Near-Surface Shear Flow in the Tropical Pacific Cold Tongue Front*

Abstract Near-surface shear in the Pacific cold tongue front at 2°N, 140°W was measured using a set of five moored current meters between 5 and 25 m for nine months during 2004–05. Mean near-surface currents were strongly westward and only weakly northward (∼3 cm s−1). Mean near-surface shear was primarily westward and, thus, oriented to the left of the southeasterly trades. When the southwestward geostrophic shear was subtracted from the observed shear, the residual ageostrophic currents relative to 25 m were northward and had an Ekman-like spiral, in qualitative agreement with an Ekman model modified for regions with a vertically uniform front. According to this “frontal Ekman” model, the ageostrophic Ekman spiral is forced by the portion of the wind stress that is not balanced by the surface geostrophic shear. Analysis of a composite tropical instability wave (TIW) confirms that ageostrophic shear is minimized when winds blow along the front, and strengthens when winds blow oblique to the front. Furthe...

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