Shropshire, T., Morey, S. L., Chassignet, E. P., Bozec, A., Coles, V. J., Landry, M. R., et al. (2019). Quantifying spatiotemporal variability in zooplankton dynamics in the Gulf of Mexico with a physical-biogeochemical model.
Abstract: Zooplankton play an important role in global biogeochemistry and their secondary production supports valuable fisheries of the world's oceans. Currently, zooplankton abundances cannot be estimated using remote sensing techniques. Hence, coupled physical-biogeochemical models (PBMs) provide an important tool for studying zooplankton on regional and global scales. However, evaluating the accuracy of zooplankton abundance estimates from PBMs has been a major challenge as a result of sparse observations. In this study, we configure a PBM for the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) from 1993�2012 and validate the model against an extensive combination of in situ biomass and rate measurements including total mesozooplankton biomass, size-fractionated mesozooplankton biomass and grazing rates, microzooplankton specific grazing rates, surface chlorophyll, deep chlorophyll maximum depth, phytoplankton specific growth rates, and net primary production. Spatial variability in mesozooplankton biomass climatology observed in a multi-decadal database for the northern GoM is well resolved by the model with a statistically significant (p < 0.01) correlation of 0.90. Mesozooplankton secondary production for the region averaged 66 + 8 mt C yr−1 equivalent to approximately 10 % of NPP and ranged from 51 to 82 mt C yr−1. In terms of diet, model results from the shelf regions suggest that herbivory is the dominant feeding mode for small mesozooplankton (< 1-mm) whereas larger mesozooplankton are primarily carnivorous. However, in open-ocean, oligotrophic regions, both groups of mesozooplankton have proportionally greater reliance on heterotrophic protists as a food source. This highlights the important role of microbial and protistan food webs in sustaining mesozooplankton biomass in the GoM which serves as the primary food source for early life stages of many commercially-important fish species, including tuna.
Stukel, M. R., & Barbeau, K. A. (2020). Investigating the Nutrient Landscape in a Coastal Upwelling Region and Its Relationship to the Biological Carbon Pump. Geophys. Res. Lett. , 47 (6), e2020GL087351.
Abstract: We investigated nutrient patterns and their relationship to vertical carbon export using results from 38 Lagrangian experiments in the California Current Ecosystem. The dominant mode of variability reflected onshore-offshore nutrient gradients. A secondary mode of variability was correlated with silica excess and dissolved iron and likely reflects regional patterns of iron-limitation. The biological carbon pump was enhanced in high nutrient and Fe-stressed regions. Patterns in the nutrient landscape proved to be better predictors of the vertical flux of sinking particles than contemporaneous measurements of net primary production. Our results suggest an important role for Fe-stressed diatoms in vertical carbon flux. They also suggest that either preferential recycling of N or non-Redfieldian nutrient uptake by diatoms may lead to high PO:NO and Si(OH):NO ratios, following export of P- and Si-enriched organic matter. Increased export following Fe-stress may partially explain inverse relationships between net primary productivity and export efficiency.
Sun, J., & Wu, Z. (2019). Isolating spatiotemporally local mixed Rossby-gravity waves using multi-dimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition. Clim Dyn , (3-4), 1383–1405.
