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1. Dynamics of Deep Recirculation Cells Offshore of the Deep Western Boundary Current in the Subtropical North Atlantic (15°–30°N)

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0184.1  

   Biló, Tiago Carrilho; Johns, William E; Zhao, Jian (January 2021, Journal of Physical Oceanography)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract The dynamics of the deep recirculation offshore of the deep western boundary current (DWBC) between 15° and 30°N within the upper North Atlantic Deep Water layer (1000 ≤ z ≤ 3000 m) is investigated with two different eddy-resolving numerical simulations. Despite some differences in the recirculation cells, our assessment of the modeled deep isopycnal circulation patterns (36.77 ≤ σ 2 ≤ 37.06 kg m −3 ) shows that both simulations predict the DWBC flowing southward along the continental slope, while the so-called Abaco Gyre and two additional cyclonic cells recirculate waters northward in the interior. These cells are a few degrees wide, located along the DWBC path, and characterized by potential vorticity (PV) changes occurring along their mean streamlines. The analysis of the mean PV budget reveals that these changes result from the action of eddy forcing that tends to erode the PV horizontal gradients. The lack of a major upper-ocean boundary current within the study region, and the fact that the strongest eddy forcing is constrained within a few hundreds of kilometers of the western boundary, suggest that the DWBC is the primary source of eddy forcing. Finally, the eddies responsible for forcing the recirculation have dominant time scales between 100 and 300 days, which correspond to the primary observed variability scales of the DWBC transport at 26.5°N. 

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2. Observed Deep Cyclonic Eddies around Southern Greenland

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0288.1  

   Zou, Sijia; Bower, Amy_S; Furey, Heather; Pickart, Robert_S; Houpert, Loïc; Holliday, N_Penny (October 2021, Journal of Physical Oceanography)

   Abstract 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⁻¹at 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. 

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3. The Deep Western Boundary Current and Adjacent Interior Circulation at 24°–30°N: Mean Structure and Mesoscale Variability

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0094.1  

   Biló, Tiago Carrilho; Johns, William E. (September 2020, Journal of Physical Oceanography)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract The mean North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW, 1000 < z < 5000 m) circulation and deep western boundary current (DWBC) variability offshore of Abaco, Bahamas, at 26.5°N are investigated from nearly two decades of velocity and hydrographic observations, and outputs from a 30-yr-long eddy-resolving global simulation. Observations at 26.5°N and Argo-derived geostrophic velocities show the presence of a mean Abaco Gyre spanning the NADW layer, consisting of a closed cyclonic circulation between approximately 24° and 30°N and 72° and 77°W. The southward-flowing portion of this gyre (the DWBC) is constrained to within ~150 km of the western boundary with a mean transport of ~30 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 10 6 m 3 s −1 ). Offshore of the DWBC, the data show a consistent northward recirculation with net transports varying from 6.5 to 16 Sv. Current meter records spanning 2008–17 supported by the numerical simulation indicate that the DWBC transport variability is dominated by two distinct types of fluctuations: 1) periods of 250–280 days that occur regularly throughout the time series and 2) energetic oscillations with periods between 400 and 700 days that occur sporadically every 5–6 years and force the DWBC to meander far offshore for several months. The shorter-period variations are related to DWBC meandering caused by eddies propagating southward along the continental slope at 24°–30°N, while the longer-period oscillations appear to be related to large anticyclonic eddies that slowly propagate northwestward counter to the DWBC flow between ~20° and 26.5°N. Observational and theoretical evidence suggest that these two types of variability might be generated, respectively, by DWBC instability processes and Rossby waves reflecting from the western boundary. 

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4. Eddy‐Induced Acceleration of Argo Floats

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JC016042  

   Wang, Tianyu; Gille, Sarah T.; Mazloff, Matthew R.; Zilberman, Nathalie V.; Du, Yan (October 2020, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans)

   Abstract Float trajectories are simulated using Lagrangian particle tracking software and eddy‐permitting ocean model output from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II (ECCO2) project. We find that Argo‐like particles near strong mean flows tend to accelerate while at their parking depth. This effect is pronounced in western boundary current regions and in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current system. The acceleration is associated with eddy‐mean flow interactions: Eddies converge particles toward regions with stronger mean currents. Particles do not accelerate when they are advected by the eddy or mean flow alone. During a 9‐day parking period, speed increases induced by the eddy‐mean flow interactions can be as large as 2 cm s⁻¹, representing roughly 10% of the mean velocity. If unaccounted for, this acceleration could bias velocities inferred from observed Argo float trajectories. 

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5. Stochastic Lagrangian dynamics of vorticity. Part 1. General theory for viscous, incompressible fluids

   https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2020.491  

   Eyink, Gregory L.; Gupta, Akshat; Zaki, Tamer A. (October 2020, Journal of Fluid Mechanics)

   null (Ed.)

   Prior mathematical work of Constantin & Iyer ( Commun. Pure Appl. Maths , vol. 61, 2008, pp. 330–345; Ann. Appl. Probab. , vol. 21, 2011, pp. 1466–1492) has shown that incompressible Navier–Stokes solutions possess infinitely many stochastic Lagrangian conservation laws for vorticity, backward in time, which generalize the invariants of Cauchy ( Sciences mathématiques et physique , vol. I, 1815, pp. 33–73) for smooth Euler solutions. We reformulate this theory for the case of wall-bounded flows by appealing to the Kuz'min ( Phys. Lett. A , vol. 96, 1983, pp. 88–90)–Oseledets ( Russ. Math. Surv. , vol. 44, 1989, p. 210) representation of Navier–Stokes dynamics, in terms of the vortex-momentum density associated to a continuous distribution of infinitesimal vortex rings. The Constantin–Iyer theory provides an exact representation for vorticity at any interior point as an average over stochastic vorticity contributions transported from the wall. We point out relations of this Lagrangian formulation with the Eulerian theory of Lighthill (Boundary layer theory. In Laminar Boundary Layers (ed. L. Rosenhead), 1963, pp. 46–113)–Morton ( Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn. , vol. 28, 1984, pp. 277–308) for vorticity generation at solid walls, and also with a statistical result of Taylor ( Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A , vol. 135, 1932, pp. 685–702)–Huggins ( J. Low Temp. Phys. , vol. 96, 1994, pp. 317–346), which connects dissipative drag with organized cross-stream motion of vorticity and which is closely analogous to the ‘Josephson–Anderson relation’ for quantum superfluids. We elaborate a Monte Carlo numerical Lagrangian scheme to calculate the stochastic Cauchy invariants and their statistics, given the Eulerian space–time velocity field. The method is validated using an online database of a turbulent channel-flow simulation (Graham et al. , J. Turbul. , vol. 17, 2016, pp. 181–215), where conservation of the mean Cauchy invariant is verified for two selected buffer-layer events corresponding to an ‘ejection’ and a ‘sweep’. The variances of the stochastic Cauchy invariants grow exponentially backward in time, however, revealing Lagrangian chaos of the stochastic trajectories undergoing both fluid advection and viscous diffusion. 

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