Tides and wind-driven circulation in the tropical and Southern Atlantic Ocean: the BRAZCOAST system

Abstract

The Brazilian coast is characterized by different tidal regimes and distinct meteorological influences. The northern part has larger tidal amplitudes and is permanently affected by trade winds and tropical disturbances; the southern portion has smaller tidal amplitudes and is frequently influenced by extratropical cyclone activity. Besides these aspects, many features regarding current structure and behavior are also present, such as the equatorial system of currents, the subtropical gyre and the corresponding western boundary currents, and the Brazil- Malvinas confluence region. Within this context, efforts were made to develop the BRAZCOAST system, capable of describing the processes that determine the oceanic circulation from large to coastal scales. A customized version of the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) was implemented in a basin-scale domain covering the whole of the tropical and southern Atlantic Ocean, with 0.5° spatial resolution, as well as three nested grids with (1/12)° resolution covering the different parts of the Brazilian shelf, in a one-way procedure. POM was modified to include tidal potential generator terms and a partially- clamped boundary condition for tidal elevations. The coarse grid captured large-scale features, while the nested grids detailed local circulations affected by bathymetry and coastal restrictions. An interesting aspect at the coarse grid level was the relevance of the Weddell Sea to the location of the tidal amphidromic systems