Showing papers by "Matthew H. England published in 2006"

Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere–Ice Response to Variations in the Southern Annular Mode

Abstract: The coupled ocean–atmosphere–ice response to variations in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is examined in the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Coupled Climate Model (version 2). The model shows considerable skill in capturing the predominantly zonally symmetric SAM while regional deviations between model and observation SAM winds go a long way in explaining the generally small differences between simulated and observed SAM responses in the ocean and sea ice systems. Vacillations in the position and strength of the circumpolar winds and the ensuing variations in advection of heat and moisture result in a dynamic and thermodynamic forcing of the ocean and sea ice. Both meridional and zonal components of ocean circulation are modified through Ekman transport, which in turn leads to anomalous surface convergences and divergences that strongly affect the meridional overturning circulation and potentially the pathways of intermediate water ventilation. A heat budget analysis de...

Interannual Rainfall Extremes over Southwest Western Australia Linked to Indian Ocean Climate Variability

Abstract: Interannual rainfall extremes over southwest Western Australia (SWWA) are examined using observations, reanalysis data, and a long-term natural integration of the global coupled climate system. The authors reveal a characteristic dipole pattern of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies during extreme rainfall years, remarkably consistent between the reanalysis fields and the coupled climate model but different from most previous definitions of SST dipoles in the region. In particular, the dipole exhibits peak amplitudes in the eastern Indian Ocean adjacent to the west coast of Australia. During dry years, anomalously cool waters appear in the tropical/subtropical eastern Indian Ocean, adjacent to a region of unusually warm water in the subtropics off SWWA. This dipole of anomalous SST seesaws in sign between dry and wet years and appears to occur in phase with a large-scale reorganization of winds over the tropical/subtropical Indian Ocean. The wind field alters SST via anomalous Ek...

Sensitivity of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation and Its Stability to Basin-Scale Variations in Vertical Mixing

Abstract: This study shows that a reduction in vertical mixing applied inside the Atlantic basin can drastically increase North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) stability with respect to freshwater perturbations applied to the North Atlantic. This is contrary to the notion that the stability of the ocean’s thermohaline circulation simply scales with vertical mixing rates. An Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) reverse cell, reliant upon upwelling of cold AAIW into the Atlantic thermocline, is found to be associated with stable states where NADW is collapsed. Transitions between NADW “on” and “off” states are characterized by interhemispheric competition between this AAIW cell and the NADW cell. In contrast to the AAIW reverse cell, NADW eventually upwells outside the Atlantic basin and is thus not as sensitive to changes in vertical mixing within the Atlantic. A reduction in vertical mixing in the Atlantic weakens the AAIW reverse cell, resulting in an enhanced stability of NADW formation. The results also sugge...

Circumpolar Deep Water Circulation and Variability in a Coupled Climate Model

Abstract: The natural variability of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) is analyzed using a long-term integration of a coupled climate model. The variability is decomposed using a standard EOF analysis into three separate modes accounting for 68% and 82% of the total variance in the upper and lower CDW layers, respectively. The first mode exhibits an interbasin-scale variability on multicentennial time scales, originating in the North Atlantic and flowing southward into the Southern Ocean via North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). Salinity dipole anomalies appear to propagate around the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on these time scales with the strengthening and weakening of NADW formation. The anomaly propagates northward from the midlatitude subsurface of the South Atlantic and sinks in the North Atlantic before flowing southward along the CDW isopycnal layers. This suggests an interhemispheric connection in the generation of the first CDW variability mode. The second mode shows a localized θ−S varia...

Can Isopycnal Mixing Control the Stability of the Thermohaline Circulation in Ocean Climate Models

Abstract: Convective overturning arising from static instability during winter is thought to play a crucial role in the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). In ocean general circulation models (OGCMs), a strong reduction in convective penetration depth arises when horizontal diffusion (HD) is replaced by Gent and McWilliams (GM) mixing to model the effect of mesoscale eddies on tracer advection. In areas of sinking, the role of vertical tracer transport due to convection is largely replaced by the vertical component of isopycnal diffusion along sloping isopycnals. Here, the effect of this change in tracer transport physics on the stability of NADW formation under freshwater (FW) perturbations of the North Atlantic (NA) in a coupled model is examined. It is found that there is a significantly increased stability of NADW to FW input when GM is used in spite of GM experiments exhibiting consistently weaker NADW formation rates in unperturbed steady states. It is also found that there is a significan...

Optimal Growth of Antarctic Circumpolar Waves

Abstract: Generalized stability theory is applied to a simple dynamical model of interannual ocean–atmosphere variability in the southern midlatitudes to determine the perturbations that create the most rapid growth of energy in the system. The model is composed of a barotropic quasigeostrophic atmosphere coupled to a 1.5-layer quasigeostrophic ocean, each linearized about a zonally invariant mean state, and with atmospheric and ocean surface temperature obeying a simple heat balance. Eigenanalysis of the system reveals modes of interannual variability that resemble the so-called Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (ACW), consistent with an earlier analytical study of the system. The optimal excitation of these modes relative to an energy norm is found to be a perturbation almost entirely restricted to the ocean momentum field and is shown to resemble strongly the optimal perturbations in energy for the system. Over interannual time scales most rapid growth is seen in zonal wavenumbers 4–6, despite the fact that the least-damped eigenmodes of the system are of a lower zonal wavenumber. The rapid transient growth in energy occurs by extracting perturbation energy from the mean state through advection of the mean meridional oceanic temperature gradient. This transient growth of high-zonal-wavenumber modes dominates the model’s variability when it is forced by noise that is white in space or time. A dominant low-zonal-wavenumber response, consistent with the observed and modeled ACW, occurs only when the forcing is red in space or time, with decorrelation scales greater than 3 yr or 10 000 km. It is concluded that, if the ACW is a coupled mode analogous to that supported in this simple model, then it is excited by other large-scale phenomena such as ENSO rather than by sources of higher-frequency forcing.