Westward Jet Research Articles

Evaluation of infrasound signals from the shuttle Atlantis using a large seismic network

Inclement weather in Florida forced the space shuttle "Atlantis" to land at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California on June 22, 2007, passing near three infrasound stations and several hundred seismic stations in northern Mexico, southern California, and Nevada. The high signal-to-noise ratio, broad receiver coverage, and Atlantis' positional information allow for the testing of infrasound propagation modeling capabilities through the atmosphere to regional distances. Shadow zones and arrival times are predicted by tracing rays that are launched at right angles to the conical shock front surrounding the shuttle through a standard climatological model as well as a global ground to space model. The predictions and observations compare favorably over much of the study area for both atmospheric specifications. To the east of the shuttle trajectory, there were no detections beyond the primary acoustic carpet. Infrasound energy was detected hundreds of kilometers to the west and northwest (NW) of the shuttle trajectory, consistent with the predictions of ducting due to the westward summer-time stratospheric jet. Both atmospheric models predict alternating regions of high and low ensonifications to the NW. However, infrasound energy was detected tens of kilometers beyond the predicted zones of ensonification, possibly due to uncertainties in stratospheric wind speeds.

Study of Infrasound Propagation from the Shuttle Atlantis using a large Seismic Network

Inclement weather in Florida forced the shuttle Atlantis to land at Edwards Air Force base in southern California on June 22, 2007, passing near three infrasound stations and several hundred seismic stations in northern Mexico, southern California, and Nevada. The high signal-to-noise ratio, broad receiver coverage, and Atlantis' positional information allowed us to test our ability to model infrasound propagation through the atmosphere to regional distances. We predicted shadow zones and arrival times using rays launched at right angles to the conical shock front surrounding the shuttle, and traced through a standard atmospheric model, as well as a global G2S model. Comparison of predictions vs observations shows agreement over much of the study area for both atmospheric specifications. To the east of the shuttle trajectory, there were no detections beyond the primary acoustic carpet. Infrasound energy was detected hundreds of kilometers to the west and northwest of the shuttle trajectory, consistent with the predictions of ducting due to the westward summer-time stratospheric jet. Both atmospheric models predict regions of ensonification alternating with shadow zones to the northwest. However, infrasound energy was detected tens of kilometers beyond predicted zones of ensonification, possibly due to uncertainties in stratospheric wind speeds.

On Sverdrup Discontinuities and Vortices in the Southwest Indian Ocean

Abstract The southwest Indian Ocean is distinguished by discontinuities in the wind-driven Sverdrup circulation. These connect the northern and southern tips of Madagascar with Africa and the southern tip of Africa with South America. In an analytical barotropic model with a flat bottom, the discontinuities produce intense westward jets. Those off the northern tip of Madagascar and the southern tip of Africa are always present, while the strength of that off southern Madagascar depends on the position of the zero curl line in the Indian Ocean (the jet is strong if the line intersects Madagascar but weak if the line is north of the island). All three jets are barotropically unstable by the Rayleigh–Kuo criterion. The authors studied the development of the instability using a primitive equation model, with a flat bottom and realistic coastlines. The model produced westward jets at the three sites and these became unstable after several weeks, generating 200–300-km scale eddies. The eddies generated west of Madagascar are in accord with observations and with previous numerical studies. The model’s Agulhas eddies are similar in size to the observed eddies, both the anticyclonic rings and the cyclones that form to the west of the tip of South Africa. However, the model’s Agulhas does not retroflect, most likely because of its lack of stratification and topography, and so cannot capture pinching-off events. It is noteworthy nevertheless that a retroflection is not required to produce eddies here.

Asymmetrization Mechanism of Jet Profiles in Decaying β-Plane Turbulence

Abstract In a previous paper, asymmetry was found in jet profiles between eastward and westward jets, which appear spontaneously in two-dimensional β-plane decaying turbulence. That is, westward jets are narrower and more intense than eastward jets. In this paper, the dependence of the asymmetry on the order of hyperviscosity is examined. It is shown that the dependence is not as strong as expected in the previous paper. A revised theoretical scenario to explain the weak dependence is also given.

