Optimal Precursors Triggering Sudden Shifts in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current Transport Through Drake Passage

Abstract

As the dominant circulation pattern in the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), characterized by high-speed and deep-reaching flows, is the longest wind-driven current (∼25,000 km) in the global ocean. The unblocked Drake Passage (DP) and prevailing westerlies allow the ACC to supply large amounts of salt, heat, carbon, and other biochemical components among the major ocean basins, making it a critical part of the global coupled ocean-atmosphere system (Rintoul & Naveira Garabato, 2013). Multiple narrow jets, circumpolar fronts, and energetic eddies (e.g., Donohue et al., 2016;Nowlin & Klinck, 1986;Orsi et al., 1995) are observed in the wide cross-section of the ACC, leading to multiscale variability on intraseasonal to decadal time scales and low predictability of its transport (

Time-optimal path for oceanic targeted observation based on multiple mobile platforms using the traveling salesman problem

“…where 𝑉 is the target area. According to Geng et al (2020) [31] and Zhou et al (2021) [32], the initial constraint is defined as follows:…”