Vertical Structure of the Baroclinic Tides in the Central North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

Home > Results > Research Abstracts > Abstract

Stephen M. Chiswell Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research
University of Hawaii
1000 Pope Rd
Honolulu HI 96822
USA

Presently at: New Zealand Oceanographic Institute
PO Box 14-901
Kilbirnie
Wellington
New Zealand

Abstract

Cruises are made monthly to the WOCE deep-water station, about 100 km north of Oahu, Hawaii. During these cruises, the principal causes of variability in dynamic height are the internal tides having a range about 30% of the annual range in dynamic height. The internal tides have peak-to-peak vertical displacements of up to 30 dbar but show little vertical coherence. At the diurnal frequencies modal fits typically require 6 to 8 baroclinic modes to account for 90% of the variance, suggesting that the diurnal tide should not be described in terms of dynamic modes. The semi-diurnal tide, has about 2 to 3 times the amplitude of the diurnal tide, and shows more vertical phase coherence, but still requires 2 or 3 modes to describe it. Generally, the dominant mode is the second or third mode.

Reference:

1994 Chiswell, S. M., Vertical Structure of the baroclinic tides in the Central North Pacific Subtropical Gyre J. Phys. Oceanogr., 24(9), 2032-2039.

Return to Highlights page

Return to HOT/PO home page

Thank you for visiting. Please send us comments about our web pages so that they can continually improve.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE 9303094, 9811921, 0117919, and 0327513. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.