Mesoscale interannual variability off the Oregon coast based on satellite data

SARACENO, M., AND P.T. STRUB

Viena, Austria

Congreso; EGU General Assembly; 2006

Along track Sea Level Anomalies (SLA), derived from radar satellites measurements,are combined with tide gauges time series to produce gridded fields of SLA in the westcoast of the US (39-49N, 123.5-132W) for the period 1999-2005. The results do notshow significant differences compared to the gridded fields provided by AVISO-CLSin the region far from the coast, while the inclusion of the tide gauges greatly improvethe results in the near-shore region. Based on this new data-set, summer interannualvariability is investigated and compared to chlorophyll-a, sea surface temperature andwind stress satellite data. Results show the existence of important interannual variabilityin all the fields analyzed. In particular, it is shown that during summer of 2005,anomalies in the wind stress forcing are responsible of the anomalies in SST andchlorophyll-a, but do not present a significant correlation with mesoscale processes asdeduced from SLA. The different fields are used to investigate whether variability inchlorophyll-a is driven by wind stress or by mesoscale processes.