Impact of remote oceanic forcing on Gulf of Alaska sea levels and mesoscale circulation

Abstract

We examine the relative importance of regional wind forcing and teleconnections by an oceanic pathway for impact on interannual ocean circulation variability in the Gulf of Alaska. Any additional factors that contribute to this variability, such as freshwater forcing from river runoff, are disregarded. The study is based on results from numerical simulations, sea level data from tide gauge stations, and sea surface height anomalies from satellite altimeter data. At the heart of this investigation is a comparison of ocean simulations that include and exclude interannual oceanic teleconnections of an equatorial origin. Using lagged correlations, the model results imply that 70–90% of the interannual coastal sea level variance in the Gulf of Alaska can be related to interannual sea levels at La Libertad, Equador. These values are higher than the corresponding range from sea level data, which is 25–55%. When oceanic teleconnections from the equatorial Pacific are excluded in the model, the explained variance becomes about 20% or less. During poleward propagation the coastally trapped sea level signal in the model is less attenuated than the observed signal. In the Gulf of Alaska we find well‐defined sea level peaks in the aftermath of El Niño events. The interannual intensity of eddies in the Gulf of Alaska also peaks after El Niño events; however, these maxima are less clear after weak and moderate El Niño events. The interannual variations in eddy activity intensity are predominantly governed by the regional atmospheric forcing.