Energy cascades in the upper ocean

Wave-wave interactions cause energy cascades. These are the most important processes in the upper ocean because they govern wave-growth and dissipation. Through indirect cascades, wave en- ergy is transferred from higher frequencies to lower frequencies, leading to wave growth. In direct cas- cades, energy is transferred from lower frequencies to the higher frequencies, which causes waves to break, and dissipation of wave energy. However, the evolution and origin of energy cascade processes are still not fully understood. In particular, for example, results from a recent theory (Kalmykov, 1998) sug- gest that the class I wave-wave interactions (defined by situations involving 4-, 6-, 8-, etc, even numbers of resonantly interacting waves) cause indirect cascades, and Class II wave-wave interactions (involving, 5-, 7-, 9-, etc, .., odd numbers of waves) cause direct cascades. In contrast to this theory, our model results indicate the 4-wave interactions can cause significant transfer of wave energy through both direct and in- direct cascades. In most situations, 4-wave interactions provide the major source of energy transfer for both direct cascades and indirect cascades, except when the wave steepness is larger than 0.28. Our model results agree well with wave measurements, obtained using field buoy data (for example, Lin and Lin, 2002). In particular, in these observations, asymmetrical wave-wave interactions were studied. They found that direct and indirect cascades both are mainly due to the 4-wave interactions when wave steep- ness is less than 0.3.

Simulating the Upper Ocean Circulation on the Belize Shelf: An Application of a Triply Nested-Grid Ocean Circulation Model

We present a three-level nested-grid ocean circulation modeling system for the Belize shelf of the western Caribbean Sea. The nested-grid system has three subcomponents： a coarse-resolution outer model of the western Caribbean Sea; an intermediate-resolution middle model of the southern Mest〉American Barrier Reef System; and a fine-resolution inner model of the Belize shelf. The two-way nesting technique based on the semi-prognostic method is used to exchange information between the three subcomponents. We discuss two applications of the nested-grid system in this study. In the first application we simulate the seasonal mean circulation in the region, with the nested system forced by monthly mean surface fluxes and boundary forcing. The model results reproduce the general circulation features on the western Caribbean Sea and mest〉scale circulation features on the Belize shelf. In the second application, we simulate the storm-induced circulation during Hurricane Mitch in 1998, with the nested-grid system forced by the combination of monthly mean forcing and idealized wind stress associated with the storm. The model results demonstrate that the storm-induced currents transport a large amount of estuarine waters from coastal regions of Honduras and Guatemala to offshore reef atolls.

The tropical Pacific cold tongue mode and its associated main ocean dynamical process in CMIP5 models

The cold tongue mode(CTM),which represents the out-of-phase relationship in sea surface temperature anomaly(SSTA)variability between the Pacific cold tongue region and elsewhere in the tropical Pacific,shows a long-term cooling trend in the eastern equatorial Pacific.In this study,we investigate how well the CTM is reproduced in historical simulations generated by the 20 models considered in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project(CMIP5).Qualitatively,all 20 models roughly capture the cooling SSTA associated with the CTM.However,a quantitative assessment(i.e.,Taylor diagrams and the ratio of the trend between the simulations and observations)shows that only five of these 20 models(i.e.,CESM1-CAM5,CMCC-CM,FGOALS-g2,IPSL-CM5B-LR,and NorESM1-M)can reproduce with useful accuracy the spatial pattern and long-term trend of the CTM.We find that these five models generally simulate the main ocean dynamical process associated with the CTM.That is,these models adequately capture the long-term cooling trend in the vertical advection of the anomalous temperature by the mean upwelling.We conclude that the performance of these CMIP5 models,with respect to simulations of the long-term cooling trend associated with the vertical advection,and the related long-term decreasing trend of the vertical gradient of the oceanic temperature anomaly,can play an important role in successful reproduction of the CTM.

Processes involved in the second-year warming of the 2015 El Nio event as derived from an intermediate ocean model

The tropical Pacific experienced a sustained warm sea surface condition that started in 2014 and a very strong El Nio event in 2015. One striking feature of this event was the horseshoe-like pattern of positive subsurface thermal anomalies that was sustained in the western-central equatorial Pacific throughout 2014–2015. Observational data and an intermediate ocean model are used to describe the sea surface temperature(SST) evolution during 2014–2015. Emphasis is placed on the processes involved in the 2015 El Nio event and their relationships with SST anomalies, including remote effects associated with the propagation and reflection of oceanic equatorial waves(as indicated in sea level(SL) signals) at the boundaries and local effects of the positive subsurface thermal anomalies. It is demonstrated that the positive subsurface thermal anomaly pattern that was sustained throughout 2014–2015 played an important role in maintaining warm SST anomalies in the equatorial Pacific. Further analyses of the SST budget revealed the dominant processes contributing to SST anomalies during 2014–2015. These analyses provide an improved understanding of the extent to which processes associated with the 2015 El Nio event are consistent with current El Nio and Southern Oscillation theories.

Bayesian localization in an uncertain ocean environment

In order to improve the ability to localize a source in an uncertain acoustic environment,a Bayesian approach,referred to here as Bayesian localization is used by including the environment in the parameter search space.Genetic algorithms are used for the parameter optimization.This method integrates the a posterior probability density（PPD） over environmental parameters to obtain a sequence of marginal probability distributions over source range and depth,from which the most-probable source location and localization uncertainties can be extracted.Considering that the seabed density and attenuation are less sensitive to the objective function of matched field processing,we utilize the empirical relationship to invert those parameters indirectly.The broadband signals recorded by a vertical line array in a Yellow Sea experiment in 2000 are processed and analyzed.It was found that,the Bayesian localization method that incorporates the environmental variability into the processor,made it robust to the uncertainty in the ocean environment.In addition,using the empirical relationship could enhance the localization accuracy.