In:
Geophysical research letters, Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 1974, 36(2009), 1944-8007
In:
volume:36
In:
year:2009
In:
extent:4
Description / Table of Contents:
Time series of transports in the Agulhas region have been constructed by simulating Lagrangian drifter trajectories in a 1/10 degree two-way nested ocean model. Using these 34 year long time series it is shown that smaller (larger) Agulhas Current transport leads to larger (smaller) Indian-Atlantic inter-ocean exchange. When transport is low, the Agulhas Current detaches farther downstream from the African continental slope. Moreover, the lower inertia suppresses generation of anti-cyclonic vorticity. These two effects cause the Agulhas retroflection to move westward and enhance Agulhas leakage. In the model a 1 Sv decrease in Agulhas Current transport at 32°S results in a 0.7 ± 0.2 Sv increase in Agulhas leakage.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
Pages:
4
,
graph. Darst.
ISSN:
1944-8007
URL:
http://europa.agu.org/?view=article&uri=/journals/gl/gl0903/2008GL036614/2008GL036614.xml&t=2008GL036614
DOI:
10.1029/2008GL036614
Language:
English