Internal tides off the Amazon shelf: importance to structure ocean's temperature during two contrasted seasons

Tides and internal tides (IT) in the ocean can significantly affect local to regional ocean temperature and even sea surface temperature (SST), via processes such as vertical mixing, vertical advection and transport of water masses. Offshore of the Amazon River, IT have already been detected and studied; however, their impact on temperature, SST and associated processes are not known in this region. In this work, we use high resolution (1/36°) numerical simulations with and without the tides from an ocean circulation model (NEMO) which explicitly resolves the internal tides (IT), to assess how they can affect ocean temperature in the studied area. We distinguish the analysis for two contrasted seasons, from April to June (AMJ) and from August to October (ASO), since the seasonal stratification off the Amazon River modulates the IT’s response and their influence in temperature.  

The IT are well reproduced by the model, and are in good agreement with observations, for both their generation and their propagation. The simulation with tides is in better agreement with satellite SST data compared to the simulation without tides. During ASO season, stronger meso-scale currents, deeper and weaker pycnocline are observed in contrast to the AMJ season. Results show that the observed coastal upwelling during ASO season is well reproduced by the model including tides, whereas the no-tide simulation is too warm by +0.3 °C at sea surface. In the subsurface above the thermocline, the tide simulation is cooler by -1.2 °C, and warmer below the thermocline by +1.2 °C compared to the simulation without the tides. The study further highlights that the IT induce vertical mixing on their generation site along the shelf break and on their propagation pathways towards the open ocean. This process explains the cooler temperature at the ocean surface and in the subsurface water above the thermocline and a warming in the deeper layers (below the thermocline). The surface cooling induced in turn an increase of the net heat flux from the atmosphere to the ocean surface, which could induce significant changes in the local and even for the regional tropical Atlantic atmospheric circulation and precipitation. We therefore demonstrate that IT, mainly via vertical diffusivity along their propagation pathways of approximately 700 km offshore, and tides over the continental shelf, play a key role on the temperature structure off the Amazon River mouth, particularly in the coastal cooling enhanced by IT.