Surface Heating and Patchiness in the Coastal Ocean off Central California During a Wind Relaxation Event
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Authors
Ramp, Steven R.
Garwood, Roland W.
Davis, Curtiss O.
Snow, Richard L.
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
1991-08
Date
Publisher
Journal of Geophysical Research
Language
Abstract
The difference between the temperature of the ocean at 4-cm and 2-m depth was continuously
monitored during a cruise to the coastal transition zone off Point Arena, California (38°58'N,
123°45'W), during June 1987. The two temperatures were coincident most of the time but diverged
during one nearshore leg of the cruise where large temperature differences (~D of up to 4.7°C were
observed between the 4-cm and 2-m sensors, in areas which were separated by regions where the two
temperatures were coincident as usual. The spatial scale of this "patchy" thermal structure was about
5-10 km. The Naval Postgraduate School mixed layer model (Garwood, 1977) was used to simulate the
near surface stratification when forced by the observed wind stress, surface heating, and optical clarity
of the water. The model produced a thin strongly stratified surface layer at stations where
exceptionally high turbidity was observed but did not produce such features otherwise. This simple
model could not explain the horizontal patchiness in the thermal structure, which was likely due to
patchiness in the near-surface chlorophyll distributions or to submesoscale variability of the surface
wind stress.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Oceanography
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
The field work was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Coasta,I Sciences Program, Code I 122CS, as part of the Coastal Transition Zone project. S.R.R. re- ceived additional support from Direct Research Funding at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The portion of this work carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, was sponsored by ONR and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Model simulatiotis were conducted by the Oceanic Planetary Boundary Layer Laboratory, sponsored by ONR and funded by NPS. The boom probe was designed and built by the Oceanography Department support staff at the Naval Postgraduate School. Paul Jessen assisted with the data collection and processing. The satellite image was provided by Toby Garfield and the NPS Interactive Digital Environmental Analysis (IDEA) Laboratory.
Funder
Format
Citation
Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 96, No. C8, Pages 14,947 - 14,957, August 15, 1991
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.