AI33A:
Advances in Understanding Ocean Eddies and Their Interactions with the Atmosphere I


Session ID#: 36681

Session Description:
The ocean, like the atmosphere, is a fundamentally turbulent system. As such, intense nonlinear interactions give rise to fine-scale structures, such as eddies, fronts, jets and filaments, that are of critical importance for the ocean circulation. These features are ubiquitous, and they have been recognized as key contributors to ocean transport of properties. Their energy generally exceeds that of the mean flow by an order of magnitude or more. Mounting evidence points to intense interactions, especially in the extratropics, between the atmosphere and the ocean on the scales of ocean eddies, which are much smaller than atmospheric synoptic scales. These interactions can have an important impact on the entire troposphere, affecting the positions of jet streams and their low-frequency variability, and they are likely a key-missing element in closing the budget of Earth’s energy imbalance. Theoretical understanding of eddy dynamics, especially in terms of air-sea interactions, however, remains incomplete. This represents an acute weakness in our present understanding of coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics and its role in shaping variability and change of Earth’s climate.

We encourage submissions of abstracts describing new research findings, from observations and numerical modeling, on ocean mesoscale eddies, including their interactions with and feedbacks from the atmosphere.

Primary Chair:  Sabrina Speich, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, Paris, France
Co-chairs:  Walter A Robinson, North Carolina State University Raleigh, Raleigh, NC, United States, Enrique Curchitser, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Environmental Sciences, New Brunswick, NJ, United States and Xiaopei Lin, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
Moderators:  Stephen Matthew Griffies, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States and Alexandre Stegner, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Palaiseau, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau Cedex, France
Student Paper Review Liaison:  Brian K Arbic, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Index Terms:

4504 Air/sea interactions [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4520 Eddies and mesoscale processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4572 Upper ocean and mixed layer processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Cross-Topics:
  • OM - Ocean Modeling
  • PL - Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger
  • PS - Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Smaller

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Constraining Mesoscale Fluxes Using Satellite Observations (318437)
Brodie Pearson1, Baylor Fox-Kemper1 and Peter Cornillon2, (1)Brown University, Providence, RI, United States, (2)University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett, RI, United States
Mesoscale eddies modulate meridional heat flux variability in the subpolar North Atlantic (320750)
Jian Zhao1, Amy S Bower2, Jiayan Yang3, Xiaopei Lin4 and Chun Zhou4, (1)Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States, (2)WHOI, Woods Hole, MA, United States, (3)Quissett Campus, Woods Hole, MA, United States, (4)Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
Estimate of Agulhas Rings heat and salt fluxes by satellite altimetry and Argo profiling float data (305411)
Rémi Laxenaire, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, UMR 8539 (CNRS/INSU, ENS & Ecole Polytechnique), Paris, France, Sabrina Speich, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, Paris, France and Alexandre Stegner, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Palaiseau, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau Cedex, France
Enhanced eddy-induced ocean-to-atmosphere turbulent heat transfers in the global western boundary current regions (307145)
Xiaopei Lin, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China, Yanan Zhu, Ocean University of China, Physical Oceanography Lab, Qingdao, China and Bo Qiu, Univ Hawaii Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States
Atmospheric secondary circulation response to ocean eddy in the winter Kuroshio Extension region (310130)
Qinyu Liu, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
Redi at the start: a modest shift in perspective toward eddy parameterization (326830)
K. Shafer Smith, New York University, New York, NY, United States

See more of: Air-Sea Interactions