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Measuring vertical motions represent a challenge as they are typically 3–4 orders of magnitude smaller than the horizontal velocities. Here, we show that surface vertical velocities are intensified at submesoscales and are dominated by high frequency variability. We use drifter observations to calculate divergence and vertical velocities in the upper 15 m of the water column at two different horizontal scales. The drifters, deployed at the edge of a mesoscale eddy in the Alboran Sea, show an area of strong convergence ((Formula presented.) (f)) associated with vertical velocities of −100 m day. This study shows that a multilayered-drifter array can be an effective tool for estimating vertical velocity near the ocean surface., This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Departmental Research Initiative CALYPSO under program officers Terri Paluszkiewicz and Scott Harper. The authors' ONR Grant No. are as follows: DT, SR, AM, and AP N000141613130, TMSJ N000146101612470, PP N000141812418, TO N000141812138, LRC N000141712517, and N00014191269, MB and GE N000141812782 and N000141812039, and JTF N000141812431.

Horizontal and vertical motions associated with mesoscale (10–100 km) and submesoscale (1–10 km) features, such as fronts, meanders, eddies, and filaments, play a critical role in redistributing physical and biogeochemical properties in the ocean. This study makes use of a multiplatform data set of 82 drifters, a Lagrangian float, and profile timeseries of temperature and salinity, obtained in a ∼1-m/s semipermanent frontal jet in the Alboran Sea as part of CALYPSO (Coherent Lagrangian Pathways from the Surface Ocean to Interior). Drifters drogued at ∼1-m and 15-m depth capture the mesoscale and submesoscale circulation aligning along the perimeter of fronts due to horizontal shear. Clusters of drifters are used to estimate the kinematic properties, such as vorticity and divergence, of the flow by fitting a bivariate plane to the horizontal drifter velocities. Clusters with submesoscale length scales indicate normalized vorticity ζ/f > 1 with Coriolis frequency f and normalized divergence of urn:x-wiley:21699275:media:jgrc24446:jgrc24446-math-0001(1) occurring in patches along the front, with error variance around 10%. By computing divergence from drifter clusters at two different depths, we estimate minimum vertical velocity of urn:x-wiley:21699275:media:jgrc24446:jgrc24446-math-0002(−100 m day−1) in the upper 10 m of the water column. These results are at least twice as large as previous estimates of vertical velocity in the region. Location, magnitude, and timing of the convergence are consistent with behavior of a Lagrangian float subducting in the center of a drifter cluster. These results improve our understanding of frontal subduction and quantify convergence and vertical velocity using Lagrangian tools., This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Departmental Research Initiative CALYPSO under program officers Terri Paluszkiewicz and Scott Harper.

Export of Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) is mainly driven by gravitational sinking. Thus, traditionally, it is thought that larger, faster-sinking particles make up most of the POC export flux. H...

Traditionally, the mechanism driving the seasonal restratification of the Southern Ocean mixed layer (ML) is thought to be the onset of springtime warming. Recent developments in numerical modeling and North Atlantic observations have shown that submesoscale ML eddies (MLE) can drive a restratifying flux to shoal the deep winter ML prior to solar heating at high latitudes. The impact of submesoscale processes on the intraseasonal variability of the Subantarctic ML is still relatively unknown. We compare 5 months of glider data in the Subantarctic Zone to simulations of a 1-D mixing model to show that the magnitude of restratification of the ML cannot be explained by heat, freshwater, and momentum fluxes alone. During early spring, we estimate that periodic increases in the vertical buoyancy flux by MLEs caused small increases in stratification, despite predominantly down-front winds that promote the destruction of stratification. The timing of seasonal restratification was consistent between 1-D model estimates and the observations. However, during up-front winds, the strength of springtime stratification increased over twofold compared to the 1-D model, with a rapid shoaling of the MLD from >200 m to

