lagrangian assessment of simulated surface current dispersion in the coastal ocean 1 a purely lagrangian assessment of dispersion from modeled surface current trajectories in the coastal ocean is presented modeled trajectories come from roms simulations for the southern california bight during the 1996 through 1999 period data are from surface current trajectories collected primarily in the santa barbara channel with code style drifters distributions of particle positions from trajectories emanating from launch locations within 10 kilometers of the coast throughout the santa barbara channel that advect for one through four days lagrangian pdfs are evaluated descriptively and quantitatively the two dimensional kolmogorov smirnov k s statistical test for comparing discrete sampled data with a known probability distribution is the quantitative basis in general dispersion distributions from observations are similar to lagrangian pdfs computed from modeled trajectories and the k s statistic quantifies this accordingly a few specific regions of poor model data agreement are indicated and discussed the purely lagrangian assessment elucidates an improved understanding of model performance and ocean circulation beyond that offered in a eulerian sense and is necessary when modeled trajectories are utilized for applied oceanographic and marine ecology problems

the urban geology of cairns queensland australia the urban geology of cairns on the northeast tropical coast of australia is dominated by quaternary sediments these sediments provide a record of sea level change alluvial and slope response to late quaternary climatic changes and millennial scale occurrences of various natural hazards drying of climate and consequent retraction of rainforest into refugia just prior to and after the last glacial maximum resulted in the construction of extensive high level alluvial fans and slope deposits which were incised following the amelioration of climate during the early holocene the holocene sea level record of the region is best shown by coral micro atolls which suggest that hydro isostatic rebound following flooding of the continental shelf resulted in a sea level fall of approximately 1 m since 5 5 ka coastal progradation following sea level stabilisation at approximately 6 ka has occurred with the deposition of sandy beach ridges and cheniers on a mud substrate these and other ridges on offshore islands along the great barrier reef were likely a result of deposition by storm surge and waves during tropical cyclones these millennial scale records highlight that extreme intensity tropical cyclones occur an order of magnitude more frequently than that suggested by the short not vert similar100 yr historical record of tropical cyclones from the region

the california current system in the southern california bight and the santa barbara channel recent observations in the santa barbara channel and over the california cooperative oceanic fisheries investigations calcofi southern california grid are used to examine seasonal circulation patterns in and near the southern california bight defined as the region east of the santa rosa ridge and including the santa barbara channel poleward flow relative to 500 m is found throughout the bight in all seasons except for spring and all subregions except the western part of the santa barbara channel in spring there is equatorward flow throughout the bight at all depths to 500 m though it tends to be surface or midcolumn intensified equatorward flow offshore of the bight present in all seasons narrows and accelerates into a jet like feature and simultaneously moves close to the santa rosa ridge in summer current meter data from the eastern entrance to the santa barbara channel are consistent with the seasonal results from the calcofi data and further show an upward propagation of phase at annual period with a phase speed of 1 to 2 m d 1 comparison with the calcofi ship winds suggests that poleward flow in the bight may be the result of positive wind stress curl through a sverdrup balance though the observed transport is only about 75 of that expected from the curl amplitude equatorward flow in the bight may be the result of coastal upwelling though the transport is larger than expected from the relatively weak winds in the bight and the offshore extent of the equatorward flow is about 10 rossby radii farther than might be expected for linearized coastal upwelling equatorward flow outside the bight cannot be explained as a sverdrup flow because the wind stress curl is positive throughout most of the region upward propagation of phase and downward propagation of energy may be indicative of forcing by remote wind equatorward of the bight given the complexity of possible forcing mechanisms for circulation in and near the bight a model that includes effects of remote wind forcing ekman pumping and topography is needed to explain the observations in a satisfactory way

a central tropical pacific coral demonstrates pacific indian and atlantic decadal climate connections while instrumental and proxy based climate records describe significant decadal scale climate variabil ity throughout the tropical pacific indian and atlantic oceans the processes responsible for these variations and their interactionsare not readily apparent from the obs er vations a new 112 yr coral based sea surface temperature sst reconstruction from palmyra island in the central tropical pacific ctp exhibitss trong decadal variability with an amplitude of roughly 0 3 c a 12 13yr period sig nal in thiscoral record ishighly coherent with long equa torial atlantic and indian ocean climate records implying a unified phenomenon the atlantic pattern suggests that it may fall under direct influence of anomaloussst in the ctp as it does over interannual timescales while the in dian ocean pattern exhibits maximum response during the switch between warm cold states in the tropical pacific the results demonstrate that the ctp has played a significant role in determining the expression of global decadal climate variability over the twentieth century