Abstract: Tropical waves have relatively large amplitudes in and near convective systems, attenuating as they propagate away from the area where they are generated due to the dissipative nature of the atmosphere. Traditionally, nonlocal analysis methods, such as those based on the Fourier transform, are applied to identify tropical waves. However, these methods have the potential to lead to the misidentification of local wavenumbers and spatial locations of local wave activities. To address this problem, we propose a new method for analyzing tropical waves, with particular focus placed on equatorial mixed Rossby-gravity (MRG) waves. The new tropical wave analysis method is based on the multi-dimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition and a novel spectral representation based on spatiotemporally local wavenumber, frequency, and amplitude of waves. We first apply this new method to synthetic data to demonstrate the advantages of the method in revealing characteristics of MRG waves. We further apply the method to reanalysis data (1) to identify and isolate the spatiotemporally heterogeneous MRG waves event by event, and (2) to quantify the spatial inhomogeneity of these waves in a wavenumber-frequency-energy diagram. In this way, we reveal the climatology of spatiotemporal inhomogeneity of MRG waves and summarize it in wavenumber-frequency domain: The Indian Ocean is dominated by MRG waves in the period range of 8–12 days; the western Pacific Ocean consists of almost equal energy distribution of MRG waves in the period ranges of 3–6 and 8–12 days, respectively; and the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and the tropical Atlantic Ocean are dominated by MRG waves in the period range of 3–6 days. The zonal wavenumbers mostly fall within the band of 4–15, with Indian Ocean has larger portion of higher wavenumber (smaller wavelength components) MRG waves.
Vinayachandran, P. N., Davidson, F., & Chassignet, E. P. (2020). Towards joint assessments, modern capabilities and new links for ocean prediction systems. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. , 101 (4).
Abstract: Approximately 260 individuals from forecasting centers, research laboratories, academia, and industry representing 40 countries met to discuss recent developments in operational oceanography and brainstorm about the future directions of ocean prediction services.
Wang, S., Kranz, S. A., Kelly, T. B., Song, H., Stukel, M. R., & Cassar, N. (2020). Lagrangian Studies of Net Community Production: The Effect of Diel and Multiday Nonsteady State Factors and Vertical Fluxes on O2 /Ar in a Dynamic Upwelling Region. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. , 125 (6), e2019JG005569.
Abstract: The ratio of dissolved oxygen to argon in seawater is frequently employed to estimate rates of net community production (NCP) in the oceanic mixed layer. The in situ O2/Ar‐based method accounts for many physical factors that influence oxygen concentrations, permitting isolation of the biological oxygen signal produced by the balance of photosynthesis and respiration. However, this technique traditionally relies upon several assumptions when calculating the mixed‐layer O2/Ar budget, most notably the absence of vertical fluxes of O2/Ar and the principle that the air‐sea gas exchange of biological oxygen closely approximates net productivity rates. Employing a Lagrangian study design and leveraging data outputs from a regional physical oceanographic model, we conducted in situ measurements of O2/Ar in the California Current Ecosystem in spring 2016 and summer 2017 to evaluate these assumptions within a �worst‐case� field environment. Quantifying vertical fluxes, incorporating nonsteady state changes in O2/Ar, and comparing NCP estimates evaluated over several day versus longer timescales, we find differences in NCP metrics calculated over different time intervals to be considerable, also observing significant potential effects from vertical fluxes, particularly advection. Additionally, we observe strong diel variability in O2/Ar and NCP rates at multiple stations. Our results reemphasize the importance of accounting for vertical fluxes when interpreting O2/Ar‐derived NCP data and the potentially large effect of nonsteady state conditions on NCP evaluated over shorter timescales. In addition, diel cycles in surface O2/Ar can also bias interpretation of NCP data based on local productivity and the time of day when measurements were made.
Xu, X., Chassignet, E. P., Firing, Y. L., & Donohue, K. (2020). Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport through Drake Passage: What can we learn from comparing high-resolution model results to observations? J. Geophys. Res. Oceans , 125 (7).
Abstract: Uncertainty exists in the time‐mean total transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world�s strongest ocean current. The two most recent observational programs in Drake Passage, DRAKE and cDrake, yielded transports of 141 and 173.3 Sv, respectively. In this paper, we use a realistic 1/12° global ocean simulation to interpret these observational estimates and reconcile their differences. We first show that the modeled ACC transport in the upper 1000 m is in excellent agreement with repeat shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (SADCP) transects and that the exponentially decaying transport profile in the model is consistent with the profile derived from repeat hydrographic data. By further comparing the model results to the cDrake and DRAKE observations, we argue that the modeled 157.3 Sv transport, i.e. approximately the average of the cDrake and DRAKE estimates, is actually representative of the time‐mean ACC transport through the Drake Passage. The cDrake experiment overestimated the barotropic contribution in part because the array undersampled the deep recirculation southwest of the Shackleton Fracture Zone, whereas the surface geostrophic currents used in the DRAKE estimate yielded a weaker near‐surface transport than implied by the SADCP data. We also find that the modeled baroclinic and barotropic transports are not correlated, thus monitoring either baroclinic or barotropic transport alone may be insufficient to assess the temporal variability of the total ACC transport.
