Abstract: Assumptions used in observational Meridional Overturning Variability Experiment (MOVE) and RAPID transport estimates are revisited in eddying model simulations Results reinforce the need for proper treatments of reference depths and velocities in geostrophic calculations in observations and models Simulated variability and trends at MOVE and RAPID locations are mostly consistent between the two sites, particularly on long time scales

Abstract: —J. BLUNDEN, T. BOYER, AND E. BARTOW-GILLIES Earth’s global climate system is vast, complex, and intricately interrelated. Many areas are influenced by global-scale phenomena, including the “triple dip” La Niña conditions that prevailed in the eastern Pacific Ocean nearly continuously from mid-2020 through all of 2022; by regional phenomena such as the positive winter and summer North Atlantic Oscillation that impacted weather in parts the Northern Hemisphere and the negative Indian Ocean dipole that impacted weather in parts of the Southern Hemisphere; and by more localized systems such as high-pressure heat domes that caused extreme heat in different areas of the world. Underlying all these natural short-term variabilities are long-term climate trends due to continuous increases since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the atmospheric concentrations of Earth’s major greenhouse gases. In 2022, the annual global average carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere rose to 417.1±0.1 ppm, which is 50% greater than the pre-industrial level. Global mean tropospheric methane abundance was 165% higher than its pre-industrial level, and nitrous oxide was 24% higher. All three gases set new record-high atmospheric concentration levels in 2022. Sea-surface temperature patterns in the tropical Pacific characteristic of La Niña and attendant atmospheric patterns tend to mitigate atmospheric heat gain at the global scale, but the annual global surface temperature across land and oceans was still among the six highest in records dating as far back as the mid-1800s. It was the warmest La Niña year on record. Many areas observed record or near-record heat. Europe as a whole observed its second-warmest year on record, with sixteen individual countries observing record warmth at the national scale. Records were shattered across the continent during the summer months as heatwaves plagued the region. On 18 July, 104 stations in France broke their all-time records. One day later, England recorded a temperature of 40°C for the first time ever. China experienced its second-warmest year and warmest summer on record. In the Southern Hemisphere, the average temperature across New Zealand reached a record high for the second year in a row. While Australia’s annual temperature was slightly below the 1991–2020 average, Onslow Airport in Western Australia reached 50.7°C on 13 January, equaling Australia's highest temperature on record. While fewer in number and locations than record-high temperatures, record cold was also observed during the year. Southern Africa had its coldest August on record, with minimum temperatures as much as 5°C below normal over Angola, western Zambia, and northern Namibia. Cold outbreaks in the first half of December led to many record-low daily minimum temperature records in eastern Australia. The effects of rising temperatures and extreme heat were apparent across the Northern Hemisphere, where snow-cover extent by June 2022 was the third smallest in the 56-year record, and the seasonal duration of lake ice cover was the fourth shortest since 1980. More frequent and intense heatwaves contributed to the second-greatest average mass balance loss for Alpine glaciers around the world since the start of the record in 1970. Glaciers in the Swiss Alps lost a record 6% of their volume. In South America, the combination of drought and heat left many central Andean glaciers snow free by mid-summer in early 2022; glacial ice has a much lower albedo than snow, leading to accelerated heating of the glacier. Across the global cryosphere, permafrost temperatures continued to reach record highs at many high-latitude and mountain locations. In the high northern latitudes, the annual surface-air temperature across the Arctic was the fifth highest in the 123-year record. The seasonal Arctic minimum sea-ice extent, typically reached in September, was the 11th-smallest in the 43-year record; however, the amount of multiyear ice—ice that survives at least one summer melt season—remaining in the Arctic continued to decline. Since 2012, the Arctic has been nearly devoid of ice more than