A new coastal upwelling index generated with surface current estimations from high-frequency radars

Abstract

Coastal upwelling has been extensively studied as it plays a critical role in the connectivity between offshore waters and coastal ecosystems, which has impacts on water quality, fisheries, and aquaculture production. Significant efforts have been devoted to the quantification of the intensity, duration, and variability of this phenomenon by means of coastal upwelling indexes (CUIs), derived from wind, sea level pressure, or sea surface temperature data. Although valuable, first-order descriptors, such classical indexes have been reported to present some limitations. As one of the major shortcomings is the omission of the direct influence of ocean circulation, this work introduces a novel CUI, generated from remotely sensed hourly surface current observations provided by a high-frequency radar (HFR). The consistency of the proposed index (CUI-HFR) is assessed in two different oceanographic areas during two distinct time periods: in the north-western Iberian (NWI) peninsula for 2021 and in the Bay of Biscay (BOB) for 2014. To this aim, CUI-HFR is compared against a traditional CUI based on hourly wind observations (CUI-WIND) provided by two buoys. Results revealed that HFR-derived circulation maps can be effectively used for the characterization of recurring upwelling and downwelling episodes and the noticeable agreement between CUI-HFR and CUI-WIND.