Oceanic frontal instabilities are of importance for the vertical exchange of properties in the ocean. Submesoscale, O(1) Rossby number, dynamics are particularly relevant for inducing the vertical (and lateral) flux of buoyancy and tracers in the mixed layer, but how these couple with the stratified pycnocline is less clear. Observations show surface fronts often persist beneath the mixed layer. Here we use idealized, three-dimensional model simulations to show how surface fronts that extend deeper into the pycnocline invoke enhanced vertical fluxes through the coupling of submesoscale and mesoscale instabilities. We contrast simulations in which the front is restricted to the mixed layer with those in which it extends deeper. For the deeper fronts, we examine the effect of density stratification on the vertical coupling. Our results show deep fronts can dynamically couple the mixed layer and pycnocline on time scales that increase with the peak stratification beneath the mixed layer. Eddies in the interior generate skew fluxes of buoyancy and tracer oriented along isopycnals, thus providing an adiabatic pathway for the interior to interact with the mixed layer at fronts. The vertical enhancement of tracer fluxes through the mesoscale-submesoscale coupling described here is thus relevant to the vertical supply of nutrients for phytoplankton in the ocean. A further implication for wind-forced fronts is that the vertical structure of the stream function characterizing the exchange between the interior and the mixed layer exhibits significant qualitative differences compared to a linear combination of existing parameterizations of submesoscale eddies in the mixed layer and mesoscale eddies in the interior. The discrepancies are most severe within the mixed layer suggesting a potential role for Ekman-layer dynamics absent in existing submesoscale parameterizations.

[1] By analyzing global data, we find that over large scales, surfaces of constant nitrate are often better aligned with isopycnals than with isobars, particularly below the euphotic zone. This is unexplained by the movement of isopycnal surfaces in response to eddies and internal waves, and is perhaps surprising given that the biological processes that alter nitrate distributions are largely depth dependent. We provide a theoretical framework for understanding the orientation of isonitrate surfaces in relation to isopycnals. In our model, the nitrate distribution results from the balance between depth-dependent biological processes (nitrate uptake and remineralization), and the along-isopycnal homogenization of properties by eddy fluxes (parameterized by eddy diffusivity). Where the along-isopycnal eddy diffusivity is relatively large, nitrate surfaces are better aligned with isopycnals than isobars. We test our theory by estimating the strength of the eddy diffusivity and biological export production from global satellite data sets and comparing their contributions. Indeed, we find that below the euphotic zone, the mean isonitrate surfaces are oriented along isopycnals where the isopycnal eddy diffusivity is large, and deviate where the biological export of organic matter is relatively strong. Comparison of nitrate data from profiling floats in different regions corroborates the hypothesis by showing variations in the nitrate-density relationship from one part of the ocean to another.

[1] Model simulations performed with a three-dimensional, high-resolution, process study ocean model of eastern boundary upwelling systems are used to describe a mechanism that efficiently transports sediment-derived dissolved iron offshore in the subsurface through the bottom boundary layer (BBL) during downwelling-favorable wind events. In the model, sediment-derived iron accumulates in the BBL on the outer shelf when the winds are upwelling-favorable. When the wind reverses, the iron-laden BBL is mixed into the water column and transported offshore along isopycnals that intersect the bottom. Depending on the frequency of wind reversal, between 10–50% of the shelf sediment-derived iron flux is exported offshore through this previously unidentified subsurface pathway. If this mechanism operates on all coastal upwelling regimes, the global export of sediment-derived iron to the open ocean would be equivalent to ten times larger than the estimated source of dissolved iron from aerosols.

[1] On western margins of ocean basins, such as the eastern continental shelf of the United States, rates of biological productivity are higher than in the open ocean, in spite of the mean downwelling circulation. We use a nonhydrostatic, three-dimensional, process study ocean model with idealized shelf-slope geometry, wind forcing, and tracers to explore the interplay between the circulation and the biogeochemistry of the shelf and slope; the pathways that can transport nutrients from the deep ocean and from the sediments to the surface ocean euphotic zone. Cross-shelf exchange between the open and coastal ocean is regulated by a shelf break front that separates light waters on the shelf from denser waters on the slope. The wind direction and strength influence both the position and slope of the isopycnals at the front, which become more vertical in response to northerly winds and flatten in response to southerly winds. When the wind direction oscillates between northerly and southerly, it pumps nutrient and gas-rich bottom boundary layer water up to the sea surface. Nutrients tend to accumulate in the benthic boundary layer during southerly winds and are pumped to the surface during periods of northerly winds. Stratification of the water column in summertime reduces the shelf break pump by dampening the effect of the winds on the movement of the front. When extrapolated over the northeast coast of the United States, the nutrients supplied by the shelf break pump from the open ocean to the coastal ocean are three times the estimated nitrogen delivered to the shelf from estuaries.

