Low ocean-floor rises regulate subpolar sea surface temperature by forming baroclinic jets

H. Mitsudera (), T. Miyama, H. Nishigaki, T. Nakanowatari, H. Nishikawa, T. Nakamura, T. Wagawa, R. Furue, Y. Fujii and S. Ito
Additional contact information
H. Mitsudera: Hokkaido University
T. Miyama: Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
H. Nishigaki: Oita Univeristy
T. Nakanowatari: National Institute of Polar Research
H. Nishikawa: Hokkaido University
T. Nakamura: Hokkaido University
T. Wagawa: Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency
R. Furue: Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Y. Fujii: Japan Meteorological Agency
S. Ito: The University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Sea surface temperature (SST) fronts in mid- to high-latitude oceans have significant impacts on extratropical atmospheric circulations and climate. In the western subarctic Pacific, sharp SST fronts form between the cold subarctic water and the recently found quasi-stationary jets that advect warm waters originating in the Kuroshio northeastward. Here we present a new mechanism of the jet formation paying attention to the propagation of baroclinic Rossby waves that is deflected by eddy-driven barotropic flows over bottom rises, although their height is low (~500 m) compared with the depth of the North Pacific Ocean (~6000 m). Steered by the barotropic flows, Rossby waves bring a thicker upper layer from the subtropical gyre and a thinner upper layer from the subarctic gyre, thereby creating a thickness jump, hence a surface jet, where they converge. This study reveals an overlooked role of low-rise bottom topography in regulating SST anomalies in subpolar oceans.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03526-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-03526-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03526-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().