Lentz
Steven J.
Lentz
Steven J.
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ArticleThe summer heat balance of the Oregon inner shelf over two decades: mean and interannual variability(American Geophysical Union, 2020-01-24) Lemagie, Emily ; Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J.Summer temperature and velocity measurements from 14 years in 15 m of water over the inner shelf off Oregon were used to investigate interannual temperature variability and the capacity of the across‐shelf heat flux to buffer net surface warming. There was no observable trend in summer mean temperatures, and the standard deviation of interannual variability (0.5°C) was less than the standard deviation in daily temperatures each summer (1.6°C, on average). Yet net surface heat flux provided a nearly constant source of heat each year, with a standard deviation less than 15 urn:x-wiley:jgrc:media:jgrc23812:jgrc23812-math-0001 of the interannual mean. The summer mean across‐shelf upwelling circulation advected warmer water offshore near the surface, cooling the inner shelf and buffering the surface warming. In most years (11 out of 14), this two‐dimensional heat budget roughly closed with a residual less than 20 urn:x-wiley:jgrc:media:jgrc23812:jgrc23812-math-0002 of the leading term. Even in years when the heat budget did not balance, the observed temperature change was negligible, indicating that an additional source of cooling was needed to close the budget. A comparison of the residual to the interannual variability in fields such as along‐shelf wind stress, stratification, and along‐shelf currents found no significant correlation, and further investigation into the intraseasonal dynamics is recommended to explain the results. An improved understanding of the processes that contribute to warming or cooling of the coastal ocean has the potential to improve predictions of the impact of year‐to‐year changes in local winds and circulation, such as from marine heat waves or climate change, on coastal temperatures.
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ArticleThe importance of lateral variability on exchange across the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, MA(John Wiley & Sons, 2017-03-24) Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J.This study examines the spatial variability of transport within the inner-shelf south of Martha's Vineyard Massachusetts, its time and space dependence, and its importance to the total volume exchanged between the nearshore and the coastal ocean. The exchange of water across the inner shelf is often considered to be driven primarily by wind forcing, yet the effects of small-scale O(1–10 km) variability on the total exchange have not been well quantified. Using a combination of high-resolution HF radar-based surface currents and a dense array of moorings to document the lateral variability of across-shelf exchange, the cumulative wind-driven across-shelf transport over the summer stratified period was less than the volume of the inner-shelf onshore of the 25 m isobath. Along-shelf variations in the wind-driven exchange were as large as the spatial mean of the wind-driven exchange. A spatially varying time-averaged circulation caused by tidal rectification resulted in across-shelf exchange larger in magnitude than, and independent of, the integrated wind-forced exchange. Coherent submesoscale eddies also occurred frequently within the domain due to flow-topography effects onshore and horizontal density gradients offshore, generally with lifespans shorter than 10 h, diameters smaller than 6 km, and vertical depths shallower than 10 m. The across-shelf volume transport due to eddies, estimated by seeding particles within the surface current fields, was more than half the wind-driven depth-dependent exchange. Thus, accounting for the potential coherent along-shelf variability present over the inner shelf can significantly increase estimates of the across-shelf transfer of water masses and particles.
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ArticleInvestigating the eddy diffusivity concept in the coastal ocean(American Meteorological Society, 2016-06-29) Rypina, Irina I. ; Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J. ; Sundermeyer, Miles A.This paper aims to test the validity, utility, and limitations of the lateral eddy diffusivity concept in a coastal environment through analyzing data from coupled drifter and dye releases within the footprint of a high-resolution (800 m) high-frequency radar south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Specifically, this study investigates how well a combination of radar-based velocities and drifter-derived diffusivities can reproduce observed dye spreading over an 8-h time interval. A drifter-based estimate of an anisotropic diffusivity tensor is used to parameterize small-scale motions that are unresolved and underresolved by the radar system. This leads to a significant improvement in the ability of the radar to reproduce the observed dye spreading.
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ArticleA note on the depth of sidelobe contamination in acoustic doppler current profiles(American Meteorological Society, 2022-01-01) Lentz, Steven J. ; Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Plueddemann, Albert J.Acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) do not provide reliable water velocity measurements near the sea surface or bottom because acoustic sidelobe reflections from the boundary contaminate the Doppler velocity measurements. The apparent depth of the center of the sidelobe reflection is zsl = ha[1 − cos(θ)], where ha is the distance from the ADCP acoustic head to the sea surface and θ is the ADCP beam angle. However, sidelobe contamination extends one and a half ADCP bins below zsl as the range gating of the acoustic return causes overlap between adjacent ADCP bins. Consequently, the contaminated region z < zsl + 3Δz/2 is deeper than traditionally suggested, with a dependence on bin size Δz. Direct observations confirming both the center depth of the sidelobe reflection and the depth of contamination are presented for six bottom-mounted, upward-looking ADCPs. The sidelobe reflection is isolated by considering periods of weak wind stresses when the sea surface is smooth and there is nearly perfect reflection of the main beams away from the ADCP and hence little acoustic return from the main beams to the ADCP.
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DatasetInner shelf lateral exchange(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Department of Physical Oceanography, 2017-02-23) Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J.HF radar surface currents data was collected by Kirincich as part of ongoing studies examining the spatial variability of the mechanisms and process that lead to the exchange of water masses across the inner part of the continental shelf. The data consists of estimates of the near-surface horizontal (East and North) ocean currents made via High Frequency (HF) radar-based remote sensing of the ocean backscatter spectrum. The dataset spans an 18-month period from February 2011 to August 2012. The effective measurement depth of the WHOI HF radars is 0.5 m below the ocean surface.
