A Model of the Ocean Overturning Circulation with Two Closed Basins and a Reentrant Channel
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Author(s)
Ferrari, Raffaele
Nadeau, Louis-Philippe
Marshall, David P.
Allison, Lesley C.
Johnson, Helen L.
Date Issued
December 2017
Journal
Journal of Physical Oceanography
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Ferrari, Raffaele et al “A Model of the Ocean Overturning Circulation with Two Closed Basins and a Reentrant Channel.” Journal of Physical Oceanography 47, 12 (December 2017): 2887–2906 © 2017 American Meteorological Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Zonally averaged models of the ocean overturning circulation miss important zonal exchanges of waters between the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans. A two-layer, two-basin model that accounts for these exchanges is introduced and suggests that in the present-day climate the overturning circulation is best described as the combination of three circulations: an adiabatic overturning circulation in the Atlantic Ocean associated with transformation of intermediate to deep waters in the north, a diabatic overturning circulation in the Indo- Pacific Ocean associated with transformation of abyssal to deep waters by mixing, and an interbasin circulation that exchanges waters geostrophically between the two oceans through the Southern Ocean. These results are supported both by theoretical analysis of the two-layer, two-basin model and by numerical simulations of a three-dimensional ocean model. Keywords: Ocean; Meridional overturning circulation; Ocean circulation; Mixing; Thermohaline circulation
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
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-16-0223.1