mineralogy maketh mountains granitic landscapes shaped by dissolution abstract in tectonically quiet regions the shape of the landscape is controlled by the erosion resistance of the rocks erosion largely depends on the release of particles from the weathering rock which in turn requires a degree of dissolution of the more soluble grains the rate of dissolution of the common rock forming minerals allows the construction of a numerical rock weatherability scale rws based on the rock s modal mineralogical analysis applied regionally to three granitic landscape regions of the bega valley of southern new south wales the tate batholith and featherbed volcanics of north queensland and granitoids in the beaufort region of victoria the mean elevation of the larger plutons in each region correlates highly r 0 83 0 93 with their rws variation in composition within a pluton also shows there is a clear connection between changes in rws and relief within the pluton from these results it is apparent that the landscape of such granitic terrains is determined very largely by mineral dissolution rates with plagioclase composition and content being a major factor

statistical aspects of surface drifter observations of circulation in the santa barbara channel argos tracked drifters are used to study the near surface circulation in the santa barbara channel the mean consists of a cyclonic cell in the western santa barbara channel with weaker flow in the eastern channel drifter mean velocities agree well with record means from near surface current meters at the eastern entrance to the channel drifter velocities are biased toward outflow eastward velocity conditions drifter variability at synoptic and seasonal scales shows a tendency for upwelling and eastward flow in spring a strong cyclonic circulation in summer poleward relaxation in fall and weak variable circulation in winter drifter estimates of eddy stress divergence indicate advective terms play a secondary role in the mean surface momentum balance lagrangian time and space scales are about 1 day and under 10 km respectively the mismatch between lagrangian and eulerian timescales indicates advective terms are important to the fluctuating circulation

decadal interactions between the western tropical pacific and the north atlantic oscillation the relationship between interdecadal variations of tropical sea surface temperature sst in the last 120 years and circulation anomalies related to the north atlantic oscillation nao is investigated in this study using an atmospheric general circulation model agcm we confirm observational evidence that variations in the sst gradient in the western tropical pacific are related to the nao anomalies on decadal timescale and may be contributing to the shift towards the positive nao phase observed in the late 20th century the role played by the indian ocean nao teleconnection advocated in recent studies focused on the last 50 years is also assessed in the context of the 120 year long record it is suggested that a positive feedback between the pacific sst and the hemispheric circulation pattern embedding the decadal nao signal may act to enhance the internal variability of the coupled ocean atmosphere system and justify the stronger teleconnection found in observational data than in sst forced agcm experiments

pattern and tempo of great escarpment erosion extensive geological geophysical structural and geochronological data suggest that the locations of great escarpments bordering passive margins are exceptionally stable and are probably determined by crustal structure together the data do not support the established paradigm of ongoing significant and parallel escarpment retreat rather thermochronologic data and sedimentary sequences in ocean basins suggest that initial tectonically controlled rift escarpments undergo rapid and significant erosion only during the earliest stages of seafloor spreading development of stable passive margin escarpments follows this period of intense erosion escarpments increase in sinuosity as embayments retreat more rapidly than interfluves measurements of 24 escarpments suggest that sinuosity and the rate at which it increases depends upon the location of maximum uplift the geometry of the preescarpment drainage system and margin age all data suggest that the location of passive margin escarpments does not change significantly over time

forcing of anomalous sea surface temperature evolution in the tropical atlantic during pacific warm events the seasonal evolution of anomalous interhemispheric sea surface temperature sst gradients in the tropical atlantic from january to april is studied by composites of the 10 warmest warm and 10 coldest cold januaries during 1948 1993 in the equatorial pacific using comprehensive ocean atmosphere data set ship observations in the warm as compared with the cold years an anomalous weakening of the northward sst gradient develops mainly due to anomalous warming in the tropical north atlantic this stems from the combination of three forcings all related to the weakened north atlantic trade winds during pacific warm events most important are the reduced latent heat flux in much of the tropical north atlantic and anomalous downwelling equatorward of 20 n with a further contribution from increased net radiation resulting from the reduced cloudiness due to the diminished convergence in the downstream portion of the north atlantic trades in response to the development of warm anomalies in the tropical north atlantic during january march the cross equatorial northward winds accelerate to april and this leads south of the equator not only to ekman downwelling enhanced divergence reduced cloudiness and increased net radiation but also to enhanced wind speed and evaporation the result is a modest anomalous warming in the western tropical south atlantic increased air temperature over the entire basin presumably due to atmospheric advection from the pacific has little effect on the atlantic sst pattern the anomalous interhemispheric sst gradient controlled primarily by the warm anomaly in the north atlantic has a pivotal role to play in steering the late boreal winter atmospheric circulation in the tropical atlantic sector and thus regional climate anomalies

