Enrique N. Curchitser

North Pacific Gyre Oscillation links ocean climate and ecosystem change

Decadal fluctuations in salinity, nutrients, chlorophyll, a variety of zooplankton taxa, and fish stocks in the Northeast Pacific are often poorly correlated with the most widely-used index of large-scale climate variability in the region - the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). We define a new pattern of climate change, the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) and show that its variability is significantly correlated with previously unexplained fluctuations of salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll. Fluctuations in the NPGO are driven by regional and basin-scale variations in wind-driven upwelling and horizontal advection - the fundamental processes controlling salinity and nutrient concentrations. Nutrient fluctuations drive concomitant changes in phytoplankton concentrations, and may force similar variability in higher trophic levels. The NPGO thus provides a strong indicator of fluctuations in the mechanisms driving planktonic ecosystem dynamics. The NPGO pattern extends beyond the North Pacific and is part of a global-scale mode of climate variability that is evident in global sea level trends and sea surface temperature. Therefore the amplification of the NPGO variance found in observations and in global warming simulations implies that the NPGO may play an increasingly important role in forcing global-scale decadal changes in marine ecosystems.

The Benguela Upwelling System: Quantifying the Sensitivity to Resolution and Coastal Wind Representation in a Global Climate Model*

AbstractOf all the major coastal upwelling systems in the world’s oceans, the Benguela, located off southwest Africa, is the one that climate models find hardest to simulate well. This paper investigates the sensitivity of upwelling processes, and of sea surface temperature (SST), in this region to resolution of the climate model and to the offshore wind structure. The Community Climate System Model (version 4) is used here, together with the Regional Ocean Modeling System. The main result is that a realistic wind stress curl at the eastern boundary, and a high-resolution ocean model, are required to well simulate the Benguela upwelling system. When the wind stress curl is too broad (as with a 1° atmosphere model or coarser), a Sverdrup balance prevails at the eastern boundary, implying southward ocean transport extending as far as 30°S and warm advection. Higher atmosphere resolution, up to 0.5°, does bring the atmospheric jet closer to the coast, but there can be too strong a wind stress curl. The most ...

Global Modelling of the Ocean and Atmosphere Using the Spectral Element Method

ABSTRACT The use of spectral methods now has a long history in global atmospheric modelling wherein the attractive properties of Fourier series on spheres, including higher-order convergence rates and efficient implementation via the transform method, have proven advantageous. Partially offsetting these advantages, however, are several competing disadvantages. Two of these, the appearance of Gibbs oscillations for localized processes (e.g., orographic interactions) and the difficulty of mapping spectral techniques onto parallel computer architectures, are inherent to the global nature of these techniques. A third drawback, the restriction of these methods to regular geometries, has severely limited their application to the modelling of the large-scale ocean circulation. We describe a global circulation model that has, in principle, none of these limitations. The model utilizes the spectral element method that combines the geometrical flexibility of traditional finite element methods with the rapid converg...

Energetics of Eddy-Mean Flow Interactions in the Gulf Stream Region

A detailed energetics analysis of the Gulf Stream (GS) and associated eddies is performed using a highresolution multidecadal regional ocean model simulation. The energy equations for the time-mean and timevaryingflowsarederivedasatheoreticalframeworkfortheanalysis.Theeddy‐meanflowenergycomponents and their conversions show complex spatial distributions. In the along-coast region, the cross-stream and cross-bump variations are seen in the eddy‐mean flow energy conversions, whereas in the off-coast region, a mixed positive‐negative conversion pattern is observed. The local variations of the eddy‐mean flow interaction are influenced by the varying bottom topography. When considering the domain-averaged energetics,theeddy‐meanflowinteractionshowssignificantalong-streamvariability.UpstreamofCapeHatteras, the energy is mainly transferred from the mean flow to the eddy field through barotropic and baroclinic instabilities. Upon separating from the coast, the GS becomes highly unstable and both energy conversions intensify. When the GS flows into the off-coast region, an inverse conversion from the eddy field to the mean flow dominates the power transfer. For the entire GS region, the mean current is intrinsically unstable and transfers 28.26GW of kinetic energy and 26.80GW of available potential energy to the eddy field. The mesoscaleeddykineticenergyisgeneratedbymixedbarotropicandbaroclinicinstabilities,contributing28.26 and 9.15GW, respectively. Beyond directly supplying the barotropic pathway, mean kinetic energy also provides 11.55GW of power to mean available potential energy and subsequently facilitates the baroclinic instability pathway.

Trade-offs associated with different modeling approaches for assessment of fish and shellfish responses to climate change

Considerable progress has been made in integrating carbon, nutrient, phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics into global-scale physical climate models. Scientists are exploring ways to extend the resolution of the biosphere within these Earth system models (ESMs) to include impacts on global distribution and abundance of commercially exploited fish and shellfish. This paper compares different methods for modeling fish and shellfish responses to climate change on global and regional scales. Several different modeling approaches are considered including: direct applications of ESM’s, use of ESM output for estimation of shifts in bioclimatic windows, using ESM outputs to force single- and multi-species stock projection models, and using ESM and physical climate model outputs to force regional bio-physical models of varying complexity and mechanistic resolution. We evaluate the utility of each of these modeling approaches in addressing nine key questions relevant to climate change impacts on living marine resources. No single modeling approach was capable of fully addressing each question. A blend of highly mechanistic and less computationally intensive methods is recommended to gain mechanistic insights and to identify model uncertainties.

