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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)
Ha Ho
+
Poleward energy transport
=
Net energy loss at top-of-the atmosphere
Imbalance between and = energy (heat) storage
Poleward heat transport and storage are small…
oaoP HHPWRS ,120)1( 2
Energy exchanged at top-of-atmosphere :
Planetary albedo Solar constant
SeasonalHeat storage
)(10 A
o
SPW
dzdycTdxt
S
Q5
Bjerknes’ (1964) monograph. Data from Sverdrup (1957) & Houghton (1954)
Ha+Ho
Ha
Ho
PWdaycalunit 5.0/101 19
No
rth
wa
rd h
eat
tra
nsp
ort
EquatorPole
Heat transport: a long history of measurements…
Vonder Haar & Oort, JPO 1973.
PWyrcalunit 3.1/101 22
30N 50N 70N10N
No
rth
wa
rd h
eat
tra
nsp
ort
Ho
Ha
Ha+Ho
GERBEapproved!
Poleward heat transport at 24ºN
Pacific 0.76 +/- 0.3 PW
Atlantic 1.2 +/- 0.3 PW
Atlantic+Pacific 2 +/- 0.4 PW
“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.
NB: 1PW = 10^15 W
Trenberth & Caron, 2001
GERBEapproved!
(ask more to Chris D.!)
Ha+Ho
Ha
Ho
Wunsch, JCl. 2005.
GERBEapproved!
Ganachaud & Wunsch, 2003
Sometimes effects of heat storage and transport are hard to
disentangle
• Is the Gulf Stream responsible for “mild” European winters?
“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 windsof 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 evergreenrobes; while in the same latitude, on this side, the coasts of Labrador are fastbound in fetters of ice.”
Maury, 1855.
Eddy surface airtemperature from NCAR reanalysis(January, CI=3K)
WARM!
COLD!
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
FseaairS
OOO QQt
ThC
Atmosphere
seaairQ
FQ
Seager et al. (2002)
Q3
Heat storage and Climate changeThe surface warming due to +4Wm-2 (anthropogenicforcing) 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 todownload and run the model :
http://sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~arnaud
Ensemble mean model resultsfrom the IPCC-AR4 report
Q1
Strength of ocean overturning at 30N (A1B Scenario + constant after yr2100)
Q4
Part II
Some key oceanic observations
World Ocean Atlas surface temperature
ºC
Thermocline
World Ocean Atlas Salinity (0-500m)
psu
The “great oceanic conveyor belt”
• Temperature No heat exchange, only pressure effects.
• Salinity. No phase change in the range of observed concentration.
The ocean is conservative below the surface (≈100m) layer
Conservative nature of the ocean
50km 10km 2km
Spatial variations oftemperature and salinityare similar on scales fromseveral hundreds of kms to a few kms.
Salinity on 1027.6 kg/m3 surface
Ferrari & Polzin (2005)
Matsumoto, JGR 2007
“Circulation” scheme
Broecker, 2005NB: 1 Amazon River ≈ 0.2 Million m3/s
Q6
“Circulation” scheme
Two “sources” of deep water:
NADW: North Atlantic Deep Water
AABW: Antarctic Bottom Water
Williams & Follows (2009)
In – situ velocity measurements
Location of “long”(~2yr) currentmeters
Dep
th
Amplitude oftime variability
From Wunsch (1997, 1999)NB: Energy at period < 1 day
was removed
1 yr
NB: Same velocity vectors but rotated
Moorings in the North Atlantic interior (28N, 70W = MODE)
Schmitz (1989)
(ask more to Ute and Chris. O.!)
Direct ship observations
NB: 1m/s = 3.6kmh = 2.2mph = 1.9 knot
Surface currents measured from Space
y
Pfu
o
1
Time mean sea surface height Standard deviation of sea surface height
“Geostrophic balance”
Momentum balance
East to westacceleration
North
East
Rotationrate f/2
East to westdeceleration
f V up
NB: f = 2 Ω sinθ
Geostrophic balance!
East to westacceleration
North
East
Rotationrate f/2
East to westdeceleration
f V up
HighPressure
LowPressure
10-yr average sea surface height deviation from geoid
Subtropical gyres
10-yr average sea surface height deviation from geoid
Antarctic Circumpolar Current
Subpolar gyres
ARGO floats (since yr 2000)
Coverage by depths
Coverage by lifetime
T/S/P profiles every 10 days
Sv2010max
All in-situ observations can be interpolated dynamically using numerical ocean models
136101 smSv
From Wunsch (2000)
Overturning Streamfunction(Atlantic only)
RAPID – WATCH array at 26N
Q2
RAPID – WATCH array at 26N
14 m
illion
s £
The movie…
Friday’s session