Simulated Lagrangian pathways between the Leeuwin Current System and the upper-ocean circulation of the southeast Indian Ocean

Abstract The Leeuwin Current System, along the west Australian coast (22°S–34°S), forms a unique but poorly understood eastern boundary regime in which tropical waters flow poleward. Here we depict the three-dimensional paths connecting this eastern boundary system with the upper-ocean large-scale circulation around Australia based on selected trajectories from an online numerical particle tracking performed during the 1993/1997 integration of the 0.28° Los Alamos National Laboratory Parallel Ocean Program model. The simulated trajectories reveal a wealth of details about the regional circulation that are difficult to understand from observed and model Eulerian data alone. They reveal links between the Leeuwin Current, Leeuwin Undercurrent, Eastern Gyral Current, and zonal flows within the Subtropical Gyre. New findings include: a remote tropical source of the Leeuwin Current in the equatorial Indian Ocean, via the South Java Current; inshore (along the southern part of the North West Shelf) and offshore routes in the Indo-Australian Basin feeding the Leeuwin Current; strong exchange between the Leeuwin Undercurrent and adjacent Subtropical Gyre through a series of near surface eastward jets and deeper westward jets; and the tropical origin of the Eastern Gyral Current as a recirculation of the South Equatorial Current. We propose a current schematic summarising the links between the meridional boundary flows off Western Australia and the larger-scale circulation.

On the formation of geophysical and planetary zonal flows by near-resonant wave interactions

Numerical simulations on a β-plane are used to further understand the formation of zonal flows from small-scale fluctuations. The dynamics of ‘reduced models’ are computed by restricting the nonlinear term to include a subset of triad interactions in Fourier space. Reduced models of near-resonant triads are considered, as well as the complement set of non-resonant triads. At moderately small values of the Rhines number, near-resonant triad interactions are shown to be responsible for the generation of large-scale zonal flows from small-scale random forcing. Without large-scale drag, both the full system and the reduced model of near resonances produce asymmetry between eastward and westward jets, in favour of stronger westward jets. When large-scale drag is included, the long-time asymmetry is reversed in the full system, with eastward jets that are thinner and stronger than westward jets. Then the reduced model of near resonances exhibits a weaker asymmetry, but there are nevertheless more eastward jets stronger than a threshold value.

Saturn eddy momentum fluxes and convection: First estimates from Cassini images

We apply an automated cloud feature tracking algorithm to estimate eddy momentum fluxes in Saturn's southern hemisphere from Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem near-infrared continuum image sequences. Voyager Saturn manually tracked images had suggested no conversion of eddy to mean flow kinetic energy, but this was based on a small sample of <1000 wind vectors. The automated procedure we use for the Cassini data produces an order of magnitude more usable wind vectors with relatively unbiased sampling. Automated tracking is successful in and around the westward jet latitudes on Saturn but not in the vicinity of most eastward jets, where the linearity and non-discrete nature of cloud features produces ambiguous results. For the regions we are able to track, we find peak eddy fluxes ∼ 10 m 2 s −2 and a clear positive correlation between eddy momentum fluxes and meridional shear of the mean zonal wind, implying that eddies supply momentum to eastward jets and remove momentum from westward jets at a rate ∼ 5 × 10 −6 m s −2 . The behavior we observe is similar to that seen on Jupiter, though with smaller eddy-mean kinetic energy conversion rates per unit mass of atmosphere ( 3.3 × 10 −5 m 2 s −3 ). We also use the appearance and rapid evolution of small bright features at continuum wavelengths, in combination with evidence from weak methane band images where possible, to diagnose the occurrence of moist convective storms on Saturn. Areal expansion rates imply updraft speeds of ∼ 1 m s −1 over the convective anvil cloud area. As on Jupiter, convection preferentially occurs in cyclonic shear regions on Saturn, but unlike Jupiter, convection is also observed in eastward jet regions. With one possible exception, the large eddy fluxes seen in the cyclonic shear latitudes do not seem to be associated with convective events.

