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    Effect of sea surface temperature-wind stress coupling on baroclinic instability in the ocean

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    jpo3045%2E1.pdf (251.4Kb)
    Date
    2007-04
    Author
    Spall, Michael A.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/4146
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO3045.1
    DOI
    10.1175/JPO3045.1
    Keyword
     Wind stress; Instability; Sea surface temperature; Baroclinic flows; Ocean dynamics 
    Abstract
    The impact of the observed relationship between sea surface temperature and surface wind stress on baroclinic instability in the ocean is explored using linear theory and a nonlinear model. A simple parameterization of the influence of sea surface temperature on wind stress is used to derive a surface boundary condition for the vertical velocity at the base of the oceanic Ekman layer. This boundary condition is applied to the classic linear, quasigeostrophic stability problem for a uniformly sheared flow originally studied by Eady in the 1940s. The results demonstrate that for a wind directed from warm water toward cold water, the coupling acts to enhance the growth rate, and increase the wavelength, of the most unstable wave. Winds in the opposite sense reduce the growth rate and decrease the wavelength of the most unstable wave. For representative coupling strengths, the change in growth rate can be as large as ±O(50%). This effect is largest for shallow, strongly stratified, low-latitude flows.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. 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 37 (2007): 1092–1097, doi:10.1175/JPO3045.1.
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    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1092-1097
     

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