Yu, B., Seed, A., Pu, L., & Malone, T. (2019). Integration of weather radar data into a raster GIS framework for improved flood estimation. Atmos. Sci. Lett. , 6 (1).
Abstract: We present in this paper the interannual variability of seasonal temperature and rainfall in the Indian meteorological subdivisions (IMS) for boreal winter and summer seasons that take in to account the varying length of the seasons.Our study reveals that accounting for the variations in the length of the sea-sons produces stronger teleconnections between the seasonal anomalies of surface temperature and rainfall over India with corresponding sea surface temperature anomalies of the tropical Oceans (especially over the northern Indian and the equatorial Pacific Oceans) compared to the same teleconnections from fixed length seasons over the IMS. It should be noted that the IMS show significant spatial heterogeneity in these teleconnections
Zou, S., Bower, A., Furey, H., Susan Lozier, M., & Xu, X. (2020). Redrawing the Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water pathways in the North Atlantic. Nat Commun , 11 (1), 1890.
Abstract: Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) is a primary deep water mass exported from the Norwegian Sea into the North Atlantic as part of the global Meridional Overturning Circulation. ISOW has historically been depicted as flowing counter-clockwise in a deep boundary current around the subpolar North Atlantic, but this single-boundary-following pathway is being challenged by new Lagrangian observations and model simulations. We show here that ISOW leaves the boundary and spreads into the interior towards the central Labrador and Irminger basins after flowing through the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. We also describe a newly observed southward pathway of ISOW along the western flank of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The partitioning of these pathways is shown to be influenced by deep-reaching eddies and meanders of the North Atlantic Current. Our results, in tandem with previous studies, call for a revision in the historical depiction of ISOW pathways throughout the North Atlantic.
Zou, S., Lozier, M. S., & Xu, X. (2020). Latitudinal Structure of the Meridional Overturning Circulation Variability on Interannual to Decadal Time Scales in the North Atlantic Ocean. J. Climate , 33 (9), 3845–3862.
Abstract: The latitudinal structure of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variability in the North Atlantic is investigated using numerical results from three ocean circulation simulations over the past four to five decades. We show that AMOC variability south of the Labrador Sea (53°N) to 25°N can be decomposed into a latitudinally coherent component and a gyre-opposing component. The latitudinally coherent component contains both decadal and interannual variabilities. The coherent decadal AMOC variability originates in the subpolar region and is reflected by the zonal density gradient in that basin. It is further shown to be linked to persistent North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) conditions in all three models. The interannual AMOC variability contained in the latitudinally coherent component is shown to be driven by westerlies in the transition region between the subpolar and the subtropical gyre (40°–50°N), through significant responses in Ekman transport. Finally, the gyre-opposing component principally varies on interannual time scales and responds to local wind variability related to the annual NAO. The contribution of these components to the total AMOC variability is latitude-dependent: 1) in the subpolar region, all models show that the latitudinally coherent component dominates AMOC variability on interannual to decadal time scales, with little contribution from the gyre-opposing component, and 2) in the subtropical region, the gyre-opposing component explains a majority of the interannual AMOC variability in two models, while in the other model, the contributions from the coherent and the gyre-opposing components are comparable. These results provide a quantitative decomposition of AMOC variability across latitudes and shed light on the linkage between different AMOC variability components and atmospheric forcing mechanisms.
