Internal solitary waves and linear features observed in SAR images and Sunglint on the Amazon River mouth region

Abstract

The tropical Atlantic Ocean region off the Amazon River mouth is a hot-spot site for Internal Solitary Waves (ISWs) and has been reported as the third largest energetic region in the ocean. There, large amplitude ISWs propagate offshore for hundreds of kilometres, whose crest lengths are amongst the largest in the world. Despite that, these ISWs have not yet been documented in detail. In this proposal, it's planned to investigate the full two dimensional (2D) horizontal structure of these ISWs, and if they present some seasonality and/or interannuality in their temporal variability in a region of the ocean highly affected by ocean currents such as the North Brazil Current (NBC), as well as by the presence of the plume of fresh water and high content of sediments from the Amazon River outflow. It is the aim of the project to present a first account of the coherence lengths, modal structure, propagation characteristics and temporal variability of ISWs over the continental shelf off the mouth of the Amazon River influenced by NBC along the northern coast of South America.This project involves a three-party collaboration involving the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), and the Faculty of Sciences of Porto (FCUP), Portugal. (AU)