• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Anisotropic material transport by eddies and eddy-driven currents in a model of the North Atlantic

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    2009jpo4239%2E1.pdf (3.576Mb)
    Date
    2009-12
    Author
    Kamenkovich, Igor V.  Concept link
    Berloff, Pavel S.  Concept link
    Pedlosky, Joseph  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/3991
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JPO4239.1
    DOI
    10.1175/2009JPO4239.1
    Keyword
     Eddies; Transport; Currents; North Atlantic Ocean 
    Abstract
    This study analyzes anisotropic properties of the material transport by eddies and eddy-driven zonal jets in a general circulation model of the North Atlantic through the analysis of Lagrangian particle trajectories. Spreading rates—defined here as half the rate of change in the particle dispersion—in the zonal direction systematically exceed the meridional rates by an order of magnitude. Area-averaged values for the upper-ocean zonal and meridional spreading rates are approximately 8100 and 1400 m2 s−1, respectively, and in the deep ocean they are 2400 and 200 m2 s−1. The results demonstrate that this anisotropy is mainly due to the action of the transient eddies and not to the shear dispersion associated with the time-mean jets. This property is consistent with the fact that eddies in this study have zonally elongated shapes. With the exception of the upper-ocean subpolar gyre, eddies also cause the superdiffusive zonal spreading, significant variations in the spreading rate in the vertical and meridional directions, and the difference between the westward and eastward spreading.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 3162-3175, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4239.1.
    Collections
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Article: Kamenkovich, Igor V., Berloff, Pavel S., Pedlosky, Joseph, "Anisotropic material transport by eddies and eddy-driven currents in a model of the North Atlantic", Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 3162-3175, DOI:10.1175/2009JPO4239.1, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/3991
     

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      Near-surface transport pathways in the north Atlantic Ocean : looking for throughput from the subtropical to the subpolar gyre 

      Rypina, Irina I.; Pratt, Lawrence J.; Lozier, M. Susan (American Meteorological Society, 2011-05)
      Motivated by discrepancies between Eulerian transport estimates and the behavior of Lagrangian surface drifters, near-surface transport pathways and processes in the North Atlantic are studied using a combination of data, ...
    • Thumbnail

      The western North Atlantic shelfbreak current system in summer 

      Fratantoni, Paula S.; Pickart, Robert S. (American Meteorological Society, 2007-10)
      Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990–2001, are analyzed to examine the along-stream evolution of the western North Atlantic Ocean shelfbreak front and current, following its path between ...
    • Thumbnail

      Freshwater export from the Labrador Current to the North Atlantic Current at the Tail of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland 

      Fratantoni, Paula S.; McCartney, Michael S. (2009-11)
      Historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1896-2006, are used to examine the annual mean and seasonal variations in the distribution of freshwater along and across the shelf/slope boundary along the Labrador and ...
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy