Aretxabaleta, A.; Edwards, C.; Seim, H.; Nelson, J.; Characterizing spring and summer Gulf Stream water intrusions in the mid-shelf of the South Atlantic Bight, Gordon Research Conference, Coastal Ocean Circulation, New London, NH, 2005

Abstract

Intrusions of Gulf Stream waters on the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) outer-shelf associated with the meandering of the Stream are common during all seasons. Detection of these intrusions in the mid-shelf is rare. However, in the spring of 2003, several of these intrusions were detected as far inshore as the mid-shelf at the SABSOON towers off Georgia and South Carolina (in depths less than 40m). During that time, hydrographic surveys in the central SAB showed a transition from a vertically mixed water column with strong cross-shelf salinity gradient, to a strongly vertically stratified water column. The transition was enhanced by the passage of the Gulf Stream intrusions and constituted the onset of a much larger event that resulted in anomalously cold water over much of the subsurface waters in the SAB shelf affecting even the near-shore areas. During late spring and early summer the mechanism for advective heat flux on the mid-shelf was associated with pulses of poleward along-shelf flow and onshore cross-shelf flow. This was consistent with intrusions of cold water in the southern SAB shelf and its propagation along-shelf into the central SAB region on time scales of 10-15 days. The cross-shelf heat flux was driven by pulses with a 3-5 day period, which was consistent with the passage of Gulf Stream frontal eddies along the shelf-break and atmospheric systems passage.

Citation

Aretxabaleta, A.; Edwards, C.; Seim, H.; Nelson, J.; Characterizing spring and summer Gulf Stream water intrusions in the mid-shelf of the South Atlantic Bight, Gordon Research Conference, Coastal Ocean Circulation, New London, NH, 2005

The complete poster is available as a PowerPoint presentation or Acrobat Reader file.

For more information, see the SEACOOS Modeling Working Group.