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Multiple-scale temporal variations and fluxes near a hydrothermal vent over the Southwest Indian Ridge

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Abstract

A deep-ocean mooring system was deployed 100 m away from an active hydrothermal vent over the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR), where the water depth is about 2,800 m. One year of data on ocean temperature 50 m away from the ocean floor and on velocities at four levels (44 m, 40 m, 36 m, and 32 m away from the ocean floor) were collected by the mooring system. Multiplescale variations were extracted from these data: seasonal, tidal, super-tidal, and eddy scales. The semidiurnal tide was the strongest tidal signal among all the tidal constituents in both currents and temperature. With the multiple-scale variation presented in the data, a new method was developed to decompose the data into five parts in terms of temporal scales: time-mean, seasonal, tidal, super-tidal, and eddy. It was shown that both eddy and tidal heat (momentum) fluxes were characterized by variation in the bottom topography: the tidal fluxes of heat and momentum in the along-isobath direction were much stronger than those in the cross-isobath direction. For the heat flux, eddy heat flux was stronger than tidal heat flux in the cross-isobath direction, while eddy heat flux was weaker in the along-isobath direction. For the momentum flux, the eddy momentum flux was weaker than tidal momentum flux in both directions. The eddy momentum fluxes at the four levels had a good relationship with the magnitude of mean currents: it increased with the mean current in an exponential relationship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Second Institute of Oceanography, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Xiaodan Chen, Chujin Liang, Beifeng Zhou, Guanghong Liao & Junde Li

  2. School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Changming Dong

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90001, USA

    Changming Dong

Authors
  1. Xiaodan Chen
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  2. Chujin Liang
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  3. Changming Dong
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  4. Beifeng Zhou
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  5. Guanghong Liao
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  6. Junde Li
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Correspondence to Chujin Liang.

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Chen, X., Liang, C., Dong, C. et al. Multiple-scale temporal variations and fluxes near a hydrothermal vent over the Southwest Indian Ridge. Front. Earth Sci. 9, 691–699 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-015-0529-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-015-0529-0

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