Effects of ocean mesoscale eddies on atmosphere–sea ice–ocean interactions off Adélie Land, East Antarctica - Climate Dynamics

Downwind transects of the imprint of eddies on the mesoscale anomalies of surface conditions, heat fluxes, and atmosphere. A negative (positive) eddy radius corresponds to the upwind (downwind) side of the eddies. a Surface temperature (weighted average of the ocean and sea ice temperatures, light blue and pink) and 2 m air temperature (red and blue), b 2 m air specific humidity, c 10 m wind speed, d planetary boundary layer height, e latent heat flux, and f sensible heat flux. A positive heat flux means an energy loss by the surface. The mesoscale anomalies of each field were first extracted following the method described in Sect. 2.4 and the composites were built by averaging the anomalies found above the eddies. Eddies were resized with respect to their radius and rotated to be aligned with the local wind. Separated downwind transects are computed for anticyclonic eddies (red or pink) and cyclonic eddies (blue or light blue). The distinction is also done between ice-free (dashed line) and ice-covered (\(SIC>0.4\), solid line) eddies. The vertical black lines represent the standard deviation (centered around zero) of the composites, computed at the eddies’ center (x = 0) in REF (solid line) and SMOOTH (dashed line). The composites are computed using daily outputs from REF between 2012 and 2013

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