Meddies in the Mercator North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea eddy-resolving model
International audience The new generation of high-resolution ocean models offers a new way to investigate the characteristics and the evolution of the ocean mesoscale. An analysis of the simulated Mediterranean eddies, the so-called ''meddies,'' is presented. The model used in th...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans |
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Main Authors: | , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
HAL CCSD
2005
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00770772 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00770772/document https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00770772/file/2003JC002170.pdf https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JC002170 |
Summary: | International audience The new generation of high-resolution ocean models offers a new way to investigate the characteristics and the evolution of the ocean mesoscale. An analysis of the simulated Mediterranean eddies, the so-called ''meddies,'' is presented. The model used in this study is the Mercator North Atlantic [9°N, 70°N] and Mediterranean Sea Prototype (PAM), a high-resolution configuration (3.5-8 km horizontal grid) based on the OPA ocean general circulation model. The meddies are coherent structures of warm and salt Mediterranean Water (MW) advected in the northeast Atlantic. A 5 year experiment performed with PAM reproduced the main observed characteristics of the meddies: thermohaline properties (11.8°C, 36 psu), sizes (radius between 25 and 110 km), thickness (between 500 and 1000 m), westward advection velocities (1.4 cm.s-1), angular velocities (a period of 20 days), a good estimate of the number of meddies in the northeast Atlantic (~22), and their realistic geographical distribution (80% south of 40°N). Moreover, and in agreement with a previous study based on an observation cruise, these modeled meddies represent half of the westward salinity transport of MW. |
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