Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island
The relative contributions of local and remote wind stress and air‐sea buoyancy forcing to sea‐level variations along the East Coast of the United States are not well quantified, hindering the understanding of sea‐level predictability there. Here, we use an adjoint sensitivity analysis together with...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285510/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35859672 https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9285510 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9285510 2023-05-15T17:06:11+02:00 Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island Wang, Ou Lee, Tong Piecuch, Christopher G. Fukumori, Ichiro Fenty, Ian Frederikse, Thomas Menemenlis, Dimitris Ponte, Rui M. Zhang, Hong 2022-06-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285510/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35859672 https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285510/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35859672 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 © 2022 Jet Propulsion Laboratory. California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. CC-BY-NC J Geophys Res Oceans Research Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 2022-07-31T01:40:54Z The relative contributions of local and remote wind stress and air‐sea buoyancy forcing to sea‐level variations along the East Coast of the United States are not well quantified, hindering the understanding of sea‐level predictability there. Here, we use an adjoint sensitivity analysis together with an Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) ocean state estimate to establish the causality of interannual variations in Nantucket dynamic sea level. Wind forcing explains 67% of the Nantucket interannual sea‐level variance, while wind and buoyancy forcing together explain 97% of the variance. Wind stress contribution is near‐local, primarily from the New England shelf northeast of Nantucket. We disprove a previous hypothesis about Labrador Sea wind stress being an important driver of Nantucket sea‐level variations. Buoyancy forcing, as important as wind stress in some years, includes local contributions as well as remote contributions from the subpolar North Atlantic that influence Nantucket sea level a few years later. Our rigorous adjoint‐based analysis corroborates previous correlation‐based studies indicating that sea‐level variations in the subpolar gyre and along the United States northeast coast can both be influenced by subpolar buoyancy forcing. Forward perturbation experiments further indicate remote buoyancy forcing affects Nantucket sea level mostly through slow advective processes, although coastally trapped waves can cause rapid Nantucket sea level response within a few weeks. Text Labrador Sea North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Nantucket ENVELOPE(-61.917,-61.917,-74.583,-74.583) Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 127 6 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Research Article |
spellingShingle |
Research Article Wang, Ou Lee, Tong Piecuch, Christopher G. Fukumori, Ichiro Fenty, Ian Frederikse, Thomas Menemenlis, Dimitris Ponte, Rui M. Zhang, Hong Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
The relative contributions of local and remote wind stress and air‐sea buoyancy forcing to sea‐level variations along the East Coast of the United States are not well quantified, hindering the understanding of sea‐level predictability there. Here, we use an adjoint sensitivity analysis together with an Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) ocean state estimate to establish the causality of interannual variations in Nantucket dynamic sea level. Wind forcing explains 67% of the Nantucket interannual sea‐level variance, while wind and buoyancy forcing together explain 97% of the variance. Wind stress contribution is near‐local, primarily from the New England shelf northeast of Nantucket. We disprove a previous hypothesis about Labrador Sea wind stress being an important driver of Nantucket sea‐level variations. Buoyancy forcing, as important as wind stress in some years, includes local contributions as well as remote contributions from the subpolar North Atlantic that influence Nantucket sea level a few years later. Our rigorous adjoint‐based analysis corroborates previous correlation‐based studies indicating that sea‐level variations in the subpolar gyre and along the United States northeast coast can both be influenced by subpolar buoyancy forcing. Forward perturbation experiments further indicate remote buoyancy forcing affects Nantucket sea level mostly through slow advective processes, although coastally trapped waves can cause rapid Nantucket sea level response within a few weeks. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wang, Ou Lee, Tong Piecuch, Christopher G. Fukumori, Ichiro Fenty, Ian Frederikse, Thomas Menemenlis, Dimitris Ponte, Rui M. Zhang, Hong |
author_facet |
Wang, Ou Lee, Tong Piecuch, Christopher G. Fukumori, Ichiro Fenty, Ian Frederikse, Thomas Menemenlis, Dimitris Ponte, Rui M. Zhang, Hong |
author_sort |
Wang, Ou |
title |
Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
title_short |
Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
title_full |
Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
title_fullStr |
Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
title_full_unstemmed |
Local and Remote Forcing of Interannual Sea‐Level Variability at Nantucket Island |
title_sort |
local and remote forcing of interannual sea‐level variability at nantucket island |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285510/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35859672 https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-61.917,-61.917,-74.583,-74.583) |
geographic |
Nantucket |
geographic_facet |
Nantucket |
genre |
Labrador Sea North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Labrador Sea North Atlantic |
op_source |
J Geophys Res Oceans |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285510/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35859672 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 |
op_rights |
© 2022 Jet Propulsion Laboratory. California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC018275 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans |
container_volume |
127 |
container_issue |
6 |
_version_ |
1766061195030167552 |