numerical simulation of a synoptic event in the southern california bight 1 in the middle of march 2002 a synoptic upwelling event occurred in the southern california bight it was marked by a precipitous cooling of at least 4 c within 10 20 km of the coast by the end of the month the preevent temperatures had slowly recovered the regional oceanic model system roms is used to simulate the event with an atmospheric downscaling reanalysis for surface wind and buoyancy flux forcing lateral boundary conditions of temperature salinity velocity and sea level are taken from a global oceanic product barotropic tidal fields from a global barotropic model are imposed along the open boundaries the simulation reproduces well the upwelling process compared with observed data the sensitivity of the simulation is examined to wind resolution heat flux and tidal forcing the oceanic response to the different wind resolutions converges at the level of the 6 km resolution which is the finest scale present in the terrain elevation data set used in the atmospheric downscaling the combination of an analytical diurnal cycle in the solar radiation and the empirical coupling with the instantaneous roms sea surface temperature produces a similar oceanic response to the downscaled heat flux tidal effects are significant in the upwelling evolution due to the increase in wind energy input through a quasi resonant alignment of the wind and surface current probably by chance

are the winters 2010 and 2012 archetypes exhibiting extreme opposite behavior of the north atlantic jet stream abstractthe atmospheric circulation over the north atlantic european sector experienced exceptional but highly contrasting conditions in the recent 2010 and 2012 winters november march with the year dated by the relevant january evidence is given for the remarkably different locations of the eddy driven westerly jet over the north atlantic in the 2010 winter the maximum of the jet stream was systematically between 30 and 40 n south jet regime whereas in the 2012 winter it was predominantly located around 55 n north jet regime these jet features underline the occurrence of either weak flow 2010 or strong and persistent ridges throughout the troposphere 2012 this is confirmed by the very different occurrence of blocking systems over the north atlantic associated with episodes of strong cyclonic anticyclonic rossby wave breaking in 2010 2012 winter these dynamical features underlie strong precipitation and temperature anomalies over parts of europe with detrimental impacts on many soc

180 ma continental drainage divide in northeastern australia role of passive margin tectonics the stratigraphy and sedimentology of jurassic to tertiary sediments within the laura and carpentaria basins in northeastern australia show that the continental drainage divide here predates the onset of continental margin formation and has remained stationary since the middle jurassic this result is contrary to models of the evolution of highlands adjacent to passive continental margins that state that divide migration associated with downwarping of the highland flank and widespread stream reversals and or captures should occur following margin development the results also show that a maximum of only 50 m of denudation could have occurred on the continental drainage divide here since the cretaceous

pre quaternary landscape inheritance in australia palaeogeographic reconstructions indicate that parts of the australian continent have been subaerially exposed for hundreds of millions of years some landforms and regolith are demonstrated to be at least 300 million years old but their persistence at or near the surface is inconsistent with long term denudation rate estimates based on cosmogenic nuclides and apatite fission track thermochronology burial and exhumation are suggested as significant preservation factors in conjunction with prolonged tectonic stability and a shift to more arid climatic regimes in the cenozoic copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

abrupt atmospheric torque changes and their role in the 1976 1977 climate regime shift 1 during the climate regime pacific decadal oscillation pdo phase shift of 1976 1977 changes of up to several hadleys occurred in the friction mountain and gravity wave torques that maintain the axial angular momentum aam balance of the atmosphere as required to produce a substantially different but stable climate regime however the total torque showed little net change 0 2 hadley while the aam showed a modest increase between the pretransition and posttransition periods in our data 1968 1975 and 1978 1997 the east to west transfer of atmospheric mass that occurs during the cold to warm phase shift of the pdo produced positive mountain torque anomalies on the atmosphere resulting from lower higher surface pressure to the west east of the andes and rockies himalayas which were largely compensated by negative friction torque anomalies generated over the equatorial pacific the timing of events during the 1976 1977 transition window suggests that changes in low latitude pacific friction and andes mountains torques and the pdo index in early to mid 1976 preceded changes in the extratropical torques during 1977 consistent with the poleward propagation of atmospheric zonal flow anomalies documented in previous studies an increase in the global mean surface temperature and its rate of rise after the regime shift suggest that the negative friction torque anomalies that developed during the transition may have acted to sustain the warmer posttransition regime by suppressing cold water upwelling in the eastern equatorial pacific and or equatorial thermocline heat content recharge processes in the central and western pacific

