Interannual forcing mechanisms of California Current transports I: Meridional Currents

Abstract

An ensemble of eddy-resolving ocean model hindcasts integrated from 1950 to 2008 is used to examine and quantify the interannual variability of large-scale (>200km) alongshore equatorward flow in the California Current System (CCS). We also develop a single index of this transport in order to determine what fraction of variance is driven locally, by changes in wind stress curl, and remotely, by the arrival of coastally trapped waves of tropical origin.In agreement with previous studies, coastally trapped waves dominate large-scale interannual CCS sea surface height variability. In contrast, we find that large-scale alongshore currents (v) are driven predominantly by local wind stress curl variability rather than coastally trapped waves. A simple wind-driven diagnostic model of the time-dependent large-scale geostrophic meridional transport captures ~50% (R=0.7) of the total variance. The local wind-stress curl gradient that controls the largest fraction of meridional transport is not independent of the modulations in atmospheric circulation that drive the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and a significant fraction of the monthly transport variability in the model ensembles is correlated to the PDO (R=0.4).