Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation
Advent of satellite altimetry brought into focus the pervasiveness of mesoscale eddies [Formula: see text] km in size, which are the ocean’s analogue of weather systems and are often regarded as the spectral peak of kinetic energy (KE). Yet, understanding of the ocean’s spatial scales has been deriv...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9463453 2023-05-15T13:41:54+02:00 Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation Storer, Benjamin A. Buzzicotti, Michele Khatri, Hemant Griffies, Stephen M. Aluie, Hussein 2022-09-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463453/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36085140 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463453/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36085140 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Nat Commun Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 2022-09-18T00:37:54Z Advent of satellite altimetry brought into focus the pervasiveness of mesoscale eddies [Formula: see text] km in size, which are the ocean’s analogue of weather systems and are often regarded as the spectral peak of kinetic energy (KE). Yet, understanding of the ocean’s spatial scales has been derived mostly from Fourier analysis in small "representative” regions that cannot capture the vast dynamic range at planetary scales. Here, we use a coarse-graining method to analyze scales much larger than what had been possible before. Spectra spanning over three decades of length-scales reveal the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as the spectral peak of the global extra-tropical circulation, at ≈ 10(4) km, and a previously unobserved power-law scaling over scales larger than 10(3) km. A smaller spectral peak exists at ≈ 300 km associated with mesoscales, which, due to their wider spread in wavenumber space, account for more than 50% of resolved surface KE globally. Seasonal cycles of length-scales exhibit a characteristic lag-time of ≈ 40 days per octave of length-scales such that in both hemispheres, KE at 10(2) km peaks in spring while KE at 10(3) km peaks in late summer. These results provide a new window for understanding the multiscale oceanic circulation within Earth’s climate system, including the largest planetary scales. Text Antarc* Antarctic PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic The Antarctic Nature Communications 13 1 |
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Article Storer, Benjamin A. Buzzicotti, Michele Khatri, Hemant Griffies, Stephen M. Aluie, Hussein Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
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Article |
description |
Advent of satellite altimetry brought into focus the pervasiveness of mesoscale eddies [Formula: see text] km in size, which are the ocean’s analogue of weather systems and are often regarded as the spectral peak of kinetic energy (KE). Yet, understanding of the ocean’s spatial scales has been derived mostly from Fourier analysis in small "representative” regions that cannot capture the vast dynamic range at planetary scales. Here, we use a coarse-graining method to analyze scales much larger than what had been possible before. Spectra spanning over three decades of length-scales reveal the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as the spectral peak of the global extra-tropical circulation, at ≈ 10(4) km, and a previously unobserved power-law scaling over scales larger than 10(3) km. A smaller spectral peak exists at ≈ 300 km associated with mesoscales, which, due to their wider spread in wavenumber space, account for more than 50% of resolved surface KE globally. Seasonal cycles of length-scales exhibit a characteristic lag-time of ≈ 40 days per octave of length-scales such that in both hemispheres, KE at 10(2) km peaks in spring while KE at 10(3) km peaks in late summer. These results provide a new window for understanding the multiscale oceanic circulation within Earth’s climate system, including the largest planetary scales. |
format |
Text |
author |
Storer, Benjamin A. Buzzicotti, Michele Khatri, Hemant Griffies, Stephen M. Aluie, Hussein |
author_facet |
Storer, Benjamin A. Buzzicotti, Michele Khatri, Hemant Griffies, Stephen M. Aluie, Hussein |
author_sort |
Storer, Benjamin A. |
title |
Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
title_short |
Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
title_full |
Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
title_fullStr |
Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
title_full_unstemmed |
Global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
title_sort |
global energy spectrum of the general oceanic circulation |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463453/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36085140 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 |
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Antarctic The Antarctic |
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Antarctic The Antarctic |
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Antarc* Antarctic |
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Antarc* Antarctic |
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Nat Commun |
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463453/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36085140 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33031-3 |
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Nature Communications |
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13 |
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