Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
Name
YoungsFerrariFlierlGRL20.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
2.14 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Youngs, Madeleine K
Ferrari, Raffaele
Flierl, Glenn R
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Convection penetrates to the ocean bottom in the North Atlantic but not in the North Pacific. This study examines the role of basin width in shutting down high-latitude ocean convection. Deep convection is triggered by polar cooling, but it is opposed by precipitation. A two-layer analytical model illustrates that the overturning circulation acts to mitigate the effect of precipitation by advecting salty, dense water from subtropical latitudes to polar latitudes. The nonlinear dependence of the overturning strength on basin width makes it more efficient in a narrow basin, resulting in a convection shutdown at a stronger freshwater forcing. These predictions are confirmed by simulations with a general circulation model configured with a single closed basin to the north and a reentrant channel to the south. This suggests that basin width may play a role in suppressing convection in the North Pacific but not in the North Atlantic.
MIT Department
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089135