four years old. In Antarctica, an unusually large amount of snow and ice fell over the continent in 2022 due to several landfalling atmospheric rivers, which contributed to the highest annual surface mass balance, 15% to 16% above the 1991–2020 normal, since the start of two reanalyses records dating to 1980. It was the second-warmest year on record for all five of the long-term staffed weather stations on the Antarctic Peninsula. In East Antarctica, a heatwave event led to a new all-time record-high temperature of −9.4°C—44°C above the March average—on 18 March at Dome C. This was followed by the collapse of the critically unstable Conger Ice Shelf. More than 100 daily low sea-ice extent and sea-ice area records were set in 2022, including two new all-time annual record lows in net sea-ice extent and area in February. Across the world’s oceans, global mean sea level was record high for the 11th consecutive year, reaching 101.2 mm above the 1993 average when satellite altimetry measurements began, an increase of 3.3±0.7 over 2021. Globally-averaged ocean heat content was also record high in 2022, while the global sea-surface temperature was the sixth highest on record, equal with 2018. Approximately 58% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave in 2022. In the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand’s longest continuous marine heatwave was recorded. A total of 85 named tropical storms were observed during the Northern and Southern Hemisphere storm seasons, close to the 1991–2020 average of 87. There were three Category 5 tropical cyclones across the globe—two in the western North Pacific and one in the North Atlantic. This was the fewest Category 5 storms globally since 2017. Globally, the accumulated cyclone energy was the lowest since reliable records began in 1981. Regardless, some storms caused massive damage. In the North Atlantic, Hurricane Fiona became the most intense and most destructive tropical or post-tropical cyclone in Atlantic Canada’s history, while major Hurricane Ian killed more than 100 people and became the third costliest disaster in the United States, causing damage estimated at $113 billion U.S. dollars. In the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Batsirai dropped 2044 mm of rain at Commerson Crater in Réunion. The storm also impacted Madagascar, where 121 fatalities were reported. As is typical, some areas around the world were notably dry in 2022 and some were notably wet. In August, record high areas of land across the globe (6.2%) were experiencing extreme drought. Overall, 29% of land experienced moderate or worse categories of drought during the year. The largest drought footprint in the contiguous United States since 2012 (63%) was observed in late October. The record-breaking megadrought of central Chile continued in its 13th consecutive year, and 80-year record-low river levels in northern Argentina and Paraguay disrupted fluvial transport. In China, the Yangtze River reached record-low values. Much of equatorial eastern Africa had five consecutive below-normal rainy seasons by the end of 2022, with some areas receiving record-low precipitation totals for the year. This ongoing 2.5-year drought is the most extensive and persistent drought event in decades, and led to crop failure, millions of livestock deaths, water scarcity, and inflated prices for staple food items. In South Asia, Pakistan received around three times its normal volume of monsoon precipitation in August, with some regions receiving up to eight times their expected monthly totals. Resulting floods affected over 30 million people, caused over 1700 fatalities, led to major crop and property losses, and was recorded as one of the world’s costliest natural disasters of all time. Near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Petrópolis received 530 mm in 24 hours on 15 February, about 2.5 times the monthly February average, leading to the worst disaster in the city since 1931 with over 230 fatalities. On 14–15 January, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano in the South Pacific erupted multiple times. The injection of water into the atmosphere was unprecedented in both magnitude—far exceeding any previous values in the 17-year satellite record—and altitude as it penetrated into the mesosphere. The amount of water injected into the stratosphere is estimated to be 146±5 Terragrams, or ∼10% of the total amount in the stratosphere. It may take several years for the water plume to dissipate, and it is currently unknown whether this eruption will have any long-term climate effect.

