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Abstract The Lofoten Basin is the largest oceanic reservoir of heat in the Nordic Seas, and the site of important heat fluxes to the atmosphere. An intense permanent anticyclone in the basin impacts the regional hydrography, energetics, and ecosystem. Repeated sampling of this Lofoten Basin Eddy from dedicated cruises, autonomous profiling gliders, and acoustically-tracked subsurface floats enables the documentation of its dynamics and energetics over the course of 15 months. The eddy core, in nearly solid-body rotation, exhibits an unusually low vertical vorticity close to the local inertial frequency and important strain rates at the periphery. Subsurface floats as deep as 800 m are trapped within the core for their entire deployment duration (up to 15 months). The potential vorticity is reduced in the core by two orders of magnitude relative to the surroundings, creating a barrier. In the winter, this barrier weakens and lateral exchanges and heat flux between the eddy and the surroundings increase, apparently the result of dynamical instabilities and a possible eddy merger. Based on a simple energy budget, the dissipation timescale for the eddy energy is three years, during which wintertime convection seasonally modulates potential and kinetic energy.
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The Regeneration of the Lofoten Vortex through Vertical Alignment
Abstract Observations from the past decades have promoted the idea of a long-lived anticyclonic vortex residing in the Lofoten Basin. Despite repeatedly recorded intense anticyclones, the observations cannot firmly decide whether the signature is of a single vortex or a succession of ephemeral vortices. A vortex persisting for decades requires some reinvigoration mechanism. Wintertime convection and vortex merging have been proposed candidates. We examine Lofoten Basin vortex dynamics using a high-resolution regional ocean model. The model is initialized from a coarser state with a weak eddy field. The slope current intensifies and sheds anticyclonic eddies that drift into the basin. After half a year, an anticyclone arrives at the center, providing the nucleus for a vortex that remains distinct throughout the simulation. Analyses show that this vortex is regenerated by repeated absorption and vertical stacking of lighter anticyclones. This compresses and—in concert with potential vorticity conservation—intensifies the combined vortex, which becomes more vertically stratified and also expels some fluid in the process. Wintertime convection serves mainly to vertically homogenize and densify the vortex, rather than intensifying it. Further, topographic guiding of anticyclones shed from the continental slope is vital for the existence and reinvigoration of the Lofoten vortex. These results offer a new perspective on the regeneration of oceanic anticyclones. In this scenario the Lofoten vortex is maintained through repeated merging events. Fluid remains gradually exchanged, although the vortex is identifiable as a persistent extremum in potential vorticity.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1658564
- PAR ID:
- 10323196
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Physical Oceanography
- Volume:
- 50
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 0022-3670
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0029.1
