Planning for Coastal Air-Sea Interaction Studies in CoPO

Abstract

A number of observational programs have been carried out on the United States continental shelf to describe coastal-ocean circulation with emphasis on mesoscale processes. In several of these studies the atmosphere was found to play a central role in determining the coastal circulation through either local or remote forcing. Because of these results, the Coastal Physical Oceanography (CoPO) planning effort has designated three coastal air-sea interaction areas to focus on in a national program to study the physical processes on the continental shelf. These areas are shelf frontogenesis, interaction of stable layers with topography, and forcing by severe storms. The long-term objective of the air-sea interaction component of CoPO is to better understand the structure, dynamics, and evolution of the various mesoscale and synoptic-scale processes that significantly affect coastal/shelf circulation through air-sea interactions. Within this body of knowledge will be an improved quantification of the air-sea exchanges of dynamically important quantities set in the framework of mesoscale and synoptic-scale processes.