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So, what’s so special about the Red Sea Outflow?

So, what’s so special about the Red Sea Outflow?. Red Sea. Bab el Mandeb. Aden. Hartmut Peters Bill Johns Amy Bower Steve Murray Dave Fratantoni Silvie Matt. Djibouti. Gulf of Aden. … major factors that make the Red Sea outflow special …

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So, what’s so special about the Red Sea Outflow?

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  1. So, what’s so special about the Red Sea Outflow? Red Sea Bab el Mandeb Aden Hartmut Peters Bill Johns Amy Bower Steve Murray Dave Fratantoni Silvie Matt Djibouti Gulf of Aden

  2. … major factors that make the Red Sea outflow special … • Topography (two narrow channels, rotation unimportant) • Seasonal variability • Short-termvariability • Low latitude • …

  3. Northern Channel: ~130 km long, typically 5 km wide, 200-800m water depth, densest product water, slope: 1/3°. Southern Channel: shorter, wider, less dense product water.

  4. Northern Channel: Relatively undiluted water along 120 km in bottom layer.

  5. Dilution along the plume path: less dilution near bottom than for the whole plume

  6. Vertical structure: • Mixed bottom • layer (BL) • Stratified & • sheared interfacial • layer (IL) IL BL

  7. Fraction of plume transport in bottom layer: transport in interfacial layer increasing with downstream distance:

  8. Plume flow in narrow channels… • Bottom Layer (BL): • stays relatively undiluted. • Interfacial Layer (IL): • - mixing, • - carries most of the entrainment, • - with increasing distance from the source, carries • carries an increasing and dominant fraction of the • total transport. • Do the other plumes show the BL / IL structure? • (The Med Outflow seems to.) • How much of the IL “counts” toward the product • water? How much of it ends up in the deep ocean?

  9. Blue: plume Green: ambient waters

  10. “The Table” is written in terms of bulk properties (for good reasons), but models need to parameterize mixing in terms of the gradients in the interfacial layer (+ possibly a bottom bulk mixed layer)

  11. Mixing in the IL vs. bulk Froude number… Exponential fit: R2 = 0.47

  12. Other aspects of mixing in the Red Sea Outflow…

  13. Complex flow at the source • Mixing product from the flow through Bab el Mandeb

  14. Three mixing products(Bab el Mandeb, two channels) • Detrainment: outflow water peels off on the top of the plume • Seasonal variability

  15. Detrainment: Peeled-off outflow water

  16. Variability in the Red Sea Outflow…

  17. Red Sea Outflow at the Hanish Sill: - Transport & salinity - Seasonal and short-term variations - Tides

  18. Perim Narrows Velocity 1995-96 Winter: 2 layers, outflow at bottom, inflow at top Summer: 3 layers, inflow in the middle, outflow at top and bottom (weak)

  19. V • - Moored observations • 1995-96: • Northern Channel • Southern Channel • Seasonal variations • Short-term variations T S

  20. Short-term variations during Redsox-1 Redsox-1

  21. It’s a long way from Bab el Mandeb to the open Indian Ocean …

  22. Horizontal homogenization of Red Sea Water by mesoscale eddies in the Gulf of Aden (Bower et al., 2002)

  23. … the eddies …

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