Sea Surface Height Anomaly

15 years of sea surface height anomaly (in mm) from merged TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 datasets ranging from january 1993 to december 2007.

Note the persistent structures like the western boundary currents (Kuroshio, Gulf, Brazil-Malvinas confluence, East-Australian) and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Look at the great oceanic gyres. See the discrete seasonal change between the northern and the southern hemispheres. Watch the massive effect of the 1997 El Niño and 1998 La Niña over the surface height. Note especially the westward propagating slow Rossby waves and the faster reflected Kelvin waves, object of my study.

Finally if you look carefully, notice how the sea surface tends to become more and more red over the years, which means the ocean level is rising.

Music 'Remember The Name' courtesy of Inki

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SSH
• SSHA
• climate
• change
• topex
• poseidon
• jason-1
• sea
• IPCC
• global
• warming
• niño
• niña
• rossby
• kelvin
• waves
• oceeanic
• gyre

[regeirknaitsabes]

Sometimes one can see trapped waves at the equatorial Pacific. This happens probably due to the East Pacific Rise. Maybe if you take a look at the bathymetry of the oceans at Wikipedia you can see some correlation.

[regeirknaitsabes]

Actually there are different dynamical processes that coexist. At the equator the so called planetary waves are dominant. The huge amount of energy that the Rossby waves carry from east to west doesn't simply pass through. When they reach the continental slope they can't go further. So part of them are reflected back as faster Kelvin waves and the rest is deflected along the continents, strengthening the major western boundary currents at the sub-tropics.

[regeirknaitsabes]

It is important to note that the illustrated data doesn't simply show the behaviour of the water surface but almost the whole water column.

[tbrown55]

So...some of the heat/energy/waves goes thru while some bounces back??? I see. So, for the whole set of waves, the main direction seems to be from the right of the screen to the left, but there are some clots or blockages so to speak...or checkpoints where the energy meets resistance and has to wait to join the flow.

[regeirknaitsabes]

Hi Tom!

These lines are probably the signature of the so called equatorial Rossby waves. They take for as long as one year to cross the whole ocean basin. If you look carefully, at some times one can see that this signal is reflected as fast eastward moving waves, the Kelvin waves, going from the Philipines back to Mexico/Panama.

Cheers!

[tbrown55]

cool. I'm seeing the line that goes from Mexico/Panama to the Philipines. Which one is that?