observed atlantic sst anomaly impact on the nao an update abstract the pan atlantic sea surface temperature sst anomaly pattern that was found in a previous study to have a significant impact on the north atlantic oscillation nao in early winter seemed to reflect the nearly uncorrelated influence of a horseshoe sst anomaly in the north atlantic and an sst anomaly in the eastern equatorial atlantic a lagged rotated maximum covariance analysis of a slightly longer dataset shows that the horseshoe sst anomaly influence is robust but it deemphasizes the center of action southeast of newfoundland canada on the other hand it suggests that the link between equatorial sst and the nao was artificial and due both to enso teleconnections and the orthogonality constraint in the maximum covariance analysis

enso like interdecadal variability 1900 93 a number of recent studies have reported an enso like eof mode in the global sea surface temperature sst field whose time variability is marked by an abrupt change toward a warmer tropical eastern pacific and a colder extratropical central north pacific in 1976 77 the present study compares this pattern with the structure of the interannual variability associated with the enso cycle and documents its time history back to 1900 the analysis is primarily based on the leading eofs of the sst anomaly and anomaly deviation fields in various domains and the associated expansion coefficient or principal component time series which are used to construct global regression maps of sst sea level pressure slp and a number of related variables the use of anomaly deviations i e departures of local sst anomalies from the concurrent global mean sst anomaly reduces the influence of global mean sst trends upon the structure of the eofs and their expansion coefficient time series an important auxiliary time series used in this study is a southern oscillation index based on marine surface observations by means of several different analysis techniques the time variability of the leading eof of the global sst field is separated into two components one identified with the enso cycle related variability on the interannual timescale and the other a linearly independent residual comprising all the interdecadal variability in the record the two components exhibit rather similar spatial signatures in the global sst slp and wind stress fields the sst signature in the residual variability is less equatorially confined in the eastern pacific and it is relatively more prominent over the extratropical north pacific the corresponding slp signature is also stronger over the extratropical north pacific and its counterpart in the cold season 500 mb height field more closely resembles the pna pattern the amplitude time series of the enso like pattern in the residual variability reflects the above mentioned shift in 1976 77 as well as a number of other prominent features including a shift of opposite polarity during the 1940s

the forcing of the pacific decadal oscillation the pacific decadal oscillation pdo defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function of north pacific sea surface temperature anomalies is a widely used index for decadal variability it is shown that the pdo can be recovered from a reconstruction of north pacific sea surface temperature anomalies based on a first order autoregressive model and forcing by variability of the aleutian low el nino southern oscillation enso and oceanic zonal advection anomalies in the kuroshio oyashio extension the latter results from oceanic rossby waves that are forced by north pacific ekman pumping the sst response patterns to these processes are not orthogonal and they determine the spatial characteristics of the pdo the importance of the different forcing processes is frequency dependent at interannual time scales forcing from enso and the aleutian low determines the response in equal parts at decadal time scales zonal advection in the kuroshio oyashio extension enso and anomalies of the aleutian low each account for similar amounts of the pdo variance these results support the hypothesis that the pdo is not a dynamical mode but arises from the superposition of sea surface temperature fluctuations with different dynamical origins

on the structure and teleconnections of north atlantic decadal variability abstractdecadal variability in the north atlantic has been associated in the literature with a tripolar pattern of sea surface temperature sst anomalies that show one sign in the western midlatitudinal north atlantic and the opposite in the subpolar and tropical north atlantic the present analysis of observed sst from 1870 to 2009 leads to the dissection of the sst tripole into two components each with a different time scale in the decadal band and different teleconnections in the atlantic basin while the subpolar and tropical poles present quasi decadal variations with a period of about 9 years essentially uncorrelated with other parts of the basin the center of action in the western midlatitudes is characterized by a longer time scale of about 14 years and significant correlations with the tropical south atlantic and the norwegian and north sea s the 9 yr period variations are associated with an atmospheric configuration resembling the east atlantic pattern whereas the 14 yr period fluctuation

