CoAuthors

Joanne Williams (National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, United Kingdom)

The continental slope has an important influence on ocean dynamical variability, the steep slopes leading to rapid signal propagation and a smoothing of pressure variability along the slope. As a result, pressure variations tend to be smaller than nearby sea level variability would suggest, and mesoscale variability is suppressed. Here, we use high resolution ocean model simulations to show this process in action and illustrate how it influences coastal, shelf and slope sea level. We then use altimetry and related measurements to demonstrate the relevance of the model predictions to the real ocean variability. We focus on two particular examples: a basin mode in the Caribbean Sea which is excited by mesoscale variability, and the basin scale variability in the Atlantic and its relation to the meridional overturning circulation.