Polar Front around the Kerguelen Islands: An up-to-date determination and associated circulation of surface/subsurface waters

Type Article
Date 2014-10-02
Language English
Author(s) Park Young-Hyang1, Durand Isabelle1, Kestenare Elodie2, Rougier Gilles3, Zhou Meng4, D'Ovidio Francesco5, Cotte Cedric1, Lee Jae-Hak6
Affiliation(s) 1 : Univ Paris 06, Univ Paris 04, Museum Natl Hist Nat, MNHN,CNRS,IRD,LOCEAN Lab, Paris, France.
2 : Univ Toulouse 3, Observ Midi Pyrenees, LEGOS, IRD,CNES,CNRS, F-31062 Toulouse, France.
3 : Ctr Oceanol Marseille, LOPB, Marseille, France.
4 : Univ Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125 USA.
5 : Univ Paris 06, Univ Paris 04, CNRS, IRD,MNHN,LOCEAN Lab, Paris, France.
6 : Korea Inst Ocean Sci & Technol, Ansan, South Korea.
Source Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0027) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2014-10-02 , Vol. 119 , N. 10 , P. 6575-6592
DOI 10.1002/2014JC010061
WOS© Times Cited 89
Keyword(s) Polar Front, Kerguelen, Southern Ocean
Abstract The circulation of iron-rich shelf waters around the Kerguelen Islands plays a crucial role for a climatically important, annually recurrent phytoplankton spring bloom over the sluggish shelf region and its downstream plume area along the Antarctic circumpolar flow. However, there is a long-standing confusion about the Polar Front (PF) in the Kerguelen region due to diverse suggestions in the literature for its geographical location with an extreme difference over 10° of latitude. Based on abundant historical hydrographic data, the in situ hydrographic and current measurements during the 2011 KEOPS2 cruise, satellite chlorophyll images, and altimetry-derived surface velocity fields, we determine and validate an up-to-date location of the PF around the Kerguelen Islands. Artificial Lagrangian particle trajectories computed from altimetric velocity time series are analyzed for the possible pathways and sources of different surface/subsurface waters advected into the chlorophyll bloom area east off the islands studied during the KEOPS2 cruise. The PF location determined as the northernmost boundary of the Winter Water colder than 2°C, which is also associated with a band of strong currents, appears to be primarily controlled by topography. The PF rounds the Kerguelen Islands from the south to deflect northward along the eastern escarpment up to the northeastern corner of the Kerguelen Plateau before making its southward retroflection. It is shown that the major surface/subsurface waters found within the deep basin east of the Kerguelen Islands originate from the shelf around the Heard Island, rather than from the shallow shelf north of the Kerguelen Islands.
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Park Young-Hyang, Durand Isabelle, Kestenare Elodie, Rougier Gilles, Zhou Meng, D'Ovidio Francesco, Cotte Cedric, Lee Jae-Hak (2014). Polar Front around the Kerguelen Islands: An up-to-date determination and associated circulation of surface/subsurface waters. Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans, 119(10), 6575-6592. Publisher's official version : https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JC010061 , Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00244/35485/