circulation and multiple scale variability in the southern california bight abstract the oceanic circulation in the southern california bight scb is influenced by the large scale california current offshore tropical remote forcing through the coastal wave guide alongshore and local atmospheric forcing the region is characterized by local complexity in the topography and coastline all these factors engender variability in the circulation on interannual seasonal and intraseasonal time scales this study applies the regional oceanic modeling system roms to the scb circulation and its multiple scale variability the model is configured in three levels of nested grids with the parent grid covering the whole us west coast the first child grid covers a large southern domain and the third grid zooms in on the scb region the three horizontal grid resolutions are 20 km 6 7 km and 1 km respectively the external forcings are momentum heat and freshwater flux at the surface and adaptive nudging to gyre scale soda reanalysis fields at the boundaries the momentum flux is from a three hourly reanalysis mesoscale mm5 wind with a 6 km resolution for the finest grid in the scb the oceanic model starts in an equilibrium state from a multiple year cyclical climatology run and then it is integrated from years 1996 through 2003 in this paper the 8 year simulation at the 1 km resolution is analyzed and assessed against extensive observational data high frequency hf radar data current meters acoustic doppler current profilers adcp data hydrographic measurements tide gauges drifters altimeters and radiometers the simulation shows that the domain scale surface circulation in the scb is characterized by the southern california cyclonic gyre comprised of the offshore equatorward california current system and the onshore poleward southern california countercurrent the simulation also exhibits three subdomain scale persistent i e standing cyclonic eddies related to the local topography and wind forcing the santa barbara channel eddy the central scb eddy and the catalina clemente eddy comparisons with observational data reveal that roms reproduces a realistic mean state of the scb oceanic circulation as well as its interannual mainly as a local manifestation of an enso event seasonal and intraseasonal eddy scale variations we find high correlations of the wind curl with both the alongshore pressure gradient apg and the eddy kinetic energy level in their variations on time scales of seasons and longer the geostrophic currents are much stronger than the wind driven ekman flows at the surface the model exhibits intrinsic eddy variability with strong topographically related heterogeneity westward propagating rossby waves and poleward propagating coastally trapped waves albeit with smaller amplitude than observed due to missing high frequency variations in the southern boundary conditions

sand beach ridges record 6000 year history of extreme tropical cyclone activity in northeastern australia sand beach ridges are considered to be derived either from aeolian processes and or waves but their deposition by individual or multiple storms has not been investigated in any detail we use numerical meteorological and oceanographic models to determine the origin of a sequence of 29 shore parallel sand beach ridges in northeastern australia the results suggest that the ridges were constructed by waves and that the final form or height of the ridges is a function of high energy tropical cyclone generated waves plus storm tides hence these landforms archive a nearly 6000 year long history of intense tropical cyclones the record implies that these extreme tempests occur considerably more frequently than that suggested by the short historical record for this region the genesis of this sand beach ridge plain has implications for the interpretation of similar sequences elsewhere along the northeast coast of australia and in comparable environments globally if other similar sand beach ridge plains have also been deposited by like processes it stands to reason that these long term records of high intensity tropical cyclones can be used to ascertain a regional scale risk assessment from this hazard

local and remote forcing of currents and temperature in the central southern california bight 1 a comprehensive study of the central southern california bight shows that subtidal currents are dominated by relatively long time scales 10 25 days large alongshore scales and significant offshore and upward phase propagation a one dimensional model shows that observed fluctuating poleward propagating speeds 140 260 cm s 1 alongshore pressure gradient disturbances account for a much larger fraction of the alongshore velocity variance than local wind stress at least 40 in both seasons and have the longer periods of the dominant currents with the addition of local wind stress about half the velocity variance can be accounted for and overall about 5 more variance in spring than in summer results are consistent with generation of disturbances by remote wind stress several hundred kilometers equatorward of the bight and alongcoast propagation as low mode coastally trapped waves the large scale remote forcing is also responsible for much of the velocity variance on the adjacent shelf the semienclosed santa monica bay a nonlinear three dimensional model shows that water is pushed into the bay initially as part of a throughflow later becoming an eddy that gradually fills the bay producing counterflow on its shoreward side on the shelf local alongshore wind stress accounts for only 25 of the velocity variance in spring and none in summer the large scale disturbances also produce significant temperature fluctuations throughout the region via lateral advection of the mean alongshore temperature gradient local wind driven coastal upwelling is responsible for temperature fluctuations on the inner shelf during several 2 4 day events in spring but only very near the coastal wall

