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Park & Watts 2006
Park, J. and Watts, D.R. (2006). Near 5-day nonisostatic response of the Atlantic Ocean to atmospheric surface pressure deduced from sub-surface and bottom pressure measurements. Geophysical Research Letters 33: doi: 10.1029/2006GL026304. issn: 0094-8276.

Nonisostatic ocean responses to atmospheric pressure have been observed in tropical regions of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at periods near 5 days. Barotropic ocean model simulations coupled to atmospheric forcing predicted that this nonisostatic ocean response is driven not regionally but globally by the Rossby-Haurwitz wave. To date little observational evidence has been provided to support the model simulations, especially at extratropical latitudes. Here we present the basin-scale nature of the nonisostatic response in the Atlantic Ocean near 5-day periods using four historical long-term (≥1.5 year) sub-surface and bottom pressure measurements spanning from 16¿S to 37¿N. Joint analysis of them together with global-gridded atmospheric pressure reveals a basin-scale nonisostatic sea level fluctuation in the North and tropical Atlantic Oceans near 5-day periods with almost uniform phase. It also confirms that the driving force for this near 5-day fluctuation is the westward propagating Rossby-Haurwitz wave.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Oceanography, Physical, Air/sea interactions (0312, 3339), Oceanography, Physical, Sea level, variations and mean (1222, 1225, 1641), Oceanography, General, Time series experiments (1872, 3270, 4475)
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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