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ArticleComplex mean circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard revealed by observations and a high-resolution model(American Geophysical Union, 2011-10-29) Ganju, Neil K. ; Lentz, Steven J. ; Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Farrar, J. ThomasInner-shelf circulation is governed by the interaction between tides, baroclinic forcing, winds, waves, and frictional losses; the mean circulation ultimately governs exchange between the coast and ocean. In some cases, oscillatory tidal currents interact with bathymetric features to generate a tidally rectified flow. Recent observational and modeling efforts in an overlapping domain centered on the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO) provided an opportunity to investigate the spatial and temporal complexity of circulation on the inner shelf. ADCP and surface radar observations revealed a mean circulation pattern that was highly variable in the alongshore and cross-shore directions. Nested modeling incrementally improved representation of the mean circulation as grid resolution increased and indicated tidal rectification as the generation mechanism of a counter-clockwise gyre near the MVCO. The loss of model skill with decreasing resolution is attributed to insufficient representation of the bathymetric gradients (Δh/h), which is important for representing nonlinear interactions between currents and bathymetry. The modeled momentum balance was characterized by large spatial variability of the pressure gradient and horizontal advection terms over short distances, suggesting that observed inner-shelf momentum balances may be confounded. Given the available observational and modeling data, this work defines the spatially variable mean circulation and its formation mechanism—tidal rectification—and illustrates the importance of model resolution for resolving circulation and constituent exchange near the coast. The results of this study have implications for future observational and modeling studies near the MVCO and other inner-shelf locations with alongshore bathymetric variability.
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ArticleThe spatial structure of tidal and mean circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts(American Meteorological Society, 2013-09) Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J. ; Farrar, J. Thomas ; Ganju, Neil K.The spatial structure of the tidal and background circulation over the inner shelf south of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, was investigated using observations from a high-resolution, high-frequency coastal radar system, paired with satellite SSTs and in situ ADCP velocities. Maximum tidal velocities for the dominant semidiurnal constituent increased from 5 to 35 cm s−1 over the 20-km-wide domain with phase variations up to 60°. A northeastward jet along the eastern edge and a recirculation region inshore dominated the annually averaged surface currents, along with a separate along-shelf jet offshore. Owing in part to this variable circulation, the spatial structure of seasonal SST anomalies had implications for the local heat balance. Cooling owing to the advective heat flux divergence was large enough to offset more than half of the seasonal heat gain owing to surface heat flux. Tidal stresses were the largest terms in the mean along- and across-shelf momentum equations in the area of the recirculation, with residual wind stress and the Coriolis term dominating to the west and south, respectively. The recirculation was strongest in summer, with mean winds and tidal stresses accounting for much of the differences between summer and winter mean circulation. Despite the complex bathymetry and short along-shelf spatial scales, a simple model of tidal rectification was able to recreate the features of the northeastward jet and match an estimate of the across-shelf structure of sea surface height inferred from the residual of the momentum analysis.
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ArticleWave-driven inner-shelf motions on the Oregon coast(American Meteorological Society, 2009-11) Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J. ; Barth, John A.Recent work by S. Lentz et al. documents offshore transport in the inner shelf due to a wave-driven return flow associated with the Hasselmann wave stress (the Stokes–Coriolis force). This analysis is extended using observations from the central Oregon coast to identify the wave-driven return flow present and quantify the potential bias of wind-driven across-shelf exchange by unresolved wave-driven circulation. Using acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements at six stations, each in water depths of 13–15 m, observed depth-averaged, across-shelf velocities were generally correlated with theoretical estimates of the proposed return flow. During times of minimal wind forcing, across-shelf velocity profiles were vertically sheared, with stronger velocities near the top of the measured portion of the water column, and increased in magnitude with increasing significant wave height, consistent with circulation due to the Hasselmann wave stress. Yet velocity magnitudes and vertical shears were stronger than that predicted by linear wave theory, and more similar to the stratified “summer” velocity profiles described by S. Lentz et al. Additionally, substantial temporal and spatial variability of the wave-driven return flow was found, potentially due to changing wind and wave conditions as well as local bathymetric variability. Despite the wave-driven circulation found, subtracting estimates of the return flow from the observed across-shelf velocity had no significant effect on estimates of the across-shelf exchange due to along-shelf wind forcing at these water depths along the Oregon coast during summer.
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ArticleCalculating Reynolds stresses from ADCP measurements in the presence of surface gravity waves using the cospectra-fit method(American Meteorological Society, 2010-05) Kirincich, Anthony R. ; Lentz, Steven J. ; Gerbi, Gregory P.Recently, the velocity observations of acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) have been successfully used to estimate turbulent Reynolds stresses in estuaries and tidal channels. However, the presence of surface gravity waves can significantly bias stress estimates, limiting application of the technique in the coastal ocean. This work describes a new approach to estimate Reynolds stresses from ADCP velocities obtained in the presence of waves. The method fits an established semiempirical model of boundary layer turbulence to the measured turbulent cospectra at frequencies below those of surface gravity waves to estimate the stress. Applied to ADCP observations made in weakly stratified waters and variable significant wave heights, estimated near-bottom and near-surface stresses using this method compared well with independent estimates of the boundary stresses in contrast to previous methods. Additionally, the vertical structure of tidal stress estimated using the new approach matched that inferred from a linear momentum balance at stress levels below the estimated stress uncertainties. Because the method makes an estimate of the horizontal turbulent length scales present as part of the model fit, these results can also enable a direct correction for the mean bias errors resulting from instrument tilt, if these scales are long relative to the beam separation.