On the Advection of Upwelled Water on the Western Yucatan Shelf

Upwelling events over the Yucatan Shelf are an important physical phenomenon to the region. They typically happen during spring and summer and had been studied for some time with a primary focus on the development on the eastern side of the shelf and later transport to the central part of the Peninsula. There has been very little effort looking at the impact of upwelling on the western shelf, on the Campeche side. Using a combination of observations and modeling from 2018, we show evidence for the first time, of the presence of upwelled water on the western side. Particle tracking, integrated back-in-time, was used to identify the origin of the upwelled water. Our results show that Caribbean Subtropical Underwater was brought from the northeast shelf, over 500 km away from the study area, by advection. This water took over a month (40 days) to arrive at the study region, traveling along-shelf with an average velocity of 14.5 cm/s. In the nearshore waters off the Campeche Coast, Caribbean Tropical Water was underlain by upwelling Caribbean Subtropical Underwater. Monthly averaged sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from a 39-year time series suggest that upwelled water off Campeche is a regular phenomenon during summer, while the recurrence of westward advection is supported by climatological Lagrangian Coherent Structures. More studies are needed to explore the frequency of occurrence and impact of these events on the western shelf.

Automated summary

Upwelling events over the Yucatan Shelf are crucial physical phenomena during spring and summer. While previous studies focused on the eastern side, recent research has shown evidence of upwelling on the western shelf, providing insights into the origin and migration patterns of upwelled water in that region. Understanding the occurrence and impact of these events on the western shelf is important for studying marine ecology and climate change in the area.