Circumpolar jets emerging in two-dimensional non-divergent decaying turbulence on a rapidly rotating sphere

A series of numerical experiments on two-dimensional decaying turbulence are performed for a non-divergent fluid on a rotating sphere, with attention focused on scaling properties of spontaneous circumpolar jets. The numerical calculations show that strong circumpolar westward (retrograde) jets emerge clearly in high latitudes at a large rotation rate Ω . A scaling theory is proposed for the jet width proportional to Ω - 1 / 4 , and the jet strength to Ω 1 / 4 , which agrees well with the numerical results. A noteworthy asymptotic feature is that kinetic energy is entirely concentrated on the circumpolar jets under large rotation rates.

Barotropic Instability of a Zonal Jet: From Nondivergent Perturbations on the β Plane to Divergent Perturbations on a Sphere

Abstract The linear instability of divergent perturbations that evolve on a cos2 mean steady zonal jet embedded in a zonal channel on the β plane and on a rotating sphere is studied for zonally propagating wavelike perturbations of the shallow-water equations. The complex phase speeds result from the imposition of the no-flow boundary conditions at the channel walls on the numerical solutions of the linear differential equations for the wave latitude-dependent amplitude. In addition, the same numerical method is applied to the traditional problem of linear instability of nondivergent perturbations on the β plane where results reaffirm the classical, analytically derived, features. For these nondivergent perturbations, the present study shows that the growth rate increases monotonically with the jet maximal speed and that the classical result of a local maximum at some finite westward-directed speed results from scaling the growth rates on the jet’s speed. In contrast to nondivergent perturbations, divergent perturbations on the β plane have no short-wave cutoff, and so the nondivergent solution does not provide an estimate for the divergent solution, even when the ocean is 1000 km deep (i.e., when the speed of gravity waves exceeds 10 Mach). For realistic values of the ocean depth, the growth rates of divergent perturbations are smaller than those of nondivergent perturbations, but with the increase in the ocean depth they become larger than those of nondivergent perturbations. For both perturbations, a slight asymmetry exists between eastward- and westward-flowing jets. The growth rates of divergent perturbations on a sphere are similar to those on the β plane for the same values of the model parameters, but the asymmetry between eastward and westward jets is more conspicuous on a sphere. The value of g′H′ (g′ is the reduced gravity; H′ is the equivalent mean layer thickness), which is filtered out in nondivergent theory, determines for divergent perturbations the relative magnitude of zonal velocity, meridional velocity, and height but has little effect on the growth rates.

Seasonal variations in the horizontal wind structure from 0-100 km above Rothera station, Antarctica (67° S, 68° W)

Abstract. A medium frequency spaced-antenna radar has been operating at Rothera station, Antarctica (67° S, 68° W) for two periods, between 1997-1998 and since 2002, measuring winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. In this paper monthly mean winds are derived and presented along with three years of radiosonde balloon data for comparison with the HWM-93 model atmosphere and other high latitude southern hemisphere sites. The observed meridional winds are slightly more northwards than those predicted by the model above 80 km in the winter months and below 80 km in summer. In addition, the altitude of the summer time zero crossing of the zonal winds above the westward jet is overestimated by the model by up to 8 km. These data are then merged with the wind climatology obtained from falling sphere measurements made during the PORTA campaign at Rothera in early 1998 and the HWM-93 model atmosphere to generate a complete zonal wind climatology between 0 and 100 km as a benchmark for future studies at Rothera. A westwards (eastwards) maximum of 44 ms-1 at 67 km altitude occurs in mid December (62 ms-1 at 37 km in mid July). The 0 ms-1 wind contour reaches a maximum altitude of 90 km in mid November and a minimum altitude of 18 km in January extending into mid March at 75 km and early October at 76 km.

