Observed deep cyclonic eddies around Southern Greenland

• Published in: Journal of Physical Oceanography
• Main Authors: Zou, Sijia, Bower, Amy S., Furey, Heather, Pickart, Robert S., Houpert, Loïc, Holliday, N. Penny
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Greenland; Cape Farewell; Denmark Strait; Labrador Sea; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/534072/; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/534072/1/1520-0485-JPO-D-20-0288.1.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0288.1

Recent mooring measurements from the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program have revealed abundant cyclonic eddies at both sides of Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. In this study, we present further observational evidence, from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives, of deep cyclonic eddies with intense rotation (ζ/f > 1) around southern Greenland and into the Labrador Sea. Most of the observed cyclones exhibit strongest rotation below the surface at 700–1000 dbar, where maximum azimuthal velocities are ~30 cm s−1 at radii of ~10 km, with rotational periods of 2–3 days. The cyclonic rotation can extend to the deep overflow water layer (below 1800 dbar), albeit with weaker azimuthal velocities (~10 cm s−1) and longer rotational periods of about one week. Within the middepth rotation cores, the cyclones are in near solid-body rotation and have the potential to trap and transport water. The first high-resolution hydrographic transect across such a cyclone indicates that it is characterized by a local (both vertically and horizontally) potential vorticity maximum in its middepth core and cold, fresh anomalies in the deep overflow water layer, suggesting its source as the Denmark Strait outflow. Additionally, the propagation and evolution of the cyclonic eddies are illustrated with deep Lagrangian floats, including their detachments from the boundary currents to the basin interior. Taken together, the combined Eulerian and Lagrangian observations have provided new insights on the boundary current variability and boundary–interior exchange over a geographically large scale near southern Greenland, calling for further investigations on the (sub)mesoscale dynamics in the region.