More than 1 billion people depend on rainfall from the South Asian monsoon for their livelihoods. Summertime monsoonal precipitation is highly variable on intraseasonal time scales, with alternating “active” and “break” periods. These intraseasonal oscillations in large-scale atmospheric convection and winds are closely tied to 1°C–2°C variations of sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal.

[1] Tidal creeks in Cape Romain, South Carolina, are extending rapidly onto the established marsh platform producing an unusual morphology, which remains self-similar in time. A time-series of aerial photographs establishes that these channels are headward eroding at an approximate rate of 1.9 m/yr. The rapid rate of headward erosion suggests that the marsh platform is in disequilibrium and unable to keep pace with high local relative sea level rise (RSLR >3.2mm/yr) through accretionary processes. Biological feedbacks play a strong role in the morphological development of the creeks. Dieback of vegetation coupled with intense burrowing by crabs produces a bare and topographically depressed region beyond the channel head toward which the channel head extends. We examine the mechanisms producing this headward extension and pinnate channel morphology, and report a new pattern of creek incision in a regime of rapid RSLR.

[1] We examine the impact of mesoscale and submesoscale oceanic processes on the distribution of sea surface pCO2 to explain variability observed at length scales of order 10 km. We ask whether the large pCO2 excursions (50–150 μ-atm) that occur over 10–25 km of the sea surface could be induced by vertical advection associated with fronts and eddies in the pelagic ocean. A numerical model of a highly resolved, but idealized, mesoscale flow field is used to model the surface pCO2 response to submesoscale upwelling, taking into account the effect of wind, heat flux, and phytoplankton production. The effect of upwelled DIC on surface pCO2 is largely offset by the lower temperature of the upwelled water and the consumption of DIC by phytoplankton that respond to the simultaneously upwelled nitrate in a nutrient-limited setting. Since an upwelling-induced change in surface temperature, DIC, or nitrate is proportional to the vertical gradient of these properties beneath the mixed layer, the relative change in surface pCO2 is also dependent on the relative strengths of these gradients. We find that only small variations in surface pCO2 (∼10 μ-atm) are induced by submesoscale upwelling. The larger (50–150 μ atm) variations observed at small scales (∼10 km) are therefore not a direct consequence of submesoscale upwelling. Our results suggest that these surface pCO2 differences are likely to have been generated at larger scales (by differential properties and levels of biological productivity) and cascaded to smaller scales by horizontal advection at the sea surface.

[1] The surface distributions of many tracers in the ocean are highly correlated in time and space on meso (∼100 km) and smaller scales (Figure 1). However, their characteristic scales of variability differ. Some variables like sea surface chlorophyll (Chl) are very fine-scaled or patchy, while others like sea surface temperature (SST) are not. We characterize the patchiness of a distribution quantitatively by the dependence of the variance V on the length scale L as V ∼ Lp; smaller p corresponds to greater patchiness. Using scaling and a numerical model we show that patchiness, p, varies with the characteristic response time τ of the tracer to processes that alter its concentration in the upper ocean as p ∼ log τ. This suggests that sea surface Chl is more patchy (has smaller p) than SST at mesoscales because the characteristic time scale of phytoplankton growth in response to the availability of nutrients is less than that for the equilibration of temperature in response to heat fluxes. Similarly, sea surface dissolved oxygen (O2) exhibits more fine-scaled variability than total dissolved inorganic carbon (TCO2) because O2 equilibrates with the atmosphere much more rapidly than TCO2. Tracers that are more patchy require higher resolution to model and sample; the sampling or model grid spacing required scales as exp(−1/log τ). The quantitative relationship between p and τ can be used to relate various biogeochemical distributions, particularly to those that are remotely sensed, and to deduce biogeochemical response times of various tracers or plankton species from the characteristics of their distributions in space or time.