Abstract
Deep ocean passages are advantageous sites for long-term monitoring of deep transport and other physical properties relevant to climate. Rotating hydraulic theory provides potential for simplifying monitoring strategy by reducing the number of quantities that need to be measured. However, the applicability of these theories has been limited by idealizations such as restriction to zero or uniform potential vorticity (pv) and to channels with rectangular cross sections. Here the relationship between the flow characteristics in a canonical sea strait and its upstream condition is studied using uniform pv rotating hydraulic theory and a reduced-gravity shallow-water numerical model that allows for variation in pv. The paper is focused mainly on the sensitivity of the hydraulic solution to the strait geometry. We study the dynamics of channels with continuously varying (parabolic) cross sections to account for the rounded nature of sea-strait topographies and potentially improve monitoring strategies for realistic channel geometries. The results show that far enough from the channel entrance, the hydraulically controlled flow in the strait is insensitive to the basin circulation regardless of parabolic curvature. The controlled transport relation is derived for the case of uniform pv theory. Comparing the model to theory, we find that the measurement of the wetted edges of the interface height at the critical section can be used to estimate the volume flux. Based on this finding, we suggest three monitoring strategies for transport estimation and compare the estimates with the observed values at the Faroe Bank Channel. The results showed that the estimated transports are within the range of observed values.
Significance Statement
The paper investigates the relationship between the flow characteristics in an idealized sea strait and its upstream condition using rotating hydraulic theory and numerical modeling. We study the dynamics of channels with continuously varying (parabolic) cross sections to account for the rounded nature of sea-strait topographies and potentially improve monitoring strategies for realistic channel geometries. We suggest three monitoring strategies for transport estimation and apply the methods to the Faroe Bank Channel. Our estimates of dense water transport are within the range of observed values. This is significant, because the suggested monitoring strategies only require 1–3 measurements to estimate the transport at a given passage and can be used to guide observing systems.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 875-890 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Journal of Physical Oceanography |
Volume | 53 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 27 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2023-03-14Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): CRG-2017-2308
Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-1657870, and OAC-1835640, and by NASA 80NSSC20K0823. Pratt was supported in part by KAUST through Award CRG-2017-2308. The work highly benefited from consulting with Shuwen Tan about the Samoan Passage.
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oceanography