Shelfbreak fronts and cross-shelf exchanges in western boundary regions

RICARDO P. MATANO; ELBIO D. PALMA

Salt Lake City

Congreso; Ocean Sciences Meeting 2012; 2012

American Geophysical Union

We discuss the formation of shelfbreak fronts and the mechanisms controlling cross-shelfexchanges in regions bounded by cyclonic and anticyclonic western boundary currents. Ourdiscussion is based on a series of highly idealized, process-oriented, numerical simulations.We investigate the sensitivity of the shelfbreak fronts and the magnitude of the cross-shelfexchanges to the intensity of the local and the global wind stress forcing, the slope of the bottomtopography and the stratification of the basin. It is shown that the confluence of the westernboundary currents leads to the formation of a density compensated front over the shelf, whichis a preferential region for cross-shelf exchanges. Our analysis is complemented with thediscussion of realistic simulations of the southwestern South Atlantic region and observations.