Red Sea Circulation and Dynamics

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

The Red Sea is arguably the most under sampled and least understood marginal sea in the World Ocean in terms of its circulation and dynamics. This is due in large part to the difficulty of obtaining in situ oceanographic and atmospheric observations in a region that has been largely off-limits for scientific research for decades. The large-scale circulation of the Red Sea has a significant impact on the health of its mostly pristine coral reef ecosystem, which faces a myriad of natural and anthropogenic threats. This study will contribute to the development of ocean forecast models for predicting the spread of pollutants and mitigating their negative impacts. The work also involves collaboration with international partners and support for a postdoctoral investigator. The overall goal of this research is to increase understanding of the Red Sea circulation and its governing dynamics, through the analysis of observations and model output, including (1) several new unique in situ data sets of currents, water properties and air-sea fluxes, (2) time series of satellite-derived sea surface temperature, sea level anomaly and scatterometer winds and (3) recently generated numerical model products from the Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model, as well as realistic and idealized configurations of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model. The research will focus on the structure and dynamics of eastern boundary currents, and the impact of narrow mountain-gap wind jets on surface circulation and air-sea fluxes. The project will also revisit an existing model in the context of an idealized numerical simulation to assess its suitability for describing the overturning circulation.