Interdecadal variability of the Western Subarctic Gyre in the North Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Interdecadal variations of the Western Subarctic Gyre (WSAG) in the North Pacific were examined mainly by analysis of absolute dynamic topography (ADT) during 1993–2017. The ADT was based on altimetry-derived sea level anomalies superimposed on state-of-the-art mean dynamic topography. We specified geostrophic surface streamlines of the WSAG associated with closed isolines of the ADT. The WSAG intensity was the strongest in the late 1990s, when the WSAG was zonally contracted, and it decreased to the mid-2010s in a linear manner with time. The WSAG expanded abruptly toward the east around 2001 in a step function–like manner. After this abrupt shift, the WSAG was connected most strongly to the Alaskan Gyre. This condition persisted even into the late 2010s. The shift to the very elongated pattern was also accompanied by a drastic lowering of the ADT around 170°W, 50°N, where the WSAG and Alaskan Gyre had been distinctly separated by a peak of the ADT during the previous period when the shape of the gyre was less elongated. A reduced-gravity model of wind-induced, long, baroclinic Rossby waves with weak dissipation could account for both the interdecadal weakening of the WSAG and the step function–like lowering of the ADT peak at the time of the shift of the WSAG to the very elongated pattern. In addition to the baroclinic response of the subarctic ocean to basin-scale wind stress, mesoscale clockwise eddies contributed to sea level rise around the center of the WSAG. In particular, there was an interdecadal increase in the frequency of appearance of strong, mesoscale, clockwise eddies that were generated south of the Aleutian Islands at longitudes of 170°E−180°. Those eddies propagated approximately to the west-southwest, and they disappeared around the center of the WSAG.