Article
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The Response of Mixed Layer Depth due to Extreme Weather Events
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Version 1
: Received: 18 March 2024 / Approved: 19 March 2024 / Online: 19 March 2024 (12:45:26 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Lee, W.; Veeramony, J. The Response of Mixed Layer Depth Due to Hurricane Katrina (2005). J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024, 12, 678. Lee, W.; Veeramony, J. The Response of Mixed Layer Depth Due to Hurricane Katrina (2005). J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024, 12, 678.
Abstract
The ocean’s mixed layer depth (MLD) plays an important role in understanding climate dynamics, especially during extreme weather occurrences like hurricanes. This study investigates the effects of Hurricane Katrina (2005) on the MLD in the Gulf of Mexico, using the Delft3D modeling system. By integrating hydrodynamics and wave dynamics modules, we simulate the ocean’s response to extreme weather, focusing on temperature, salinity and MLD variations. Our analysis reveals significant cooling and mixing induced by Katrina, resulting in spatial and temporal fluctuations in temperature (~± 4°C) and salinity (~± 2.5 ppt). The MLD is estimated using a simple threshold method, revealing a substantial deepening to ~120 m on August 29th-30th during Hurricane Katrina in the middle of northern Gulf of Mexico, compared to an average MLD of ~20-40 m during pre-storm conditions. It took about 18-days to recover to ~84% of the pre-storm level after Katrina. Compared to the stand-alone FLOW model, the coupled FLOW+WAVE model yields a deeper MLD of ~5%. The MLD recovery and wave effect on the MLD provide insights from various scientific, environmental and operational perspectives, offering a valuable basis for ocean management, planning and applications, particularly during extreme weather events.
Keywords
Mixed Layer Depth; Extreme Weather Events; Delft3D; Temperature; Salinity
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Oceanography
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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