What are the internal tides and mesoscale interactions in the South-West Tropical Pacific Ocean? How do these fine-scale processes affect this area of important biodiversity?
In the region around New Caledonia in the South-West Tropical Pacific, strong internal tides are observed, generated by complex topographic obstacles and numerous seamounts. These internal tides interact with the ubiquitous mesoscale and sub-mesoscale eddies, and impact the hydrodynamics, the water mixing, and the biology in this area of important biodiversity.
The SWOTALIS cruise, phased with the SWOT fast sampling phase, took advantage of a SWOT swath south of New Caledonia, above the seamounts and the internal tides generation area. It was be dedicated to the study of internal tides and their interactions with meso- and sub-mesoscale structures. The objectives of the field campaign were to describe the variability of the internal tides genesis, propagation, and dissipation, with a focus on the physical processes explaining their coherence loss. Deployments of highly instrumented moorings, fixed stations and ship-borne sections using underway CTDs and ADCP were be used to observe the vertical structures and their variability; additional measurements (GPS buoys, GPS blanket) allowed to infer their surface signatures, a key final objective being the observability of these processes by the sea level measured by the future SWOT satellite mission.
View south from Île des Pines, New Caledonia. The SWOTALIS field campaign took place just tens of kilometers offshore. Credits: Arne Bendinger.
Principal investigators: F. Marin, S. Cravatte, L. Gourdeau (LEGOS, France)
Institutes involved in the cruise/project: LEGOS (Toulouse), MIO (Marseille), LOPS (Brest), LIENSs (La Rochelle), IGE (Grenoble), ENTROPIE (New Caledonia), SPC (New Caledonia), DT-INSU (Brest) and UAR-IMAGO (New Caledonia).
Contact point for the study site: S. Cravatte (sophie.cravatte@ird.fr)
Checkout the blog of the SWOTALIS campaign in New Caledonia!
Publications
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Bendinger, A., Vic, C., Tchilibou, M., Cravatte, S., & Gourdeau, L. (2026). Assessing dynamical contributions to SWOT sea surface height in an internal tide hotspot. Geophysical Research Letters, 53, e2026GL123239. https://doi.org/10.1029/2026GL123239 |
| 2026 | Bendinger Arne, Cravatte Sophie, Ganachaud Alexandre, Balem Kevin, Le Ridant Arnaud, Dasi Paul, Vic Clement, Gourdeau Lionel, Marin Frederic (2026). SWOTALIS Moorings data south of New Caledonia: temperature, salinity, currents, pressure. SEANOE. https://doi.org/10.17882/112985 |
| 2025 | Bendinger, A., Cravatte, S., Gourdeau, L., Vic, C., and Lyard, F.: Regional modeling of internal-tide dynamics around New Caledonia – Part 2: Tidal incoherence and implications for sea surface height observability, Ocean Sci., 21, 1943–1966, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-1943-2025, 2025. |
| 2024 | Bendinger, A., Cravatte, S., Gourdeau, L., Rainville, L., Vic, C., Sérazin, G., Durand, F., Marin, F., and Fuda, J.-L.: Internal tides vertical structure and steric sea surface height signature south of New Caledonia revealed by glider observations, Ocean Sci., 20, 945–964, 2024 https://doi.org/10.5194/os-20-945-2024 |
| 2023 | Bendinger, A., Cravatte, S., Gourdeau, L., Brodeau, L., Albert, A., Tchilibou, M., Lyard, F., and Vic, C.: Regional modeling of internal-tide dynamics around New Caledonia – Part 1: Coherent internal-tide characteristics and sea surface height signature, Ocean Sci., 19, 1315–1338, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1315-2023, 2023. |
| 2023 | Cravatte, S., Marin, F., Kestenare, E. (2023) SWOTALIS cruise, RV Antea, https://doi.org/10.17600/18001859 |