A Spectral Element Solution of the Shallow-Water Equations on Multiprocessor Computers

Abstract A shallow-water spectral element ocean model is implemented on multiple instruction multiple data, distributed memory parallel computers. A communications-minimizing partitioning algorithm for unstructured meshes, based on graph theory, is presented and is shown to improve the efficiency in a limited range of granularities. A domain decomposition implementation with an architecture-independent communications scheme, using message passing, is devised and tested on an nCUBE/2, a Cray T3D, and an IBM SP2. The implementation exhibits high efficiencies over a wide range of granularities. An order of magnitude analysis shows that, to leading order, the efficiency stays constant when KN2 grows proportionally to P, where K is the total number of elements, N is the order of the spectral truncation within an element, and P is the number of processors.

Interannual and Decadal Variations in Cross-Shelf Transport in the Gulf of Alaska

Abstract The marine ecosystem of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is one of the richest on the planet. The center of the GOA is characterized by high-nutrient and low-chlorophyll-a concentration. Recent observational studies suggest that advection of iron-rich coastal water is the primary mechanism controlling open ocean productivity. Specifically, there is evidence that mesoscale eddies along the coastal GOA entrain iron-rich coastal waters into the ocean interior. This study investigates the cross-shelf transport statistics in the GOA using a free-surface, hydrostatic, eddy-resolving primitive equation model over the period 1965–2004. The statistics of coastal water transport are computed using a model passive tracer, which is continuously released at the coast. The passive tracer can thus be considered a proxy for coastal biogeochemical quantities such as silicate, nitrate, iron, or oxygen, which are critical for explaining the GOA ecosystem dynamics. On average along the Alaska Current, it has been shown that...

Air-sea CO2 fluxes in the California Current: Impacts of model resolution and coastal topography

The present study uses a suite of coupled physical-biogeochemical model simulations at 1/3°, 1/10°, and 1/30° to assess the impact of horizontal resolution on air-sea CO2 fluxes in the California Current System (CCS), a relevant issue for downscaling between coarser resolution global climate models and higher resolution regional models. The results demonstrate that horizontal resolution is important to reproduce the sharp transition between near-shore outgassing and offshore absorption, as well as to resolve regions of enhanced near-shore outgassing in the lee of capes. The width of the outgassing region is overestimated when horizontal resolution is not eddy resolving (i.e., 1/3°) but becomes more dependent on shelf topography for eddy-resolving simulations (i.e., 1/10° and 1/30°). Enhanced near-shore outgassing is associated with a local increase in wind-driven upwelling in the lee of capes (i.e., expansion fans), meaning that sufficient horizontal resolution is needed both in the ocean circulation model and in the wind field forcing the model. From a global carbon budget perspective, the model indicates that biological production generates sufficient absorption within a few hundred kilometers of the coast to offset near-shore outgassing, which is consistent with the notion that midlatitude eastern boundary current upwelling systems act both as a sink and source for atmospheric CO2. Based on the 1/30° solution, the CCS between 35 and 45 N and out to 600 km offshore is a net carbon sink of approximately 6 TgC yr−1, with the 1/10° solution underestimating this value by less than 10% and the 1/3° solution by a factor of 3.

Larval connectivity across temperature gradients, and its potential effect on heat tolerance in coral populations.

Coral reefs are increasingly exposed to elevated temperatures that can cause coral bleaching and high levels of mortality of corals and associated organisms. The temperature threshold for coral bleaching depends on the acclimation and adaptation of corals to the local maximum temperature regime. However, because of larval dispersal, coral populations can receive larvae from corals that are adapted to very different temperature regimes. We combine an offline particle tracking routine with output from a high-resolution physical oceanographic model to investigate whether connectivity of coral larvae between reefs of different thermal regimes could alter the thermal stress threshold of corals. Our results suggest that larval transport between reefs of widely varying temperatures is likely in the Coral Triangle and that accounting for this connectivity may be important in bleaching predictions. This has important implications in conservation planning, because connectivity may allow some reefs to have an inherited heat tolerance that is higher or lower than predicted based on local conditions alone.

On the transient adjustment of a mid-latitude abyssal ocean basin with realistic geometry: the constant depth limit

The early stages in the adjustment of a mid-latitude abyssal basin with realistic geometry are studied using an inverted one and one-half layer model of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea as a natural test basin. The model is forced with a localized sidewall mass source and a compensating distributed mass sink. A flat bottom basin is investigated for comparison with existing theories on abyssal gyral spin-up, and as a precursor to a study with realistic topography. As in existing theories, the early adjustment is dominated by sub-inertial Kelvin and Rossby waves. Obstacles and the varying coastal geometry do not impede the passage of the Kelvin wave, though the circuit time of the main Kelvin wave signal is reduced by an aggregate 6% for the abyssal Eastern Mediterranean basin. The scattering of the Kelvin wave due to small-scale variations in the coastline is also shown not to be significant to the adjustment. The relatively short period of time needed to reach a statistical steady state is attributed to western boundary current formation in response to local Kelvin wave dynamics. Upon cessation of the sidewall forcing, sub-inertial motion controls the spin-down adjustment with basin-scale Rossby waves becoming the most pronounced feature of the flow. Two dynamical issues of particular interest emerge in these simulations: the retardation of Kelvin wave propagation around the abyssal basin and the roles of detrainment and sidewall forcing in the interior vorticity balance. An idealized simulation using an elliptical basin is used to illustrate that the mechanism for Kelvin wave retardation is a geometrically induced dispersion due to large-scale variations in the coastline. A dynamical analysis of the interior circulation shows that detrainment alone does not develop a Sverdrup response. Both the localized sidewall injection and the detrainment are needed to describe the interior dynamics, with both poleward and equatorward flows developing during the adjustment.