Inertial oscillations and frontal processes in an Alboran Sea jet: Effects on divergence and vertical transport
Esposito, G., Donnet, S., Berta, M., Shcherbina, A. Y., Freilich, M., Centurioni, L., D’Asaro, E. A., Farrar, J. T., Johnston, T. M. S., Mahadevan, A., Özgökmen, T., Pascual, A., Poulain, P.-M., Ruiz, S., Tarry, D. R., & Griffa, A., 2023. Inertial oscillations and frontal processes in an Alboran Sea jet: Effects on divergence and vertical transport. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 128(3), e2022JC019004. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019004
Vertical transport pathways in the ocean are still only partially understood despite their importance for biogeochemical, pollutant, and climate applications. In the ONR-funded CALYPSO experiment, we made detailed measurements of a submesoscale frontal jet in the Alboran Sea (Mediterranean Sea) during a period of highly variable wind.
The top panel in the figure illustrates the entire CALYPSO survey made between 28 March and 11 April with the ship and between 4 and 29 April by surface drifters. The black box is the insert presented in the bottom panel. The latter illustrates the surveys done between 1 and 5 April. (Image provided by Tom Farrar)