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Ocean circulation Arnaud Czaja 1. Ocean and Climate 2. Key observations 3. Mechanisms of ocean-atmosphere coupling. Part I Ocean and Climate (heat transport and storage). Net energy loss at top-of-the atmosphere. =. +. Poleward energy transport. Ha. Ho.
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Ocean circulationArnaud Czaja1. Ocean and Climate2. Key observations3. Mechanisms of ocean-atmosphere coupling
Net energy loss at top-of-the atmosphere = + Poleward energy transport Ha Ho Imbalance between and = energy (heat) storage
Poleward heat transport and storage are small… Energy exchanged at top-of-atmosphere : Planetary albedo Solar constant
Heat transport: a long history of measurements… Bjerknes’ (1964) monograph. Data from Sverdrup (1957) & Houghton (1954) Ha+Ho Ha Northward heat transport Ho Equator Pole
Ha+Ho Ha Northward heat transport Ho 70N 50N 10N 30N Vonder Haar & Oort, JPO 1973. GERBE approved!
NB: 1PW = 10^15 W “Across the same latitude, Ha is 1.7PW. The ocean therefore can be considered to be more important than the atmosphere at this latitude in maintaining the Earth’s budget”. Hall & Bryden, 1982; Bryden et al., 1991.
GERBE approved! (ask more to Chris D.!) Trenberth & Caron, 2001
GERBE approved! Ha+Ho Ho Ha Wunsch, JCl. 2005.
Sometimes effects of heat storage and transport are hard to disentangle • Is the Gulf Stream responsible for “mild” European winters?
WARM! COLD! Eddy surface air temperature from NCAR reanalysis (January, CI=3K) “Every West wind that blows crosses the Gulf Stream on its way to Europe, and carries with it a portion of this heat to temper there the Northern winds of winter. It is the influence of this stream upon climate that makes Erin the “Emerald Isle of the Sea”, and that clothes the shores of Albion in evergreen robes; while in the same latitude, on this side, the coasts of Labrador are fast bound in fetters of ice.” Maury, 1855. Lieutenant Maury “The Pathfinder of the Seas”
Model set-up (Seager et al., 2002) • Full Atmospheric model • Ocean only represented as a motionless “slab” of 50m thickness, with a specified “q-flux” to represent the transport of energy by ocean currents Atmosphere
Q3 Seager et al. (2002)
Heat storage and Climate change The surface warming due to +4Wm-2 (anthropogenic forcing) is not limited to the mixed layer… How thick is the layer is a key question to answer to predict accurately the timescale of the warming. Ho = 50m Ho = 150m Ho = 500m NB: You are welcome to download and run the model : http://sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~arnaud
Q1 Ensemble mean model resultsfrom the IPCC-AR4 report
Strength of ocean overturning at 30N (A1B Scenario + constant after yr2100) Q4
The ocean is conservative below the surface (≈100m) layer • Temperature No heat exchange, only pressure effects. • Salinity. No phase change in the range of observed concentration.
Salinity on 1027.6 kg/m3 surface Conservative nature of the ocean Spatial variations of temperature and salinity are similar on scales from several hundreds of kms to a few kms. 10km 2km 50km Ferrari & Polzin (2005)
Q6 Broecker, 2005 NB: 1 Amazon River ≈ 0.2 Million m3/s
“Circulation” scheme Two “sources” of deep water: NADW: North Atlantic Deep Water AABW: Antarctic Bottom Water Williams & Follows (2009)
In – situ velocity measurements Amplitude of time variability Location of “long” (~2yr) currentmeters Depth NB: Energy at period < 1 day was removed From Wunsch (1997, 1999)
Moorings in the North Atlantic interior (28N, 70W = MODE) (ask more to Ute and Chris. O.!) 1 yr NB: Same velocity vectors but rotated Schmitz (1989)
Direct ship observations NB: 1m/s = 3.6kmh = 2.2mph = 1.9 knot
Surface currents measured from Space “Geostrophic balance” Standard deviation of sea surface height Time mean sea surface height
Momentum balance Rotation rate f/2 East to west acceleration f V East to west deceleration up North NB: f = 2 Ω sinθ East
Geostrophic balance! Rotation rate f/2 High Pressure Low Pressure East to west acceleration f V East to west deceleration up North East
10-yr average sea surface height deviation from geoid Subtropical gyres
10-yr average sea surface height deviation from geoid Subpolar gyres Antarctic Circumpolar Current
ARGO floats (since yr 2000) T/S/P profiles every 10 days Coverage by lifetime Coverage by depths
All in-situ observations can be interpolated dynamically using numerical ocean models Overturning Streamfunction (Atlantic only) From Wunsch (2000)
RAPID – WATCH array at 26N 14 millions £