Identification

Title

Global impacts of subseasonal (<60Â Day) wind variability on ocean Surface Stress, Buoyancy Flux, and Mixed Layer Depth

Abstract

Subseasonal surface wind variability strongly impacts the annual mean and subseasonal turbulent atmospheric surface fluxes. However, the impacts of subseasonal wind variability on the ocean are not fully understood. Here, we quantify the sensitivity of the ocean surface stress (), buoyancy flux (B), and mixed layer depth (MLD) to subseasonal wind variability in both a one-dimensional (1-D) vertical column model and a three-dimensional (3-D) global mesoscale-resolving ocean/sea ice model. The winds are smoothed by time filtering the pseudo-stresses, so the mean stress is approximately unchanged, and some important surface flux feedbacks are retained. The 1-D results quantify the sensitivities to wind variability at different time scales from 120 days to 1 day at a few sites. The 3-D results quantify the sensitivities to wind variability shorter than 60 days at all locations, and comparisons between 1-D and 3-D results highlight the importance of 3-D ocean dynamics. Globally, subseasonal winds explain virtually all of subseasonal variance, about half of subseasonal B variance but only a quarter of subseasonal MLD variance. Subseasonal winds also explain about a fifth of the annual mean MLD and a similar and spatially correlated fraction of the mean friction velocity, u*=|tau|/rho sw where rho(sw) is the density of seawater. Hence, the subseasonal MLD variance is relatively insensitive to subseasonal winds despite their strong impact on local B and variability, but the mean MLD is relatively sensitive to subseasonal winds to the extent that they modify the mean u(*), and both of these sensitivities are modified by 3-D ocean dynamics.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sq93ks

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-12-11T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact