution. As expected, the simulated oceanic response is a significant sea surface cooling. A surface heat budget analysis shows that vertical mixing is a major contributor to the cooling tendency both in the jet core area and in the nearshore zone where the magnitude of this term is comparable to the magnitude of vertical advection. Sensitivity experiments show that the oceanic response in the coastal area is sensitive to wind dropoff representation. This is because total upwelling, i.e., the sum of coastal upwelling and Ekman pumping, depends on the scale of wind dropoff. Because the latter is much larger than the upwelling scale, coastal wind dropoff has only a weak positive effect on vertical velocities driven by Ekman pumping but has a strong negative effect on coastal upwelling. Interestingly though, the weakening of coastal winds in the dropoff zone has a larger effect on vertical mixing than on vertical advection, with both effects contributing to a reduction of cooling.
