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
Citations
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AMOC Stability and Diverging Response to Arctic Sea Ice Decline in Two Climate Models
TL;DR: In this article, the impacts of Arctic sea ice decline on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in two configurations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with different horizontal resolution are compared.
Journal ArticleDOI
Thirty Years of GOSHIP and WOCE Data: Atlantic Overturning of Mass, Heat, and Freshwater Transport
TL;DR: This paper analyzed hydrographic data from zonal sections across the Atlantic for 30 years that predate and overlap the era of AMOC observations and found no changes in the AMOC for all sections analyzed over the whole Atlantic for the last 30 years.
Ocean Response in Transient Simulations of the Last Deglaciation Dominated by Underlying Ice‐Sheet Reconstruction and Method of Meltwater Distribution
TL;DR: In this paper , a set of transient simulations of the last deglaciation with the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Earth System Model was used to explore differences in the climate response that arise from different boundary conditions and implementations suggested within the PMIP4 protocol.
Journal ArticleDOI
Rate-Dependent Hysteresis of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation System and Its Asymmetric Loop
Journal ArticleDOI
Atlantic water inflow to Labrador Sea and its interaction with ice sheet dynamics during the Holocene
Jens Weiser,Jürgen Titschack,Markus Kienast,I. N. McCave,Annalena Antonia Lochte,Annalena Antonia Lochte,Jeetendra Saini,Rüdiger Stein,Rüdiger Stein,Dierk Hebbeln +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first current strength record from the West Greenland shelf off Nuuk to reconstruct Atlantic Water (AW)-inflow to the Labrador Sea via the west Greenland Current.
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.
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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.
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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