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# Frontal-Driven Water-Mass Transformation in a Western Boundary Current: Evidence From the Yucatan Current

## Details

**Authors** Giovanni Durante, Julio Sheinbaum, Alejandro Domínguez-Guadarrama, Julien Jouanno, Luna Hiron, Uwe Send, Homar Verdugo-Ortega, Angel Ruiz-Angulo

**Year** 2026

**Publisher** Geophysical Research Letters

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Oceanography

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL119064) 
10.1029/2025GL119064

## In authors' words

### Abstract

We report the recurrent formation of waters with thermohaline properties similar to Gulf Common Water (GCW) in the western Yucatan Channel, absent upstream in the Caribbean. Mooring observations and a partial submesoscale-resolving model show that these Yucatan GCW forms locally when the Yucatan Current separates from the slope, intensifying a frontal zone with isopycnal uplift, cyclonic vorticity, and sharp lateral gradients, signatures of submesoscale activity. These conditions favor interleaving and mixing among Caribbean inflow waters within a vertically compressed isopycnal layer. Lagrangian backtracking confirms their local origin, while forward tracking reveals export within cyclonic frontal eddies along the Loop Current periphery. Our findings uncover a previously unrecognized pathway of water-mass transformation in the Yucatan Channel and highlight its potential implications for Loop Current variability.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To identify the origin and formation mechanism of Gulf-Common-Water-like waters observed in the western Yucatan Channel.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Mooring observations and a partial submesoscale-resolving ocean model of the Yucatan Channel and Yucatan Current region.

### How they did it (methods)

In-situ mooring measurements combined with a submesoscale-resolving numerical model and Lagrangian back- and forward-trajectory tracking of water parcels.

### What they found (results)

The study found that Yucatan-Channel Gulf-Common-Water-like water forms locally where the Yucatan Current separates from the continental slope, generating a frontal zone with sharp lateral gradients that drives interleaving and mixing of Caribbean inflow waters, which are then exported within cyclonic frontal eddies along the Loop Current periphery.

## Commentary

### In short

A sharp frontal boundary within the current system creates the conditions that mix distinct inflow waters into a new water mass, showing how a distinction-driven relationship generates a new part of the larger oceanic system.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R

**Added** 2026-09-26

**How to cite this** Giovanni Durante, Julio Sheinbaum, Alejandro Domínguez-Guadarrama, Julien Jouanno, Luna Hiron, Uwe Send, Homar Verdugo-Ortega, Angel Ruiz-Angulo (2026). Frontal-Driven Water-Mass Transformation in a Western Boundary Current: Evidence From the Yucatan Current. Geophysical Research Letters.