During the last decade, the southeastern Bering Sea shelf has undergone a warming of 3 °C that is closely associated with a marked decrease of sea ice over the area. This shift in the physical environment of the shelf can be attributed to a combination of mechanisms, including the presence over the eastern Bering Sea shelf of a relatively mild air mass during the winter, especially from 2000 to 2005; a shorter ice season caused by a later fall transition and/or an earlier spring transition; increased flow through Unimak Pass during winter, which introduces warm Gulf of Alaska water onto the southeastern shelf; and the feedback mechanism whereby warmer ocean temperatures during the summer delay the southward advection of sea ice during winter. While the relative importance of these four mechanisms is difficult to quantify, it is evident that for sea ice to form, cold arctic winds must cool the water column. Sea ice is then formed in the polynyas during periods of cold north winds, and this ice is advected southward over the eastern shelf. The other three mechanisms can modify ice formation and melt, and hence its extent. In combination, these four mechanisms have served to temporally and spatially limit ice during the 5-year period (2001–2005). Warming of the eastern Bering Sea shelf could have profound influences on the ecosystem of the Bering Sea—from modification of the timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom to the northward advance of subarctic species and the northward retreat of arctic species. 相似文献
The Ulleung Basin is one of three deep basins that are contained within the East/Japan Sea. Current meter moorings have been maintained in this basin beginning in 1996. The data from these moorings are used to investigate the mean circulation pattern, variability of deep flows, and volume transports of major water masses in the Ulleung Basin with supporting hydrographic data and help from a high-resolution numerical model. The bottom water within the Ulleung Basin, which must enter through a constricted passage from the north, is found to circulate cyclonically—a pattern that seems prevalent throughout the East Sea. A strong current of about 6 cms−1 on average flows southward over the continental slope off the Korean coast underlying the northward East Korean Warm Current as part of the mean abyssal cyclonic circulation. Volume transports of the northward East Korean Warm Current, and southward flowing East Sea Intermediate Water and East Sea Proper Water are estimated to be 1.4 Sv (1 Sv=10−6 m3 s−1), 0.8 Sv, and 3.0–4.0 Sv, respectively. Deep flow variability involves a wide range of time scales with no apparent seasonal variations, whereas the deep currents in the northern East Sea are known to be strongly seasonal. 相似文献
A system for displaying tidal currents in an electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS) has been developed and implemented in compliance with the standards of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). The tidal current fields can be displayed in real time on the electronic navigational chart and several options and functions for updating and zooming have been designed. The current fields are calculated from a data base with the harmonic constants for the four major tidal constituents. The harmonic constants are obtained from a high resolution numerical model with horizontal grid resolution of 100 m. The model is validated by comparing with sea level and current measurements. The depth matrix for the central part of the model domain was calculated from data from multibeam bathymetric surveys. An application example of the implementation is given for Trondheimsleia, a part of the main sailing route along the western coast of Norway. 相似文献
The formation of incised valleys on continental shelves is generally attributed to fluvial erosion under low sea level conditions. However, there are exceptions. A multibeam sonar survey at the northern end of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, adjacent to the southern edge of the Gulf of Papua, mapped a shelf valley system up to 220 m deep that extends for more than 90 km across the continental shelf. This is the deepest shelf valley yet found in the Great Barrier Reef and is well below the maximum depth of fluvial incision that could have occurred under a − 120 m, eustatic sea level low-stand, as what occurred on this margin during the last ice age. These valleys appear to have formed by a combination of reef growth and tidal current scour, probably in relation to a sea level at around 30–50 m below its present position.
Tidally incised depressions in the valley floor exhibit closed bathymetric contours at both ends. Valley floor sediments are mainly calcareous muddy, gravelly sand on the middle shelf, giving way to well-sorted, gravely sand containing a large relict fraction on the outer shelf. The valley extends between broad platform reefs and framework coral growth, which accumulated through the late Quaternary, coincides with tidal current scour to produce steep-sided (locally vertical) valley walls. The deepest segments of the valley were probably the sites of lakes during the last ice age, when Torres Strait formed an emergent land-bridge between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Numerical modeling predicts that the strongest tidal currents occur over the deepest, outer-shelf segment of the valley when sea level is about 40–50 m below its present position. These results are consistent with a Pleistocene age and relict origin of the valley.
Based on these observations, we propose a new conceptual model for the formation of tidally incised shelf valleys. Tidal erosion on meso- to macro-tidal, rimmed carbonate shelves is enhanced during sea level rise and fall when a tidal, hydraulic pressure gradient is established between the shelf-lagoon and the adjacent ocean basin. Tidal flows attain a maximum, and channel incision is greatest, when a large hydraulic pressure gradient coincides with small channel cross sections. Our tidal-incision model may explain the observation of other workers, that sediment is exported from the Great Barrier Reef shelf to the adjacent ocean basins during intermediate (rather than last glacial maximum) low-stand, sea level positions. The model may apply to other rimmed shelves, both modern and ancient. 相似文献
During the 1950s and 1960s, an extensive field study and interpretive effort was made by researchers, primarily at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, to sample and understand the physical oceanography of the eastern tropical Pacific. That work was inspired by the valuable fisheries of the region, the recent discovery of the equatorial undercurrent, and the growing realization of the importance of the El Niño phenomenon. Here we review what was learned in that effort, and integrate those findings with work published since then as well as additional diagnoses based on modern data sets.Unlike the central Pacific, where the winds are nearly zonal and the ocean properties and circulation are nearly independent of longitude, the eastern tropical Pacific is distinguished by wind forcing that is strongly influenced by the topography of the American continent. Its circulation is characterized by short zonal scales, permanent eddies and significant off-equatorial upwelling. Notably, the Costa Rica Dome and a thermocline bowl to its northwest are due to winds blowing through gaps in the Central American cordillera, which imprint their signatures on the ocean through linear Sverdrup dynamics. Strong annual modulation of the gap winds and the meridional oscillation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone generates a Rossby wave, superimposed on the direct forcing, that results in a southwestward-propagating annual thermocline signal accounting for major features of observed thermocline depth variations, including that of the Costa Rica Dome, the Tehuantepec bowl, and the ridge–trough system of the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC). Interannual variability of sea surface temperature (SST) and altimetric sea surface height signals suggests that the strengthening of the NECC observed in the central Pacific during El Niño events continues all the way to the coast, warming SST (by zonal advection) in a wider meridional band than the equatorially trapped thermocline anomalies, and pumping equatorial water poleward along the coast.The South Equatorial Current originates as a combination of equatorial upwelling, mixing and advection from the NECC, and Peru coastal upwelling, but its sources and their variability remain unresolved. Similarly, while much of the Equatorial Undercurrent flows southeast into the Peru Undercurrent and supplies the coastal upwelling, a quantitative assessment is lacking. We are still unable to put together the eastern interconnections among the long zonal currents of the central Pacific. 相似文献