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    Frontal subduction of the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf water at the onshore edge of a warm-core ring

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    Article (5.261Mb)
    Date
    2018-10-15
    Author
    Zhang, Weifeng G.  Concept link
    Partida, Jacob  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/23614
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JC013794
    DOI
    10.1029/2018JC013794
    Keyword
     Frontal subduction; Warm‐core ring; Mid‐Atlantic Bight; Shelf‐water streamer; Cross‐shelf exchange; OOI Pioneer Array 
    Abstract
    This work studies the subduction of the shelf water along the onshore edge of a warm‐core ring that impinges on the edge of the Mid‐Atlantic Bight continental shelf. The dynamical analysis is based on observations by satellites and from the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array observatory as well as idealized numerical model simulations. They together show that frontogenesis‐induced submesoscale frontal subduction with order‐one Rossby and Froude numbers occurs on the onshore edge of the ring. The subduction flow results from the onshore migration of the warm‐core ring that intensifies the density front on the interface of the ring and shelf waters. The subduction is a part of the cross‐front secondary circulation trying to relax the intensifying density front. The dramatically different physical and biogeochemical properties of the ring and shelf waters provide a great opportunity to visualize the subduction phenomenon. Entrained by the ring‐edge current, the subducted shelf water is subsequently transported offshore below a surface layer of ring water and alongside of the surface‐visible shelf‐water streamer. It explains the historical observations of isolated subsurface packets of shelf water along the ring periphery in the slope sea. Model‐based estimate suggests that this type of subduction‐associated subsurface cross‐shelfbreak transport of the shelf water could be substantial relative to other major forms of shelfbreak water exchange. This study also proposes that outward spreading of the ring‐edge front by the frontal subduction may facilitate entrainment of the shelf water by the ring‐edge current and enhances the shelf‐water streamer transport at the shelf edge.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans, 123(11), (2018): 7795-7818. doi: 10.1029/2018JC013794.
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    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    Suggested Citation
    Zhang, W. G., & Partida, J. (2018). Frontal subduction of the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf water at the onshore edge of a warm-core ring. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 123(11), 7795–7818.
     

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