The exchange between the Humboldt and Patagonian large marine ecosystems, the largest marine ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere, is investigated with numerical simulations. Most of the southern Patagonian Shelf waters originate from the South Pacific's upper layer. The exchange takes place mainly through the shelf break via the Cape Horn shelf. The interannual variability of shelf exchange is partly explained by the large-scale wind variability and associated with the Southern Annular Mode.

A concept of small and slow ocean gliders or profiling floats with wings is explored. These robots or drones measure the ocean temperature and currents. Even if the speed is very slow, only 13 cm s¹, it is possible to navigate the (simulated) ocean using a navigation method called Eulerian roaming. The slow speed and size conserve a lot of energy and enable scientific missions of years at sea.

A model downscaling approach is used to investigate the effects of sea-level rise (SLR) on local tides. Results indicate that SLR induces larger increases in tidal amplitude and stronger nonlinear tidal distortion in the bay compared to the adjacent shelf sea. SLR can also change shallow-water tidal asymmetry and influence the direction and magnitude of bed-load sediment transport. The model downscaling approach is widely applicable for local SLR projections in estuaries and coastal bays.

The ocean can regulate climate by distributing heat and carbon dioxide into its interior. This work has resulted from a major experiment aimed at understanding how that distribution occurs. In the experiment an artificial tracer was released into the ocean. After release the tracer was tracked as it was distorted by ocean currents. Using novel methods we reveal how the tracer's distortions follow the movement of the underlying water masses in the ocean and we estimate the rate at which it mixes.

The diel vertical migration of zooplankton is considered the largest daily migration of biomass on Earth. This study investigates zooplankton distribution, dynamics, and factors controlling them during open-water and ice cover periods in Hudson Bay, a large seasonally ice-covered Canadian inland sea. The presented data constitute the first-ever observed diel vertical migration of zooplankton in Hudson Bay during winter and its interaction with the tidal dynamics.

The idea of this study is to quantify the uncertainty in hindcasts of severe storm events by applying a state-of-the-art ensemble generation technique. Other ensemble generation techniques are tested. The atmospheric WRF model is driven by the ERA5 reanalysis. A setup of the Wavewatch III^® wave model for the Baltic Sea is used with the wind fields produced with the WRF ensemble. The effect of different spatio-temporal resolutions of the wind fields on the significant wave height is investigated.

We investigated the variability in high-salinity shelf water (HSSW) formation in the Terra Nova Bay polynya using hydrographic data from instrumented moorings and vessel-based profiles. We show that HSSW can be formed in the upper water column of the eastern Terra Nova Bay via polynya activity and convective processes, as well as how the nature of circulation in Terra Nova Bay influences HSSW production. This article also discusses the present results in the context of previous analyses.

The ocean is an important source of nutrients and organisms to coastal waters, but it is not clear what controls current flow between the deep ocean and the coast. We contrasted ocean flow pathways and coastal water properties between summer 2013 and a series of intense storms in December 2013. Further, we assessed the likelihood of storms occurring over the North Atlantic during each winter. We found that local weather patterns exert a strong influence on coastal water properties and origins.

Based on hydrography data (2002–2015) it was found that the average geostrophic volume transport of Atlantic water (AW) decreases along the Eurasian Basin slope from 103º E to 142º E and has a small value in the Makarov Basin. Maximum values of the AW volume transport, temperature, and salinity were observed in 2006. A trend of increase in AW salinity over time (AW salinization in early 2000s) was discovered. These results can be useful to anyone interested in recent change in the Arctic Ocean.

Bottom pressure estimates from three GRACE gravity series and two global ocean models are compared to Jason altimetry sea level anomaly estimates to determine the accuracy of the GRACE and model data at sub-monthly timescales. The GRACE series can explain 25–75 % of the sub-monthly altimetric variability in most ocean regions with high signal strength. The GRACE series explain more of the sub-monthly variability than their de-aliasing model products can to periods as short as 10 d.

We give an explanation of the decadal timescale path variations in the Kuroshio Current in the North Pacific based on highly detailed climate model simulations.

The ocean circulation is crucial for the climate, and the North Atlantic subpolar gyre is a key component of the meridional heat transport. In this study we use a high-resolution simulation with bottom-following coordinates to investigate the gyre dynamics. We show that nonlinear processes, underestimated in most climate models, control the circulation in the gyre interior. This result contrasts with the classical theory putting forward wind effects on the large-scale circulation.

Based on the close link with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean dipole, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean should be regarded as a unit, named the Pacific–Indian Ocean associated mode (PIOAM), when studying and predicting climate variability in East Asia. Since the PIOAM is so important, the outputs of historical simulation from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 5 were used to evaluate the reproducibility of PIOAM in current climate models.

The main objective of the study is to analyze the export of carbon to the open ocean from the rich waters of the upwelling system of North Africa. South of the Canary Islands, permanent upwelling interacts with other physical processes impacting the main biogeochemical processes. Taking advantage of data from two cruises combined with the outputs of models, important conclusions from the differences observed between seasons are obtained, largely related to changes in the CVFZ in this area.

The paper is a contribution to the study of phytoplankton pigment climatology from satellite ocean-color observations in the Senegalo–Mauritanian upwelling, which is a very productive region where in situ observations are lacking. We processed the satellite data with an efficient new neural network classifier. We were able to provide the climatological cycle of diatoms. This study may have an economic impact on fisheries thanks to better knowledge of phytoplankton dynamics.

We investigated the impact of indicator dye impurities on spectrophotometric seawater measurements, especially how they may influence the drift behavior and the measurement quality of an autonomous analyzer using this indicator. These measurements are important for ocean carbon observations. This work revealed that impurities up to a quantity of 2 % do not influence the measurement drift and quality. Higher impurity levels lead to a changing drift behavior and quality deteriorations.