A seasonal intrusion of subtropical water in the Mozambique Channel

An episode of subtropical water intruding in the tropical waters north of Madagascar during the austral summer of 2001 is documented by a combination of satellite derived surface chlorophyll and sea surface height observations and simultaneous in‐situ observations of velocity, chemical and biological tracers. A westward jet clearly of subtropical origin is found in the Comoros basin as a continuation of the South Equatorial Current. Further west, a strong anticyclonic Mozambique eddy is formed north of the narrows, that propagates southward into the Channel. The phenomenon documented here seems to occur each austral summer, and may be part of the adjustment to the seasonal variations in the wind forcing over the subtropical and tropical gyres.

The Behavior of Jet Currents over a Continental Slope Topography with a Possible Application to the Northern Current

Abstract The Northern Current is a slope current in the northwest Mediterranean that shows high mesoscale variability, generally associated with meander and eddy formation. A barotropic laboratory model of this current is used here to study the role of the bottom topography on the current variability. For this purpose, a source–sink setup in a cylindrical tank placed on a rotating table is used to generate an axisymmetric barotropic current. To study inviscid topographic effects, experiments are performed over a topographic slope and also over a constant-depth setup, the latter being used as a reference for the former. With the aim of obtaining a fully comprehensive view of the vorticity balance at play, the flow may be forced in either azimuthal direction, leading to a “westward” prograde current (similar to the Northern Current) or an “eastward” retrograde current. For slow flows, eastward and westward currents showed similar patterns, dominated by Kelvin–Helmholtz-type instabilities. For high-speed flows, eastward and westward currents showed very different behavior. In eastward currents, the variability is observed to concentrate toward the center of the jet and shows strong meandering formation. Westward currents, instead, showed major variability toward the edges of the jet, together with a strong variability over the uppermost slope, which has been associated here with a topographic Rossby wave trapped over the shelf break. The differences between eastward and westward jets are explained through the balance between shear-induced and topographically induced vorticity at play in each case. Moreover, a model of jets over a beta plane is successfully applied here, allowing its extension to any ambient potential vorticity gradient caused either by latitudinal or bottom depth changes.

The Guajira upwelling system

The coastal upwelled waters of the Guajira coast, the most northerly peninsula of South America, were studied on the basis of historical data bases, remotely sensed data, and three oceanographic cruises. The Guajira Peninsula is the locus of particularly strong upwelling because it protrudes into the Caribbean Low-Level Wind Jet and its west coast parallels the direction of the strongest winds. The year-round upwelling varies with the wind forcing: strongest in December–March and July, and weakest in the October–November rainy season. The east–west temperature, salinity and density front that delimits the upwelling lies over the shelf edge in the east of the peninsula but separates from the south-westward trending topography to the west. A coastal westward surface jet geostrophically adjusted to the upwelling flows along the front, and an eastward sub-surface counterflow is trapped against the Guajira continental slope. The undercurrent shoals toward the western limit of the upwelling, Santa Marta, beyond which point it extends to the surface. Some of the westward jet re-circulates inshore with the counterflow but part continues directly west to form an upwelling filament. Much of the mesoscale variation is associated with upwelling filaments, which expel cooler, chlorophyll-rich coastal upwelling waters westward and northward into the Caribbean Sea. Freshwater plumes from the Magdalena and Orinoco rivers influence the area strongly, and outflow from Lake Maracaibo interacts directly with upwelled waters off Guajira. Another important factor is the Aeolian input of dust from the Guajira desert by episodes of offshore winds.

Planetary wave transience effects on the zonal mean flow: simulations with the COMMA-LIM model

A 3D circulation model has been used to investigate the role of the quasi two-day wave propagation, its dissipation and variability in the formation of the middle atmosphere zonal mean circulation. According to linear theory, the accelerations due to dissipation of steady planetary waves are relatively weak. This study shows that the transient quasi two-day wave is able to shift the summer jet towards the equator thereby attenuating the seasonal weakening of the westward jet.

