A Lagrangian description of motion in Northern California coastal transition filaments

Abstract

Lagrangian drifters deployed during May 1987 as part of the Coastal Transition Zone experiment were used to examine the motion in cold‐water features seen in satellite AVHRR imagery. The drifters were drogued at 15 m depth and had temperature sensors at 0 m, 12 m, and 18 m. Drogue positions were obtained via service ARGOS at an average of 8 times per day. A cluster of nine drifters was deployed on May 18 near the base of a cold‐water feature off Pt. Reyes. Drifter trajectories confirm the presence of strong (> 50 cm s−1) currents along the axis of the feature. Six of the drifters moved northward following a cyclonic circulation pattern between the Pt. Reyes jet and another feature originating near Pt. Arena. The remaining three drifters, together with three more deployed on May 20, moved offshore in the positive vorticity portion of the Reyes jet. Cluster analysis of the northern tracks indicates large convergence (∼0.5f;), but because relative vorticity during the same few‐day period is found to be constant (∼−0.2f), a simple vorticity balance does not emerge. This is attributed to insufficient resolution of divergence of the water parcel by the small number in the cluster. Drifters reside on the negative vorticity side of the jet while the flow is upwind but on the positive vorticity side while the flow is downwind. Such behavior is consistent with the convergence or divergence patterns expected when along‐jet winds blow over such strong and narrow ocean currents producing significant advection of relative vorticity. Temperature‐salinity data from CTD surveys during the experiment show how the jets that were revealed in both the imagery and the drifter trajectories were advecting different water masses. In the nearshore area where the drifters were deployed a column of cold and salty water had upwelled about 80 m since leaving the source region far offshore. Within the offshore extension of the jets as traced by the drifters, this same water is found about 20 m deeper than it is in the nearshore area. We thus observe that cold filaments seen in AVHRR transport upwelled water offshore through the coastal transition zone. That water subducts in the offshore extension of the filaments. Analysis of the high‐frequency motion from a cluster of five drifters in the Reyes jet shows a multitude of mixing scales. For periods shorter than a day, the cluster shows coherent oscillations of tidal/inertial period whose motions lead to excursions on the order of 2 to 4 km. This suggests that motions on these scales are organized and not random or turbulent. Conversely, motions at scales of 1 km and less appear turbulent. Over longer time periods (several days), the particles exchange places over the cross‐jet scale of the feature (10 to 20 km).