Mark R. Jury

University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, 3886 South Africa, and Physics Dept, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, PR 00681 Puerto Rico
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 34   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0034
Received: 07 May, 2013    Accepted: 03 Jun., 2013    Published: 12 Jul., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Jury, 2013, Representation of Coastal Upwelling and Environmental Interactions in the Southern Benguela in Satellite Era Reanalysis, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.34 267-277 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0034)

The ability of ocean and atmosphere reanalysis products to represent coastal upwelling in the southern Benguela (28°-36°S, 14°-20°E) is studied in the period 1980-2008. Mean maps, depth sections and seasonal cycle are analyzed for ocean color, sea surface temperature (SST), vertical velocity, winds and ocean currents in the zone. The paper first evaluates coastal winds and cross-shelf gradients of temperature in a variety of products; then provides an analysis of inter-relationships among variables averaged in the St Helena Bay sub-area. The 30km Coupled Forecast System reanalysis resolves the cool strip of SST with a 1℃~2℃ warm bias, while subsurface zonal overturning and a longshore current jet are featured in the 50km Simple Ocean Data Assimilation reanalysis. Mean coastal upwelling rates of 1-2 m/day are consistent with observations. The expected links are found between the annual cycle of meridional wind stress and longshore currents, and between uplift, temperature and salinity. A new finding is a connection between the zonal wind stress and chlorophyll anomalies (-35.86 mg m^-3/N m^-2). When the subtropical anticyclone is located south-west of Africa, offshore winds prevail and phytoplankton blooms in the southern Benguela.

Southern Benguela; Coastal upwelling; Reanalysis; Model representation