How the Source Depth of Coastal Upwelling Relates to Stratification and Wind
Name
JGR Oceans - 2021 - He - How the Source Depth of Coastal Upwelling Relates to Stratification and Wind.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.67 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
71758a6c0a58513fa5277a2d40ee050b
Author(s)
He, Jing
Mahadevan, Amala
Date Issued
November 29, 2021
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
He, J., & Mahadevan, A. (2021). How the source depth of coastal upwelling relates to stratification and wind. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126, e2021JC017621.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Wind-driven coastal upwelling is an important process that transports nutrients from the deep ocean to the surface, fueling biological productivity. To better understand what affects the upward transportof nutrients (and many other properties such as temperature, salinity, oxygen, and carbon), it is necessary to know the depth of source waters (i.e., “source depth”) or the density of source waters (“source density”).Here, we focus on the upwelling driven by offshore Ekman transport and present a scaling relation for the source depth and density by considering a balance between the wind-driven upwelling and eddy-driven restratification processes. The scaling suggests that the source depth varies as (τ/N) 1/2, while the source density goes as (τ1/2N3/2 ), where τ is the wind stress and N is the stratification. We test these relations using numerical simulations of an idealized coastal upwelling front with varying constant wind forcing and initial stratification, and we find good agreement between the theory and numerical experiments. This work highlights the importance of considering stratification in wind-driven upwelling dynamics, especially when thinking about how nutrient transport and primary production of coastal upwelling regions might change with increased ocean warming and stratification.
MIT Department
Joint Program in Oceanography
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021jc017621
