The Iberian Poleward Current around North and Northwest Iberia

Manuel Ruiz Villareal (1), Pablo Otero (1), Paula Conde (1), Alvaro Peliz (2), and Jesus Dubert (2)

(1) Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Galicia, Spain
(2) Departamento de Física (Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar), Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal


Autumn-winter shelf-slope circulation at the eastern boundary of the north Atlantic (Western Europe) is dominated, like in other eastern boundary current (EBC) systems, by a poleward current: the “Iberian Poleward Current" (IPC). Around NW Iberia the coastline changes orientation from south-north to west-east and this feature has an impact on dynamics that has not been properly investigated. On the Iberian west coast, the main forcing mechanism of this poleward flow is the large-scale meridional density gradient parallel to the slope, which is seasonally variable. On the northern coast (southern Bay of Biscay), an along-shore meridional pressure gradient is not present and the poleward flow is expected to decay by friction. In this contribution we will review and present new simulations with ROMS illustrating variability in the IPC and will concentrate on assessing ROMS ability to simulate the main physical processes involved in its generation and dynamics and its interaction with local features like river plumes and topographical accidents and its wind-induced variability. We will investigate the impact of different model set-ups and model parameterizations in the results.