Abstract: The circulation of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean at intermediate depths is characterized by watermass transformation processes that involve Iceland–Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) from the northeast, Labrador Sea Water (LSW) from the west, and Mediterranean Water from the south. Field observations were carried out with 89 eddy-resolving floats (RAFOS and MARVOR types). The data coverage achieved is remarkably high and enables a comprehensive study of the eastern basins between Iceland and the Azores. The trajectories show typical pathways of the water masses involved and the role that the complex bottom topography plays in defining them. The ISOW paths tend to lean against the slopes of the Reykjanes Ridge and Rockall Plateau. Westward escapes through multiple gaps in the ridge are possible, superimposed on a sustained southward flow in the eastern basin along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. LSW pathways leading to the eastern basins are subject to high variability in flow direction and eddy activity. In addition to a selection of characteristic trajectories, maps of the horizontal distributions of Lagrangian eddy kinetic energy and integral time scales are presented. These reveal distinct areas of intensified mixing in the Iceland Basin, as well as the sharp contrast between the subpolar and subtropical dynamics. A self-contained eddy detection scheme is applied to obtain statistics on individual eddy properties and their abundance. It is suggested that much of the intensified mixing can be related to cyclonic activity, particularly in the subpolar region.

Abstract: It is becoming increasingly recognized that the eddy field plays an important—possibly dominating—role for oceanic motions in many aspects (e.g., transport of properties and risk assessment in the case of extreme events). This motivates the study of individual eddy events. In the Lagrangian coordinate system, vorticity possibly associated with eddies appears in two forms: as shear vorticity between neighboring particles, and as curvature of the trajectory of a single particle. Typical field experiments in physical oceanography using surface drifters or subsurface floats do not reach data densities high enough to produce enough encounters of drifters to calculate shear vorticity between them. However, curvature in individual tracks is easily observed. This study presents a methodology that extracts segments from within a trajectory that are “looping,” which will be interpreted as a drifter being caught in an eddy. The method makes use of autoregressive processes, a simple type of stochastic processes, which easily enables a fit to the nonperfectly shaped trajectory data usually expected from field experiments. These processes also deliver frequency and persistence of the detected eddies by a very simple calculation, which makes the methodology highly suited for automatized scanning of larger datasets.

Abstract: Air–Sea Interactions in the Northern Indian Ocean (ASIRI) is an international research effort (2013–17) aimed at understanding and quantifying coupled atmosphere–ocean dynamics of the Bay of Bengal (BoB) with relevance to Indian Ocean monsoons. Working collaboratively, more than 20 research institutions are acquiring field observations coupled with operational and high-resolution models to address scientific issues that have stymied the monsoon predictability. ASIRI combines new and mature observational technologies to resolve submesoscale to regional-scale currents and hydrophysical fields. These data reveal BoB’s sharp frontal features, submesoscale variability, low-salinity lenses and filaments, and shallow mixed layers, with relatively weak turbulent mixing. Observed physical features include energetic high-frequency internal waves in the southern BoB, energetic mesoscale and submesoscale features including an intrathermocline eddy in the central BoB, and a high-resolution view of the exchange along the periphery of Sri Lanka, which includes the 100-km-wide East India Coastal Current (EICC) carrying low-salinity water out of the BoB and an adjacent, broad northward flow (∼300 km wide) that carries high-salinity water into BoB during the northeast monsoon. Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) observations during the decaying phase of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) permit the study of multiscale atmospheric processes associated with non-MJO phenomena and their impacts on the marine boundary layer. Underway analyses that integrate observations and numerical simulations shed light on how air–sea interactions control the ABL and upper-ocean processes.

Abstract: In the Bay of Bengal, the warm, dry boreal spring concludes with the onset of the summer monsoon and accompanying southwesterly winds, heavy rains, and variable air–sea fluxes. Here, we summarize the 2018 monsoon onset using observations collected through the multinational Monsoon Intraseasonal Oscillations in the Bay of Bengal (MISO-BoB) program between the United States, India, and Sri Lanka. MISO-BoB aims to improve understanding of monsoon intraseasonal variability, and the 2018 field effort captured the coupled air–sea response during a transition from active-to-break conditions in the central BoB. The active phase of the ∼20-day research cruise was characterized by warm sea surface temperature (SST 〉 30°C), cold atmospheric outflows with intermittent heavy rainfall, and increasing winds (from 2 to 15 m s −1 ). Accumulated rainfall exceeded 200 mm with 90% of precipitation occurring during the first week. The following break period was both dry and clear, with persistent 10–12 m s −1 wind and evaporation of 0.2 mm h −1 . The evolving environmental state included a deepening ocean mixed layer (from ∼20 to 50 m), cooling SST (by ∼1°C), and warming/drying of the lower to midtroposphere. Local atmospheric development was consistent with phasing of the large-scale intraseasonal oscillation. The upper ocean stores significant heat in the BoB, enough to maintain SST above 29°C despite cooling by surface fluxes and ocean mixing. Comparison with reanalysis indicates biases in air–sea fluxes, which may be related to overly cool prescribed SST. Resolution of such biases offers a path toward improved forecasting of transition periods in the monsoon.

