Journal ArticleDOI
On the freshwater forcing and transport of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation
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In this article, it is argued that the freshwater loss to the atmosphere arises mainly in the subtropical South Atlantic and is balanced by northward freshwater transport in the wind-driven sub-tropical gyre, while the thermohaline circulation transports freshwater southward.Abstract:
The 'conveyor belt' circulation of the Atlantic Ocean transports large amounts of heat northward, acting as a heating system for the northern North Atlantic region. It is widely thought that this circulation is driven by atmospheric freshwater export from the Atlantic catchment region, and that it transports freshwater northward to balance the loss to the atmosphere. Using results from a simple conceptual model and a global circulation model, it is argued here that the freshwater loss to the atmosphere arises mainly in the subtropical South Atlantic and is balanced by northward freshwater transport in the wind-driven subtropical gyre, while the thermohaline circulation transports freshwater southward. It is further argued that the direction of freshwater transport is closely linked to the dynamical regime and stability of the 'conveyor belt': if its freshwater transport is indeed southward, then its flow is purely thermally driven and inhibited by the freshwater forcing. In this case the circulation is not far from Stommel's saddle-node bifurcation, and a circulation state without NADW formation would also be stable.read more
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Dissertation
Early warning signals of environmental tipping points
TL;DR: Early warning signals of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Collapse in a Fully Coupled Climate Model (FCCM) were used in this paper to identify the tipping points in the climate system.
Dissertation
Abrupt climate change and glacialterminations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the shorter millennial scale events (thousands of years) and their role in determining the magnitude of glacial-interglacial cyclicity using sediment cores from the North and South Atlantic.
Posted ContentDOI
Bjerknes compensation in a coupled global box model
Jiaqi Shi,Haijun Yang +1 more
TL;DR: The probability of a valid BJC is usually very high under reasonable climate feedback, which is found to be robust in the real world based on observational data, implying that the Earth climate system maintains it energy balance very well during the past one hundred years.
Dissertation
Evaluation of modeling ecosystem seasonality in the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluated the accuracy of the University of Victoria Earth System climate model (UVic model) simulations of timing, forcing factors and limitations (e.g. mixed layer depth, temperature, irradiance, nutrients, zooplankton grazing pressure) to the North Atlantic spring bloom, model output has been compared to observations from MODIS satellite images, WOA09 data, IFREMER records and PAP measurements.
Response of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation to Changes of Atmospheric Green House Gases
TL;DR: In this paper, the equilibrium response of the thermohaline circulation (THC) to changes of atmospheric Green House Gases is simulated using a fully coupled climate model, where the response is divided into two different stages: the transient stage and the equilibrium stage.
References
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Climatological atlas of the world ocean
TL;DR: A project to objectively analyze historical ocean temperature, salinity, oxygen, and percent oxygen saturation data for the world ocean has recently been completed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey.
Book
Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean
TL;DR: A project to objectively analyze historical ocean temperature, salinity, oxygen, and percent oxygen saturation data for the world ocean has recently been completed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey.
Journal ArticleDOI
Normal Monthly Wind Stress Over the World Ocean with Error Estimates
Sol Hellerman,Mel Rosenstein +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, wind and air-minus-sea temperatures are calculated in a form suitable for determining stress by any bulk aerodynamics model in which the drag coefficient can be represented by six or less coefficients of a second-degree polynomial in wind speed and stability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Interocean Exchange of Thermocline Water
TL;DR: In this paper, it is proposed that this return flow is accomplished primarily within the ocean's warm water thermocline layer, where the main thermoclines of the ocean are linked as they participate in a thermohaline-driven global scale circulation cell associated with NADW formation.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Great Ocean Conveyor
TL;DR: The ocean's conveyor appears to be driven by the salt left behind as the result of water-vapor transport through the atmosphere from the Atlantic to the Pacific basin this paper.
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