Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2022

Department

Marine Science

School

Ocean Science and Engineering

Abstract

We study the generation, propagation, and dissipation of wind-generated near-inertial waves (NIWs) in a global 1/25° Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) simulation with realistic atmospheric forcing and background circulation during 30 days in May–June 2019. The time-mean near-inertial wind power input and depth-integrated energy balance terms are computed for the total fields and the fields decomposed into vertical modes to differentiate between the radiative and (locally) dissipative components of NIW energy. Only 30.3% of the near-inertial wind input projects onto the first five modes, whereas the sum of the NIW energy in the first five modes adds up to 58% of the total NIW energy. Almost all of the depth-integrated NIW horizontal energy flux projects on the first five modes. The global distribution of dissipation and decay distances of NIW modes confirm that lower latitudes are a sink for NIW energy generated at higher latitudes. The locally dissipated fraction of NIW energy qlocal is found to be uniform throughout the global ocean, with a global mean value of 0.79. The horizontal NIW fluxes diverge from areas with cyclonic vorticity and converge in areas with anticyclonic vorticity; that is, anticyclonic eddies are a sink for NIW energy fluxes—in particular, for higher modes. Most of the residual energy that does not project onto modes propagates downward in anticyclonic eddies. The global near-inertial wind power input is 0.21 TW for the 30 days, of which only 19% is transmitted below 500-m depth.

Comments

© Copyright 2022 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108) does not require the AMS’s permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a website or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license from the AMS. All AMS journals and monograph publications are registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (http://www.copyright.com). Questions about permission to use materials for which AMS holds the copyright can also be directed to permissions@ametsoc.org. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy statement, available on the AMS website (http://www.ametsoc.org/CopyrightInformation).

Publisher's Version found at: 10.1175/JPO-D-21-0130.1

Publication Title

Journal of Physical Oceanography

Volume

52

First Page

823

Last Page

840

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