Abstract: When a drifter is trapped in an eddy, it makes either a cycloidal or a looping trajectory. The former case takes place when the translating speed is larger than the eddy spinning speed. When the background mean velocity is removed, drifter trajectories make loops. Thus, eddies can be detected from a drifter trajectory by identifying looping segments. In this paper, an automated scheme is developed to identify looping segments from Lagrangian trajectories, based on a geometric definition of a loop, that is, a closing curve with its starting point overlapped by its ending point. The scheme is to find the first returning point, if it exists, along a trajectory of a surface drifter with a few other criteria. To further increase the chance that detected loops are eddies, it is considered that a loop identifies an eddy only when the loop’s spinning period is longer than the local inertial period and shorter than the seasonal scale, and that at least two consecutive loops with the same polarity that stay sufficiently close are found. Five parameters that characterize an eddy are estimated by the scheme: location (eddy center), time (starting and ending time), period, polarity, and intensity. As an example, the scheme is applied to surface drifters in the Kuroshio Extension region. Results indicate that numbers of eddies are symmetrically distributed for cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies, mean eddy sizes are 40–50 km, and eddy abundance is the highest along the Kuroshio path with more cyclonic eddies along its southern flank.

Abstract: The Loop Current is the main mesoscale feature of the Gulf of Mexico oceanic circulation. With peak velocities above 1.5 m s –1 , the Loop Current and its mesoscale eddies are of interest to fisheries, hurricane prediction and of special concern for the security of oil rig operations in the Gulf of Mexico, and therefore understanding their predictability is not only of scientific interest but also a major environmental security issue. Combining altimetric data and an eddy detection algorithm with 8 years of deep flow measurements through the Yucatan Channel, we developed a predictive model for the Loop Current extension in the following month that explains 74% of its variability. We also show that 4 clusters of velocity anomalies in the Yucatan Channel represent the Loop Current dynamics. A dipole with positive and negative anomalies towards the western side of the Channel represents the growing and retracted phases respectively, and two tripole shape clusters represent the transition phases, the one with negative anomalies in the center associated with 50% of the eddy separation events. The transition between these clusters is not equally probable, therefore adding predictability. Finally, we show that eddy separation probability begins when the Loop Current extends over 1800 km (~27.2°N), and over 2200 km of extension, eddy detachment and reattachment is more frequent than separation. These results represent a step forward towards having the best possible operational Loop Current forecast in the near future, incorporating near real-time data transmission of deep flow measurements and high resolution altimetric data.

Abstract: Offshore pelagic environments are dynamic and rich in biodiversity, yet our understanding of these habitats is lacking as they are surveyed less frequently than coastal areas. We present results from one-year (October 2016i–October 2017) of comprehensive oceanographic mooring measures from a site located 150 nmi offshore Southern California in abyssopelagic waters, spanning water mass, nutrient, primary productivity, fish, and cetacean variables. We identified abrupt changes in water properties, bringing distinct biological communities to our site. Some examples were active acoustically observed backscatter from diel vertical migrators, present during parts of summer and throughout fall, coincided with passive acoustically measured night-time echolocation of common dolphins (Delphinus delphis). Risso’s (Grampus griseus) and Pacific white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) echolocation was also coincident with near-surface backscatter but during winter and early spring. Backscatter during that time was predominantly from small pelagic fishes, as diel vertical migration was virtually absent. Echolocation from Cuvier’s beaked whales was prominent during winter and spring, associated with colder water from the California Current, but were absent in early summer when the water in the deep sea abruptly warmed. This study demonstrates how local oceanographic conditions link predator-prey dynamics from surface waters to the deep sea.