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Plastics and spilled oil pose a critical threat to marine life and human health. As a result of wind forcing and wave motions, theoretical and laboratory studies predict very strong velocity variation with depth over the upper few centimeters of the water column, an observational blind spot in the real ocean. Here we present the first-ever ocean measurements of the current vector profile defined to within 1 cm of the free surface. In our illustrative example, the current magnitude averaged over the upper 1 cm of the ocean is shown to be nearly four times the average over the upper 10 m, even for mild forcing. Our findings indicate that this shear will rapidly separate pieces of marine debris which vary in size or buoyancy, making consideration of these dynamics essential to an improved understanding of the pathways along which marine plastics and oil are transported.

A large collaborative program has studied the coupled air‐ice‐ocean‐wave processes occurring in the Arctic during the autumn ice advance. The program included a field campaign in the western Arctic during the autumn of 2015, with in situ data collection and both aerial and satellite remote sensing. Many of the analyses have focused on using and improving forecast models. Summarizing and synthesizing the results from a series of separate papers, the overall view is of an Arctic shifting to a more seasonal system. The dramatic increase in open water extent and duration in the autumn means that large surface waves and significant surface heat fluxes are now common. When refreezing finally does occur, it is a highly variable process in space and time. Wind and wave events drive episodic advances and retreats of the ice edge, with associated variations in sea ice formation types (e.g., pancakes, nilas). This variability becomes imprinted on the winter ice cover, which in turn affects the melt season the following year.

Fine scale current gradients at the ocean surface can be observed by sea surface roughness. More specifically, directional surface roughness anomalies are related to the different horizontal current gradient components. This paper reports results from a dedicated experiment during the LASER (LAgrangian Submesoscale ExpeRiment) drifter deployment. A very sharp front, 50 m wide, is detected simultaneously in drifter trajectories, sea surface temperature and sea surface roughness. A new observational method is applied, using sun glitter reflections during multiple airplane passes to reconstruct the multi-angle roughness anomaly. This multi-angle anomaly is consistent with wave-current interactions over a front, including both cross-front convergence and along-front shear with cyclonic vorticity. Qualitatively, results agree with drifters and X-band radar observations. Quantitatively, the sharpness of roughness anomaly suggests intense current gradients, 0.3 m s−1 over the 50 m wide front. This work opens new perspectives for monitoring intense oceanic fronts using drones or satellite constellations.

The goal of this work is to develop and evaluate techniques for the retrieval of wind and internal wave (IW) information from marine X-band radar data. While ocean wind measurements are crucial for the transfer of energy and momentum across the air-sea interface, IWs play an important role in tidal energy transport. Marine radars work by transmitting microwave energy from a rotating antenna that also measures the backscatter. The radar backscatter from the sea surface is controlled by the wind-generated small ripple waves through the Bragg-scattering mechanism. Surface winds are thus the dominant factor for generating the radar backscatter. The varying surface current fields associated with IWs interact with the ripples, generating rough convergent and smooth divergent zones. Radars are capable of imaging such IW-induced surface signatures as bands of enhanced and weakened backscatter., Contract no. N00014-08-1-0793 and N00014-09-1-0392