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Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific

While modelling studies suggest that mesoscale eddies strengthen the subduction of mode waters, this eddy effect has never been observed in the field. Here we report results from a field campaign from March 2014 that captured the eddy effects on mode-water subduction south of the Kuroshio Extension...

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Autores principales: Xu, Lixiao, Li, Peiliang, Xie, Shang-Ping, Liu, Qinyu, Liu, Cong, Gao, Wendian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4740428/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26829888
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10505
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author Xu, Lixiao
Li, Peiliang
Xie, Shang-Ping
Liu, Qinyu
Liu, Cong
Gao, Wendian
author_facet Xu, Lixiao
Li, Peiliang
Xie, Shang-Ping
Liu, Qinyu
Liu, Cong
Gao, Wendian
author_sort Xu, Lixiao
collection PubMed
description While modelling studies suggest that mesoscale eddies strengthen the subduction of mode waters, this eddy effect has never been observed in the field. Here we report results from a field campaign from March 2014 that captured the eddy effects on mode-water subduction south of the Kuroshio Extension east of Japan. The experiment deployed 17 Argo floats in an anticyclonic eddy (AC) with enhanced daily sampling. Analysis of over 3,000 hydrographic profiles following the AC reveals that potential vorticity and apparent oxygen utilization distributions are asymmetric outside the AC core, with enhanced subduction near the southeastern rim of the AC. There, the southward eddy flow advects newly ventilated mode water from the north into the main thermocline. Our results show that subduction by eddy lateral advection is comparable in magnitude to that by the mean flow—an effect that needs to be better represented in climate models.
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spelling pubmed-47404282016-03-04 Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific Xu, Lixiao Li, Peiliang Xie, Shang-Ping Liu, Qinyu Liu, Cong Gao, Wendian Nat Commun Article While modelling studies suggest that mesoscale eddies strengthen the subduction of mode waters, this eddy effect has never been observed in the field. Here we report results from a field campaign from March 2014 that captured the eddy effects on mode-water subduction south of the Kuroshio Extension east of Japan. The experiment deployed 17 Argo floats in an anticyclonic eddy (AC) with enhanced daily sampling. Analysis of over 3,000 hydrographic profiles following the AC reveals that potential vorticity and apparent oxygen utilization distributions are asymmetric outside the AC core, with enhanced subduction near the southeastern rim of the AC. There, the southward eddy flow advects newly ventilated mode water from the north into the main thermocline. Our results show that subduction by eddy lateral advection is comparable in magnitude to that by the mean flow—an effect that needs to be better represented in climate models. Nature Publishing Group 2016-02-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4740428/ /pubmed/26829888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10505 Text en Copyright © 2016, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Xu, Lixiao
Li, Peiliang
Xie, Shang-Ping
Liu, Qinyu
Liu, Cong
Gao, Wendian
Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title_full Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title_fullStr Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title_full_unstemmed Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title_short Observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the North Pacific
title_sort observing mesoscale eddy effects on mode-water subduction and transport in the north pacific
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4740428/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26829888
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10505
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