Cross-Scale Coupling: Modeling Oceanic Variability from the Pacific Basin Scale to Local Coastal Domains Along the North America West Coast (NAWC)

We investigate the space-time structure and causal mechanisms for cross-scale coupling i.e., from simulations of global and basin-scale circulations and local flows as it occurs in the oceanic circulation and water properties along the North American West Coast NAWC within the context of large-scale changes throughout the Pacific basin. The cross-scale coupling is manifested over a broad range of time scales, ranging from synoptic and intra-seasonal with cross-scale communication by barotropic Rossby and coastal waves to decadal or longer with slowly varying quasi-equilibrium currents over the whole basin. Simulations are for both the Pacific as a whole and for the NAWC regional and local coastal littoral subdomains, using either eddy-excluding or eddy-permitting grid resolutions for the former and fine mesoscale resolutions for the latter.