Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008): L14602, doi:10.1029/2008GL034312.
Description:
A 14-year satellite observation of sea surface height (SSH) reveals an interesting pattern. Along any latitude, there is a frequency at which the SSH power spectrum peaks, regardless of which hemisphere or oceanic basin. This peak-spectrum frequency is nearly identical to the critical frequency at which the zonal energy propagation of Rossby waves becomes stagnant. The interior ocean adjusts to atmospheric forcing by radiating energy away through Rossby waves. There are two distinct groups of Rossby waves, long ones carry the energy to the west while short ones send the energy to the east. At the critical frequency, these two waves merge and their zonal energy propagation becomes stagnant. Consequently, the energy from atmospheric forcing may accumulate in the ocean interior, and thus result in a spectrum peak.
Description:
This study is
supported by China’s National Basic Research Priorities Programmer
(2005CB422303 and 2007CB411804), the key project of the International
Science and Technology Cooperation program of China (2006DFB21250),
the Ministry of Education’s 111 Project (B07036), the Program for New
Century Excellent Talents in University (NECT-07-0781), and the US
National Science Foundation (OCE-0351055).
Keywords:
Sea surface height
;
Peak spectrum
;
Stagnant Rossby wave
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
