Daily wind patterns in coastal ocean

The cycling of cold and warm air creates rotating pockets of high and low pressures, forming a circulation cell that propagates both onshore and offshore. Hunter et al. studied SLB circulation using data collected from February through May 2005 on the Hudson River's outflow into the New York Bight, an area off the coast of the United States' mid-Atlantic region. The authors find that daily SLB circulation can dominate motion over most of the continental shelf, both near shore and as far as 100 kilometers [60 miles] offshore, accounting for nearly half coastal waters' kinetic energy during the spring. Because continental margins are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, the authors say that further quantification of the SLB system in the New York Bight and in other areas may help predict changes in global biogeochemical cycles.-American Geophysical Union