Ryo Furue

The South China Sea Throughflow Retrieved from Climatological Data

The salinity distribution in the South China Sea (SCS) has a pronounced subsurface maximum from 150‐ 220 m throughout the year. This feature can only be maintained by the existence of a mean flow through the SCS, consisting of a net inflow of salty North Pacific tropical water through the Luzon Strait and outflow through the Mindoro, Karimata, and Taiwan Straits. Using an inverse modeling approach, the authors show that the magnitude and space‐time variations of the SCS thermohaline structure, particularly for the salinity maximum, allow a quantitative estimate of the SCS throughflow and its distribution among the three outflow straits. Results from the inversion are compared with available observations and output from a 50-yr simulation of a highly resolved ocean general circulation model. The annual-mean Luzon Strait transport is found to be 2.4 6 0.6 Sv (Sv [ 10 6 m 3 s 21 ). This inflow is balanced by the outflows from the Karimata (0.3 6 0.5 Sv), Mindoro (1.5 6 0.4), and Taiwan (0.6 6 0.5 Sv) Straits. Results of the inversion suggest that the Karimata transport tends to be overestimated in numerical models. The Mindoro Strait provides the only passage from the SCS deeper than 100 m, and half of the SCS throughflow (1.2 6 0.3 Sv) exits the basin below 100 m in the Mindoro Strait, a result that is consistent with a climatological run of a 0.18 global ocean general circulation model.

Subsurface Salinity Balance in the South China Sea

Abstract The South China Sea (SCS) is often treated as a semienclosed water body, with the Luzon Strait as its only connection to the Pacific Ocean. A branch of the Kuroshio flows northwestward across the Luzon Strait to enter the SCS, carrying North Pacific Tropical Water (NPTW) into the basin. Using the subsurface salinity maximum as a tracer for NPTW, the authors show how important three secondary straits—the Taiwan Strait to the north and the Karimata and Mindoro Straits to the south—are to the NPTW intrusion at the Luzon Strait. The authors demonstrate that the SCS cannot reach an equilibrium state that is consistent with the observed subsurface salinity distribution unless all of the following components are in place: the Kuroshio, transports through the three secondary straits, downward mixing of freshwater, horizontal mixing induced by mesoscale eddies, and forcing by the local monsoonal winds.

Dynamics of the Southern Tsuchiya Jet

Abstract The Tsuchiya jets (TJs) are narrow eastward currents, located a few degrees on either side of the equator at depths from 200 to 500 m in the Pacific Ocean. In this study, non-eddy-resolving, oceanic general circulation models (OGCMs) are used to investigate the dynamics of the southern TJ. Most solutions are found in a rectangular basin extending 100° zonally and from 40°S to 10°N. They are forced by idealized zonal and meridional winds representing the trades and the southerly winds near the South American coast, by a prescribed interocean circulation (IOC) that enters the basin through the southern boundary and exits through the western boundary from 2° to 6°N (the model’s Indonesian passages), and by surface heating that warms the ocean in the Tropics. A suite of solutions is presented to isolate effects of each forcing and mixing process. A few solutions are also found to a global OGCM driven by realistic forcings. Solutions forced by all of the aforementioned processes and with minimal diffu...

Modeling layered structure in deep Pacific circulation

The layered structure of the deep Pacific circulation is investigated using a multilevel numerical model with idealized geometry. The circulation is driven by sea surface heating and Newtonian body cooling at the southwest corner of the basin. The latter forcing is intended to incorporate thermohaline forcing in the Southern Ocean. A layered structure forms in the zonally averaged meridional circulation when the reference density for the body cooling varies vertically. The density balance between vertical advection and vertical diffusion holds in the zonally averaged field as well as in the interior. This balance, combined with the reference density for the body cooling, determines the zonally averaged vertical velocity and hence the zonally averaged meridional circulation from the zonally averaged continuity equation. This two-dimensional mechanism for describing the layered structure for this three-dimensional, rotating fluid model is identical to that for a two-dimensional, nonrotating fluid model. The increased vertical structure is accompanied by the enhancement of some higher vertical modes, which brings about various changes in the three-dimensional structure, such as the formation of a broad, diffusive, deep western boundary current.

Linear Wind-Forced Beta Plumes with Application to the Hawaiian Lee Countercurrent*

AbstractTwo numerical ocean models are used to study the baroclinic response to forcing by localized wind stress curl (i.e., a wind-forced β plume, which is a circulation cell developing to the west of the source region and composed of a set of zonal jets) with implications for the Hawaiian Lee Countercurrent (HLCC): an idealized primitive equation model [Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS)], and a global, eddy-resolving, general circulation model [Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator (OFES)]. In addition, theoretical ideas inferred from a linear continuously stratified model are used to interpret results. In ROMS, vertical mixing preferentially damps higher-order vertical modes. The damping thickens the plume to the west of the forcing region, weakening the near-surface zonal jets and generating deeper zonal currents. The zonal damping scale increases monotonically with the meridional forcing scale, indicating a dominant role of vertical viscosity over diffusion, a consequence of the...

