Abstract
The meandering of the Gulf Stream through the Straits of Florida is associated with eddy activity to the north (along the Florida Keys) and the south (along the Cuban coast). This study focuses on recently identified processes along the Cuban coast, namely anticyclonic eddies (Cuban ANticyclones: CubANs) and cyclonic activity characterized by cold-core eddies (cyclones) and coastal upwelling that enhances them. It is shown that these processes are an important factor for the evolution of the Loop Current/Florida Current (LC/FC) system. In particular, the Gulf Stream meandering inside the Straits (that is manifested as the position of the FC branch) is strongly related to CubANs either inside the retracted (closer to the Cuban coast) LC branch (CubAN “A”) or outside the LC as independent eddies (CubAN “B”). There are also mixed cases that both types of CubANs can be present, sharing a common place of origen, but evolving differently. These anticyclones are found to be strongly related to cyclonic activity and resulting temperature gradients along Cuba, characterized by cold-core cyclonic eddies and additional pools of cold waters that have upwelled under wind influence. These processes are shown to influence Gulf Stream meandering and also largely control the offshore export of upwelled, generally cooler and more productive, coastal waters. High-resolution simulations, in tandem with a variety of observational data, are used during a period of 8 years (2010–2017) to describe the evolution of CubANs and their contribution to Gulf Stream variability and associated coastal to offshore interactions. These findings are important for connectivity pathways between US and Cuban marine protected areas and between US coasts and the main Cuban area of oil exploration.
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22 July 2020
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Funding
This research was made possible by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI: award GR-009514 to V. Kourafalou). M. Le Hénaff received partial support for this work from the base funds of the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. This study has been conducted using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information. The river discharge data were obtained through the U.S. Geological Survey (https://www.usgs.gov/) and the Army Corps of Engineers. The AVISO Ssalto/Duacs altimeter products were produced and distributed by the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (http://marine.copernicus.eu/). The Level 4 Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution (MUR) Group for High-Resolution SST (GHRSST, https://doi.org/www.ghrsst.org/) data set is distributed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA (https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/JPL-L4UHfnd-GLOB-MUR). The high-resolution ocean color images from MODIS data, which are openly accessible from NASA: https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/, are distributed by the Optical Oceanography Laboratory (University of South Florida; https://optics.marine.usf.edu/).
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Responsible Editor: Amin Chabchoub
Appendix. Detection of mesoscale eddies inside the Straits of Florida
Appendix. Detection of mesoscale eddies inside the Straits of Florida
The detecting algorithm of the center of the anticyclonic CubAN eddy, developed for this study, is based on the methodology introduced by Nencioli et al. (2010), which holds for both anticyclonic and cyclonic eddies. The detection of an eddy’s center is based on the following constrains:
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(i)
along the east-west axis, the zonal velocity has to reverse in sign across the central model cell of the eddy while its magnitude increases away from it;
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(ii)
along the south-north axis, the meridional velocity has to reverse in sign across the central model cell of the eddy while its magnitude increases away from it;
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(iii)
velocity magnitude has a local minimum at the eddy center; and
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(iv)
sea surface height (SSH) has a local maximum at the eddy center representing the sea level peak in the center of an anticyclonic eddy, while SSH has a local minimum at the center of a cyclonic eddy.
The algorithm was applied using the meridional and zonal components of the daily surface velocities and SSH, simulated by the GoM-HYCOM 1/50 during the entire 2010–2017 period. It was applied separately in two sub-regions (Appendix Fig. 17), west and east of 84°W to focus on the evolution of CubAN “A” and “B” eddies that usually are formed and evolve over these two areas, respectively (Kourafalou et al. 2017). One eddy that satisfies the four constrains (with the highest SSH) is identified along each sub-region for each day in order to highlight the main anticyclonic eddy that exists in the area west (CubAN “A”) and east (CubAN “B”) of the 84°W. It is noted that the centers presented in Appendix Fig. 17 do not necessarily refer to different eddies but also to the same eddy that served the four constrains during a sequence of days. So, the number of centers does not represent the total number of eddies but the days of eddy evolution during each year. The SSH values were also used as a metric of eddy magnitude; high SSH levels represent strong eddies, while SSH values closer to zero are associated with weaker anticyclonic eddies. The same detection tool was also used to locate eddies with high negative SSH values and anti-clockwise currents, representing the cyclonic eddies that mainly evolve over the northern Straits (Kourafalou and Kang 2012).
Centers of the anticyclonic eddies, as computed daily west (CubAN “A”) and east (CubAN “B”) of the 84°W meridian from the GoM-HYCOM 1/50 simulated fields for each year during the 2010–2017 period. The color scale (in upper left panel) represents the sea surface height (SSH; m) of the eddy centers
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Androulidakis, Y., Kourafalou, V., Le Hénaff, M. et al. Gulf Stream evolution through the Straits of Florida: the role of eddies and upwelling near Cuba. Ocean Dynamics 70, 1005–1032 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-020-01381-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-020-01381-5