Topic Area
California Current System (CCS) Filaments/Eddies
Project Team Member:
LT Wendy Towle, USN
Major Findings
The CCS is one of the best sampled ocean regions, yet it remains obscurely understood and inadequately sampled. Technological advances in ocean modeling and observational techniques can now change this situation. Enhanced understanding of the features and dynamics of the CCS can aid fisheries and wildlife management, prediction and abatement of pollution and toxic phytoplankton blooms, atmospheric and climate change forecasts, and shipping and military operations.
The CCS was once thought of as a sluggish eastern boundary current driven by coastal upwelling and characterized by broad, weak equatorward flow. However, satellite SST images and in-situ and remote measurements of currents, temperature, salinity, and sea level have changed that view during the last quarter century. The CCS exhibits high biological productivity, diverse regional characteristics, and intricate eddy motions that have puzzled oceanographers for decades.
The mechanisms for the development and evolution of the complex features
of the CCS have not been fully identified. Vigorous debates continue on
the dynamical balances of mean and eddy fields, especially the importance
of topography; the instability of mean currents and its geographical variation;
and influences from local and remote atmospheric forcing, where remote
influences are mainly through poleward propagating waves from the tropics.
The roles of barotropic instability, wind forcing, and coastal topography
is investigated.
References
Batteen, M.L., 1997: "Wind-forced modeling studies of currents, meanders, and eddies in the California Current System." J. Phys. Res., Vol. 102, 985-1010.
Batteen, M.L., Vance, P.W., 1998: "Modeling studies of the effects of wind forcing and thermohaline gradients on the California Current System." Deep Sea Res. II, Vol. 45, 1507-1556.
Schenk, F.M., 2000: "Effects of thermohaline gradients and the Columbia River plume on the California Current System." Master’s Thesis.
Strub, T.P., Korso, P.M., Huyer, A., 1991: "The Nature of the Cold Filaments
in the California Current System." J. Phys. Res., Vol. 78,
2289-2297.
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