AUTHOR=Alves José M. R. , Tomé Ricardo , Caldeira Rui M. A. , Miranda Pedro M. A. 

TITLE=Asymmetric Ocean Response to Atmospheric Forcing in an Island Wake: A 35-Year High-Resolution Study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.624392

DOI=10.3389/fmars.2021.624392

ISSN=2296-7745

ABSTRACT=The present study assesses the thermal variability of the regional ocean  around Madeira island, in intra-seasonal and interdecadal time scales, using a 35 year (1983-2017), 3km horizontal resolution ocean simulation forced by a collocated atmospheric simulation, with SODA and ERA5 boundary and initial conditions, respectively. Atmosphere-ocean interactions in this region are found to be driven by the variability of 2 quasi-permanent tip-jets, located at the island West and East tips, especially during the summer months. The ocean response is found to be larger in the places of higher jets speed variability, but its thermal  and dynamical responses are highly asymmetrical. On the interdecadal time scale a significant intensification of both jets during the analysed period is more prominent in the East tip but the thermal signature is mostly associated with a much-reduced SST trend near the West tip.