u th age distribution of coral fragments from multiple rubble ridges within the frankland islands great barrier reef implications for past storminess history abstract prograded coral rubble ridges have been widely used as archives for reconstructing long term storm or storminess history chronologies of ridge systems in previous studies are often based on a limited number of low resolution radiocarbon or optically stimulated luminescence osl ages per ridge usually only one age per ridge which carry intrinsic age uncertainties and make interpretation of storm histories problematic to test the fidelity of storm ridges as palaeo storm archives we used high precision u th dating to examine whether different samples from a single ridge are temporally constrained we surveyed three transects of ridge systems from two continental islands normanby island and high island within the frankland islands great barrier reef gbr and obtained 96 u th dates from coral rubble samples collected from within and between different ridges our results revealed significant differences in age ranges between the two islands the steeper and more defined rubble ridges present on normanby island revealed that the majority of u th ages over 60 from a single ridge clustered within a narrow age range 100 years by contrast the lower and less defined ridges on high island which were more likely formed during both storm and non storm high energy events revealed significant scatter in age distribution 200 years with no notable clustering the narrower age ranges obtained from the steeper and more defined rubble ridges suggest that previous approaches of using either limited samples from a single ridge or low precision dating methods to establish chronologies are generally valid at centennial to millennial timescales although caution must be taken to use such approaches for storm history reconstruction on shorter timescales e g decadal the correlation between u th mortality ages of coral rubble and historical stormy periods highlights the possibility of using coral rubble age distribution from rubble ridges to reconstruct the long term regional storminess history u th age distribution of all dated coral rubble samples combined with previously published storm transported coral block data from the same region revealed at least six relatively stormy periods in the past 500 years in the frankland islands region 1570 1590 1760 1780 1800 1830 1860 1880 1940 1960 1980 2010 ce wavelet power analysis of the relative probability of u th age distribution indicates that the pacific decadal oscillation pdo and el nino southern oscillation enso may be partially responsible for the long term variability in storminess

observed decadal tropical pacific north atlantic teleconnections 1 observations of the last century are considered to investigate the decadal scale pacific north atlantic teleconnections by using wavelet analysis we find a significant low frequency coherency between major indices of climate variability in particular at periods between 10 and 20 yr the north atlantic oscillation nao tends to be out of phase with the el nino southern oscillation enso strong icelandic low during la nina and the pacific decadal oscillation pdo but in phase with the north pacific index npi hence the icelandic low is strong during la nina but the aleutian low is weak the band pass sst pattern shows a close relationship between the decadal enso mode in the pacific and the sea surface temperature anomaly tripole in the atlantic consistent with the low frequency global teleconnections the spatial sea level patterns corresponding to the band pass filtered indices suggest that the aleutian icelandic low seesaw is a main interbasin link on decadal time scale consistent with the larger coherency of the npi with the nao than with enso

three dimensional oceanic eddy analysis in the southern california bight from a numerical product with eight islands complex coastlines and bottom topography strong wind curls and frequent upwelling fronts the southern california bight scb is an area with strong eddy activity by applying an automated eddy detection scheme to a 12 year high resolution numerical product of the oceanic circulation in the scb a three dimensional eddy data set is developed it includes information for each eddy s location polarity intensity size boundary and moving path at nine vertical levels through a series of statistical analyses applied to the eddy data set three dimensional statistical characteristics of mesoscale and submeoscale eddy variations in the scb are elucidated these shed light on how eddies are generated evolve and terminate a significant percentage of eddies is found to be generated around islands and headlands along the coastline which indicates that islands in the scb play a vital role in eddy generation three types of eddies based on shape are identified from the numerical product bowl lens and cone a dynamic analysis shows that some submesoscale eddies with finite local rossby numbers tend to be ageostrophic balanced while mesoscale eddies are in geostrophic balance the present research results are useful for the interpretation of data sets obtained during the interdisciplinary santa barbara channel radiance in a dynamic ocean radyo field experiment conducted on september 3 25 2008