Recent Wind-Driven Variability in Atlantic Water Mass Distribution and Meridional Overturning Circulation
Name
Recent wind-driven variability.pdf
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3.72 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Evans, Dafydd Gwyn
Toole, John
Forget, Gael
Zika, Jan D.
Naveira Garabato, Alberto C.
Nurser, A. J. George
Yu, Lisan
Date Issued
March 2017
Journal
Journal of Physical Oceanography
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Evans, Dafydd Gwyn et al. “Recent Wind-Driven Variability in Atlantic Water Mass Distribution and Meridional Overturning Circulation.” Journal of Physical Oceanography 47, 3 (March 2017): 633–647 © 2017 American Meteorological Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Interannual variability in the volumetric water mass distribution within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre is described in relation to variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The relative roles of diabatic and adiabatic processes in the volume and heat budgets of the subtropical gyre are investigated by projecting data into temperature coordinates as volumes of water using an Argo-based climatology and an ocean state estimate (ECCO version 4). This highlights that variations in the subtropical gyre volume budget are predominantly set by transport divergence in the gyre. A strong correlation between the volume anomaly due to transport divergence and the variability of both thermocline depth and Ekman pumping over the gyre suggests that wind-driven heave drives transport anomalies at the gyre boundaries. This wind-driven heaving contributes significantly to variations in the heat content of the gyre, as do anomalies in the air-sea fluxes. The analysis presented suggests that wind forcing plays an important role in driving interannual variability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and that this variability can be unraveled from spatially distributed hydrographic observations using the framework presented here.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-16-0089.1