The 6.5‐day wave and its seasonal variability in the middle and upper atmosphere

The zonal wave number 1 planetary wave of period near 6.5 days is a robust feature in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region with prominent seasonal variability as revealed by ground based and satellite observations. This wave and its seasonal variability are well reproduced in a recent one model year run of the National Center for Atmospheric Research thermosphere‐ionosphere‐mesosphere‐electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME‐GCM) with its lower boundary specified according to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction analysis (year 1993). Wavelet analysis of the model output shows that in the MLT region the wave maximizes before and after the equinoxes and minimizes at solstices. The wave amplitudes at the equinoxes are smaller than the peaks before and after but are still larger than the wave amplitudes at solstices. However, at the lower boundary near 30 km the wave peaks are predominantly between fall and the following spring. By examining the episodes of maximum and minimum wave amplitude and by conducting additional control experiments using the TIME‐GCM, the structure of this planetary wave and the factors determining the wave characteristics and seasonal variability are studied in detail. It is found that the wave source, mean wind structure, instability, and the critical layers of the wave can all affect the wave response in the MLT region and can have a strong seasonal dependence. Before and after equinox, the wave follows the waveguide and propagates from the stratosphere to the summer mesosphere/mesopause, where it may amplify due to baroclinic/barotropic instability. Such instability is usually absent from the equinoctial atmosphere, so that there is no wave amplification at equinox. At solstice the wave decays significantly when propagating away from its winter source due to the strong eastward winter stratospheric jet. In the summer side the westward jet is also strong, and the meridional and vertical extension of the critical layer of the wave is large enough to enclose the instability in the summer mesosphere/mesopause at middle to high latitudes. The wave is thus reflected away and prevented from reaching and amplifying at the unstable region. The seasonal variation of the quasi‐two‐day wave, which has zonal phase speed similar to the 6.5‐day wave, is also studied using similar diagnostics. It is further shown that within certain seasonal “window” periods, the variability in the MLT, especially the summer MLT, may closely track the lower atmospheric variability associated with these waves.

Extended deep equatorial layering as a possible imprint of inertial instability

The deep equatorial track of the world ocean is subject to intense zonal flow fields that still remain to be better understood. Inertial instability has been invoked to explain some of its features. Here we present possible in situ imprints of such a mechanism in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean below the thermocline. We analyse the observed pattern of homogeneous density layers of 50–100 m vertical scale, which are characterized by a large meridional coherency up to 2° of latitude, a concentration in the vicinity of the equator and foremost a vertical localization within regions of well‐mixed angular momentum (westward jets). These distinctive properties suggest inertial instability to be a plausible mechanism for this extended layering. Numerical simulations forced by a time‐oscillating shear reproduce the observed density layering characteristics. The prescription of deep jets in the background flow controls the vertical localization of the layering inside westward jets.

Barotropic Beta-Plane Turbulence in a Regime with Strong Zonal Jets Revisited

The problem of quantification of barotropic beta-plane turbulence driven by small-scale stochastic forcing into regimes dominated by quasi-periodic zonal jets is revisited. It is shown that the large-scale relative vorticity in such regimes is organized into a sequence of zonal bands. Its zonal mean profile varies approximately linearly within the bands. Its mean negative slope β∗ is less than the meridional gradient of the Coriolis parameter β, and depends on the external parameters (friction, forcing, and β). The neighboring bands are connected through the vorticity fronts where the zonal mean meridional gradient is large and positive. The frontal-band vorticity structure defines piecewise parabolic profiles of asymmetric eastward and westward jets, and strong peaks in the low-k interval of turbulent zonal energy spectra, which store most of the zonal energy. The slope of their envelope depends on the structure of the frontal zones and is always steeper than −4. The presence of peaks invalidates the recent hypothesis on the universal power-law scaling Ez(k) = Czβ2k−5, Cz = O(1), for the zonal energy spectra of beta-plane turbulence in strongly anisotropic regimes. The power-law intervals could appear at large k and are linked to uncorrelated fluctuations of band profiles. It is shown that they could contain a part that slopes close to −5. However, its Cz is not universal and depends on the external parameters. A simple kinematic model of multijet beta-plane flows is proposed that explains the shape of the coherent part of zonal energy spectra and asymmetry between westward and eastward jets generated by vorticity bands, and quantifies the zonal wavenumber of jets kj in terms of the ratio of zonal enstrophy to zonal energy.

