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Highly resolved observations and simulations of the ocean response to a hurricane
Author(s) -
Sanford Thomas B.,
Price James F.,
Girton James B.,
Webb Douglas C.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl029679
Subject(s) - geology , wind speed , meteorology , atlantic hurricane , environmental science , tropical cyclone , storm , climatology , atmospheric sciences , oceanography , physics
An autonomous, profiling float called EM‐APEX was developed to provide a quantitative and comprehensive description of the ocean side of hurricane‐ocean interaction. EM‐APEX measures temperature, salinity and pressure to CTD quality and relative horizontal velocity with an electric field sensor. Three prototype floats were air‐deployed into the upper ocean ahead of Hurricane Frances (2004). All worked properly and returned a highly resolved description of the upper ocean response to a category 4 hurricane. At a float launched 55 km to the right of the track, the hurricane generated large amplitude, inertially rotating velocity in the upper 120 m of the water column. Coincident with the hurricane passage there was intense vertical mixing that cooled the near surface layer by about 2.2°C. We find consistent model simulations of this event provided the wind stress is computed from the observed winds using a high wind‐speed saturated drag coefficient.