{"id":2162,"date":"2026-10-15T21:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T13:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2162"},"modified":"2026-10-15T21:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T13:13:06","slug":"new-paper-mesoscale-modulation-of-a-coral-reef-internal-wave-hotspot-wyatt-et-al-grl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2162","title":{"rendered":"New paper: Mesoscale modulation of a coral-reef internal-wave hotspot (Wyatt et al., GRL)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2025GL121018\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Coral Reef-Level Upwelling in an Internal Wave Hotspot Modulated by Mesoscale Dynamics<\/a><\/h1>\n<p><strong>Alex S.J. Wyatt<\/strong><sup>1<\/sup>, Timothy B. King<sup>1<\/sup>, I-Huan Lee<sup>2<\/sup>, James J. Leichter<sup>3<\/sup><br \/>\n<em><sup>1<\/sup>Department of Ocean Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong\u00a0<\/em><br \/>\n<em><sup>2<\/sup>Department of Oceanography, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan<\/em><br \/>\n<em><sup>3<\/sup>Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Coral reefs in the northern South China Sea experience some of the world\u2019s most energetic internal waves (IWs), yet records of how these dynamics influence reef-level conditions are rare. Using over 6 years of temperature data from Dongsha Atoll, we show that IWs drive diel temperature fluctuations that reduce subsurface heat exposure and entrain cool, nitrate-rich water onto the reef slope. This internal-wave-driven upwelling is strongly modulated by mesoscale circulation: positive sea-level anomalies associated with Kuroshio intrusion and long-lived anticyclonic eddies cause a two-stage suppression of internal-wave generation and arrival, first near the Luzon Strait and subsequently over the reef. Reduced reef-slope internal-wave expression lowered nitrate exposure by &gt;100-fold at the reef. Typhoons injected near-inertial energy but were followed by declines in cooling and nitrate supply until restratification. These results demonstrate mesoscale and episodic processes regulating internal-wave cooling and nutrient upwelling, revealing coupled, multi-scale physical-biogeochemical controls on reef resilience under ocean warming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Altmetric<\/h3>\n<div class=\"altmetric-embed\" data-badge-details=\"right\" data-badge-type=\"large-donut\" data-doi=\"10.1029\/2025GL121018\" data-hide-no-mentions=\"true\"><\/div>\n<p><script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/d1bxh8uas1mnw7.cloudfront.net\/assets\/embed.js'><\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coral Reef-Level Upwelling in an Internal Wave Hotspot Modulated by Mesoscale Dynamics Alex S.J. Wyatt1, Timothy B. King1, I-Huan Lee2, James J. Leichter3 1Department of Ocean Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong\u00a0 2Department of Oceanography, National <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/?p=2162\">| Click for More \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,5],"tags":[41,121,24,74,282,43,72,285,286,284,158,283,288,38,73,143,22,287,58],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-papers","category-research","tag-biogeochemistry","tag-climate-change","tag-coral-reef","tag-dongsha-atoll","tag-eddy","tag-fluxes","tag-internal-wave","tag-kuroshio-current","tag-kuroshio-intrusion","tag-luzon-strait","tag-marine-heatwave","tag-mesoscale","tag-mixing","tag-paper","tag-south-china-sea","tag-stratification","tag-survey","tag-typhoon","tag-upwelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanecol.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}