Estudo teórico da dinâmica da confluência Brasil-Malvinas

The study of the mesoscale dynamics of the confluence of two western boundary currents was conducted in this work via a quasi-geostrophic inviscid f-plane two-layer ocean theoretical approach. The simplified vertical structure was calculated through the employment of a dynamic calibration scheme based on the dynamical mode structure of the Brazil-Malvinas Confluence Region. The Brazil-Malvinas mode structure was computed from climatological hydrography of the area delimited by 35o-40oS and 50o-60oW. Two contour dynamics models were constructed: a linear and a nonlinear version. The basic flow configuration consisted of two converging western boundary currents that form a zonal eastward current in the upper layer. The lower layer flow was essentially divergent as a result of a westward zonal jet impinging on the western border. This vertical shear choice assured that the system was baroclinically unstable. The results of the model experiments showed that the presence of the confluence, the western meridional boundary and the barotropic mode in the dynamical structure of the basic flow favored long wave patterns. The three experiments conducted with the nonlinear model exhibited the development of both a reflection pattern and vortical dipoles. The dipoles pinched off from either the retroflection lobe (i.e., the primary crest of the wave train) or the primary trough when the baroclinically unstable current system was perturbed at the boundary vicinities. It was verified that the nonlinear model simulations followed the instability properties predicted by the linear model in terms of meander growth rates, phase speeds and most unstable wavelengths. This suggested that while the baroclinic instability mechanism was responsible for the temporal growth of the meanders, the nonlinear effects caused the dipole isolation and pinch off of the finite amplitude meanders. These dipoles could leave and propagate away from the current axis.

Scaling, spectra and zonal jets in beta-plane turbulence

A beta-plane approximation of the two-dimensional quasigeostrophic model describes a single layer (barotropic) fluid subjected to a latitudinally varying Coriolis parameter or topography. Rhines (1975) initiated the study of beta-plane turbulence. He predicted the inverse energy cascade into predominantly zonal modes, hence an array of eastward–westward jets, and estimated the jet number (celebrated Rhines scale). He also proposed a k−5 scaling law of zonal energy spectra. Our paper re-examines scaling, spectra, and zonal structure of beta-plane turbulence, based on theoretical predictions and numeric experiments. We show that the inverse cascade gives rise to strong organized zonal jets that evolve a peculiar frontal-band (“saw-tooth”) vorticity profile. Such structure affects all spectral properties of the system, by creating organized sequences of spectral peaks, and thus confounds any putative “scaling behavior.” The frontal-band structure appears consistently in all stochastically forced beta-plane flows, independent of dissipation and/or other details. But the resulting turbulent quasiequilibrium is not unique, its gross parameters (jets number, mean vorticity gradient) retain memory of the initial state and/or history.

Dynamical processes related to the atomic oxygen equinox transition

Both ground based and satellite observations have shown a “springtime transition” in the night-time OI 557.7 nm airglow emission and O 2 atmospheric band emission characterized by a relatively persistent period of very low emission rates around spring equinox at mid and high latitudes, indicating depletion of the peak atomic oxygen between 95 and 100 km . The salient feature of this depletion is reproduced by the NCAR thermosphere–ionosphere–mesosphere-electrodynamics general circulation model simulation. Analysis of the simulation results shows that the mean circulation in the upper mesosphere/mesopause and lower thermosphere is altered significantly by changes in gravity wave filtering and gravity wave forcing around equinox. The change first starts in form of a distinctive circulation cell in the summer lower thermosphere when the westward jet in the summer stratosphere and mesosphere begins to reverse. The circulation cell then becomes deeper and expands to lower altitudes and to the other hemisphere. This circulation can span a large vertical depth and drives an exchange of mass and chemical species between the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The variation of the peak atomic oxygen concentration around equinox is caused by this exchange, and the vertical transport of atomic oxygen dominates the diffusive transport in this process. Additional variability of the atomic oxygen and corresponding airglow emissions may result from the variability of gravity wave sources, planetary waves and transience of their amplitudes and phases, and circulation change due to late and final stratospheric sudden warming.