The steep topographic barrier separating deep and coastal oceans steers strong boundary currents and boundary waves, while flows across the shelf edge are often strongly influenced by non-geostrophic dynamics. As such, large scale ocean dynamics connects to shelf sea variability in complex yet highly consequential ways. Regional sea level trends, for example, can deviate substantially from the global average due to changes in the strength and pathways of large-scale ocean currents, e.g. basin-scale gyres, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Consequently, variability in sea level over a broad range of time scales often dominates the long-term trend and nonlinearly impacts the return period of extreme events.  Fluxes across the shelf-edge are also central to replenishing and exporting nutrients from shelf seas, which impacts primary production and downstream biogeochemical cycles and fisheries. Shelf-edge fluxes are also crucial to the ocean carbon pump by enabling the export of sequestered atmospheric carbon from shelf seas into the deep ocean.

 

This session will explore how recent advances in ocean observing, theory and modelling have enhanced our understanding of the ocean boundary processes which govern the interaction between shelf seas and large-scale ocean dynamics, and how these results are being implemented to improve prediction of shelf-sea variability.

• Climate and Ocean Change -
• Ocean Technologies and Observatories -
• Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger -