Response of Abundance and Distribution of Humboldt Squid (Dosidicus gigas) to Short-Lived Eddies in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean From April to June 2017

In this study, the eddy characteristics on the fishing ground of the Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean were detected based on geometrical characteristics with the flow field during April–June 2017. The influence of the eddies on the biophysical environment, D. gigas abundance, and habitat distribution were explored. The habitat was identified by fishery data, sea surface temperature (SST), vertical water temperature, and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a). Results indicated that the eddy lifetime was relatively short, with only three eddies persisting for more than 2 weeks. The number of eddies in each month showed a similar variability trend with the monthly average catch per unit effort (CPUE) of D. gigas. Two eddies were taken with a lifetime of above 2 weeks, which revealed that the environmental conditions around the eddies significantly changed. When the eddy persisted for 8–10 days, SST and vertical temperature gradually decreased, but Chl-a significantly increased. The habitat quality of D. gigas gradually increased, and the gravity center of the fishing ground was consistent with eddy movement. The eddy-induced Ekman pumping led to the transportation of deep waters with rich nutrients into the euphotic layer, promoted the reproduction of bait organisms, and yielded favorable water temperature conditions for D. gigas. These environmental changes aided the formation of high-quality habitats, which increase D. gigas abundance and catch and drive the shift of the gravity centers of fishing grounds with the eddy. Our findings suggested that eddy activities have significant impacts on D. gigas abundance and habitat distribution.

Impact of natural disasters on consumer behavior: Case of the 2017 El Niño phenomenon in Peru

El Niño is an extreme weather event featuring unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. This phenomenon is characterized by heavy rains and floods that negatively affect the economic activities of the impacted areas. Understanding how this phenomenon influences consumption behavior at different granularity levels is essential for recommending strategies to normalize the situation. With this aim, we performed a multi-scale analysis of data associated with bank transactions involving credit and debit cards. Our findings can be summarized into two main results: Coarse-grained analysis reveals the presence of the El Niño phenomenon and the recovery time in a given territory, while fine-grained analysis demonstrates a change in individuals’ purchasing patterns and in merchant relevance as a consequence of the climatic event. The results also indicate that society successfully withstood the natural disaster owing to the economic structure built over time. In this study, we present a new method that may be useful for better characterizing future extreme events.

Galápagos upwelling driven by localized wind–front interactions

The Galápagos archipelago, rising from the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean some 900 km off the South American mainland, hosts an iconic and globally significant biological hotspot. The islands are renowned for their unique wealth of endemic species, which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and today underpins one of the largest UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Marine Reserves on Earth. The regional ecosystem is sustained by strongly seasonal oceanic upwelling events—upward surges of cool, nutrient-rich deep waters that fuel the growth of the phytoplankton upon which the entire ecosystem thrives. Yet despite its critical life-supporting role, the upwelling’s controlling factors remain undetermined. Here, we use a realistic model of the regional ocean circulation to show that the intensity of upwelling is governed by local northward winds, which generate vigorous submesoscale circulations at upper-ocean fronts to the west of the islands. These submesoscale flows drive upwelling of interior waters into the surface mixed layer. Our findings thus demonstrate that Galápagos upwelling is controlled by highly localized atmosphere–ocean interactions, and call for a focus on these processes in assessing and mitigating the regional ecosystem’s vulnerability to 21st-century climate change.

A Combined Stokes Drift Profile under Swell and Wind Sea

A combined directional Stokes drift profile for swell and wind sea is presented. The profile can be used to calculate the shear under crossing seas and as such is relevant for Langmuir turbulence and Stokes–Coriolis forcing, but also for material advection. The swell is represented as either a monochromatic wave or as a Phillips spectrum, while the wind sea is represented as a Phillips spectrum. The profile is found to compare well against the full directional Stokes drift calculated from the 2D spectrum of ERA-Interim in an open-ocean location in the North Atlantic. The error compared to a Phillips-type unidirectional Stokes drift profile is markedly lower for a combined profile with a monochromatic swell Stokes profile. However, representing the swell as a Phillips-type Stokes drift profile yields even better results. The combined profile relies on integrated wave parameters readily available from wave models and can be calculated at low cost. The global Stokes drift climate is investigated using ERA-Interim reanalysis data with the intention of identifying regions dominated by crossing Stokes drift. We find that the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean probably experiences the greatest degree of crossing Stokes drift, and the entire subtropical band 20°–30°S/N exhibits a significant degree of crossing Stokes drift and swell dominance over the Stokes drift.

Dynamics on Seasonal Variability of EKE Associated with TIWs in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean

Energetic mesoscale eddies (vortices) associated with tropical instability waves (TIWs) exist in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean between 0° and 8°N. This study examines the seasonal variations in eddy kinetic energy (EKE) of TIWs using in situ and satellite observations and elucidates the underlying dynamical mechanisms. The results reveal that the cross-equatorial southerly winds are key to sustaining the high-level EKE (up to ~600 cm2 s−2) from boreal summer to winter in 0°–6°N and 155°–110°W. Because of the β effect and the surface wind divergence, the southerly winds generate anticyclonic wind curls north of the equator that intensify the sea surface temperature (SST) fronts and force the downwelling annual Rossby waves. The resultant sea surface height ridge induces strong horizontal current shears between 0° and 5°N. The intensified current shears and SST fronts generate EKE via barotropic and baroclinic instabilities, respectively. To the extent that the seasonal migration of a northward-displaced intertropical convergence zone intensifies the southerly winds north of, but not south of, the equator, our study suggests that the climatic asymmetry is important for the oceanic eddy generations in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean—a result with important implications for coupled climate simulation/prediction.