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Life Sciences

University of South Florida

2007

Currents

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Ocean Currents And Sea Surface Heights Estimated Across The West Florida Shelf, Yonggang Liu, Robert H. Weisberg Jun 2007

Ocean Currents And Sea Surface Heights Estimated Across The West Florida Shelf, Yonggang Liu, Robert H. Weisberg

Marine Science Faculty Publications

The across-shelf structures of the ocean circulation and the associated sea surface height (SSH) variability are examined on the west Florida shelf (WFS) for the 3-yr interval from September 1998 to December 2001. Five sets of characteristic circulation patterns are extracted from 2-day, low-pass-filtered data using the self-organizing map: extreme upwelling and downwelling structures with strong currents, asymmetric upwelling and downwelling structures with moderate currents, and a set of transitional structures with weak currents. The temporal variations of these structures are coherent with the local winds on synoptic weather time scales. On seasonal time scales they are related to both …


Satellite-Derived Surface Current Divergence In Relation To Tropical Atlantic Sst And Wind, Robert W. Helber, Robert H. Weisberg, Fabrice Bonjean, Eric S. Johnson, Gary S. Lagerloef Mar 2007

Satellite-Derived Surface Current Divergence In Relation To Tropical Atlantic Sst And Wind, Robert W. Helber, Robert H. Weisberg, Fabrice Bonjean, Eric S. Johnson, Gary S. Lagerloef

Marine Science Faculty Publications

The relationships between tropical Atlantic Ocean surface currents and horizontal (mass) divergence, sea surface temperature (SST), and winds on monthly-to-annual time scales are described for the time period from 1993 through 2003. Surface horizontal mass divergence (upwelling) is calculated using surface currents estimated from satellite sea surface height, surface vector wind, and SST data with a quasi-linear, steady-state model. Geostrophic and Ekman dynamical contributions are considered. The satellite-derived surface currents match climatological drifter and ship-drift currents well, and divergence patterns are consistent with the annual north–south movement of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and equatorial cold tongue evolution. While the …