Energy Transfer within the Small-Scale Oceanic Internal Wave Spectrum

Abstract Three-dimensional numerical experiments are conducted to examine energy transfer within the small-scale portion of the Garrett–Munk model spectrum of oceanic internal waves. The rate of energy transfer in the experiments is a significant fraction of observed total transfer rate in the interior main thermocline. This transfer may supplement the previous estimate by the eikonal theory. Because nonlinearity is strong in this spectral region, wavenumber-local interactions dominate the energy transfer rather than scale-separated ones. Transfer to higher horizontal wavenumbers is robust, whereas that to higher vertical wavenumbers seems to depend strongly on the spectral shape. Vortical motions seem to be enhancing energy transfer. All of these suggest that further investigation of this spectral region is important and necessary by means of three-dimensional, fully nonlinear analysis.

Comparison of Two Classical Advection Schemes in a General Circulation Model

Abstract The authors compare two classical advection schemes, the centered difference and weighted upcurrent, for coarse-resolution OGCMs, using an idealized ocean basin and a realistic World Ocean topography. For the idealized basin, three experiments are run, one with 12 vertical levels and the centered difference scheme, one with 12 levels and the weighted upcurrent scheme, and the other with 800 levels and the centered scheme. The last experiment perfectly satisfies the grid Peclet number stability criterion and is regarded as the “true solution.” Comparison of the coarse vertical resolution experiments with the true solution indicates 1) that with the centered scheme, when strong vertical motion crosses a strong stratification, false density values are created in the coarse resolution model and this leads to false convective adjustment, which transports those false density values downward; and 2) that because of computational diffusion, the weighted upcurrent scheme leads to a less dense deep water w...

Effects of the Pacific Diapycnal Mixing and Wind Stress on the Global and Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulation

Numerical experiments are conducted using an idealized basin to investigate roles of the deep vertical diffusivity and wind stress of the Pacific Ocean in the global and Pacific meridional overturning circulation. The Pacific middepth diffusivity is found to be enhancing the global meridional overturning circulation; when this part of diffusivity is reduced to the background value, not only is the layered circulation of the Pacific greatly weakened, but also the production of the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is significantly reduced. The deeper part of the Pacific diffusivity is found to be enhancing the production of the AABW in the model. When the wind stress is turned off in the Pacific, the deep meridional overturning circulation of the Pacific is reduced and the production of the NADW and AABW is also significantly reduced. This is likely due to the reduction of the wind-enhanced upwelling in the subpolar and equatorial regions. These results suggest the importance of the diapycnal diffusion and sea surface conditions in the Pacific not only to the circulation within the Pacific but also to the global meridional overturning circulation.

On the Leeuwin Current System and Its Linkage to Zonal Flows in the South Indian Ocean as Inferred from a Gridded Hydrography

AbstractThe Leeuwin Current System (LCS) along the coast of Western Australia consists of the poleward-flowing Leeuwin Current (LC), the equatorward-flowing Leeuwin Undercurrent (LUC), and neighboring flows in the south Indian Ocean (SIO). Using geostrophic currents obtained from a highly resolved (⅛°) hydrographic climatology [CSIRO Atlas of Regional Seas (CARS)], this study describes the spatial structure and annual variability of the LC, LUC, and SIO zonal currents, estimates their transports, and identifies linkages among them. In CARS, the LC is supplied partly by water from the tropics (an annual mean of 0.3 Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) but mostly by shallow (200 m) eastward flows in the SIO (4.7 Sv), and it loses water by downwelling across the bottom of this layer (3.4 Sv). The downwelling is so strong that, despite the large SIO inflow, the horizontal transport of the LC does not much increase to the south (from 0.3 Sv at 22°S to 1.5 Sv at 34°S). This LC transport is significantly smaller than previous...

Dynamics of the Northern Tsuchiya Jet

Abstract The Tsuchiya jets (TJs) are narrow eastward currents located along thermal fronts at the poleward edges of thermostad water in the Pacific Ocean. In this study, an oceanic general circulation model (OGCM) is used to explore the dynamics of the northern TJ. Solutions are found in a rectangular basin, extending 100° zonally and from 40°S to 40°N. They are forced by three idealized forcings: several patches of idealized wind fields, including one that simulates the strong Ekman pumping region in the vicinity of the Costa Rica Dome (CRD); surface heating that warms the ocean in the tropics; and a prescribed interocean circulation (IOC) that enters the basin through the southern boundary and exits through the western boundary from 2° to 6°N (the model’s Indonesian passages). Solutions forced by all the aforementioned processes and with minimal diffusion resemble the observed flow field in the tropical North Pacific. A narrow eastward current, the model’s northern TJ, flows across the basin along the n...