Vertical Structure of the Ocean Current Response to a Hurricane

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Abstract
During the passage of hurricane Norbert in 1984, the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA conducted a Planetary Boundary Layer Experiment that included the deployment of Airborne eXpendable Current Profilers (AXCP). A total of. 16 AXCPs provided for the fist time high-resolution vertical profiles of currents and temperatures in hurricane wind conditions. This study focuses on the vertical structure of the near-inertial baroclinic current excited by the passage of this hurricane. The transient hurricane-induced currents are isolated from the AXCP profiles in Norbert by subtracting a spatially-averaged current. Near the center of hurricane Norbert, the WKBJ-scaled vertical wavenumber spectra are a decade greater than the Garrett-Munk spectra (GM75). The fist ten linear, baroclinic free modes are calculated from the spatially-averaged Brunt–Väisälä frequency. To allow a more direct comparison with the AXCP observations in the current wind regime, the near-inertial response for the three dimensional v... Abstract During the passage of hurricane Norbert in 1984, the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA conducted a Planetary Boundary Layer Experiment that included the deployment of Airborne eXpendable Current Profilers (AXCP). A total of. 16 AXCPs provided for the fist time high-resolution vertical profiles of currents and temperatures in hurricane wind conditions. This study focuses on the vertical structure of the near-inertial baroclinic current excited by the passage of this hurricane. The transient hurricane-induced currents are isolated from the AXCP profiles in Norbert by subtracting a spatially-averaged current. Near the center of hurricane Norbert, the WKBJ-scaled vertical wavenumber spectra are a decade greater than the Garrett-Munk spectra (GM75). The fist ten linear, baroclinic free modes are calculated from the spatially-averaged Brunt–Väisälä frequency. To allow a more direct comparison with the AXCP observations in the current wind regime, the near-inertial response for the three dimensional v...

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