scholarly journals A coarse resolution North Atlantic ocean circulation model: an intercomparison study with a paleoceanographic example

1996 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Seidov ◽  
Ralf Prien
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Bottom Topography ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Return Flow ◽  
Freshwater Flux ◽  
Surface Boundary

Abstract. Paleoreconstructions suggest that during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the North Atlantic circulation was noticeably different from its present state. However, the glacial salt conveyor belt is believed to be similar to the present-day's conveyor, albeit weaker and shallower because of an increased freshwater flux in high-latitudes. We present here the investigation of the conveyor operation based on ocean circulation modelling using two numerical models in parallel. The GFDL primitive equation model and a planetary geostrophic model are employed to address the problem of the paleocirculation modelling in cases of uncertain and sparse data comprising the glacial surface boundary conditions. The role of different simplifications that may be used in the ocean climate studies, including the role of grid resolution, bottom topography, coast-line, etc., versus glacial-interglacial changes of the ocean surface climatology is considered. The LGM reverse conveyor gyre appeared to be the most noticeable feature of the glacial-to-interglacial alteration of the ocean circulation. The reversed upper-ocean conveyor, weaker and subducting 'normal' conveyor in the intermediate depths, and the change of the deep-ocean return flow route are robust signatures of the glacial North Atlantic climate. The results are found to be 'model-independent' and fairly insensitive to all factors other than the onset of the glacial surface conditions.

Ship Motion Instabilities in Coastal Regions

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray-Qing Lin ◽  
Weijia Kuang
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Wind Waves ◽  
Bottom Topography ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Wave Interaction ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Wave Model ◽  
Ship Motion ◽  
Ship Motions ◽  
Coastal Regions

Ship motion instabilities occur much more frequently in coastal regions than in the deep ocean because both nonlinear wave-wave interactions and wave-current interactions increase significantly as the water depth decreases. This is particularly significant in the coastal regions connecting to the open ocean, since the wave resonant interactions change from the four-equivalent-wave interaction in deep water to the interactions of three local wind waves with a long wave (e.g. swell, edge waves, bottom topography waves, etc.) in shallow water [1, 2], resulting in rapid growth of the incoming long waves. In this study, we use our DiSSEL (Digital, Self-consistent, Ship Experimental Laboratory) Ship Motion Model [3,4,5,6] coupled with our Coastal Wave Model [1,2,11] and an Ocean Circulation Model [7] to simulate strongly nonlinear ship motions in coastal regions, focusing on the ship motion instabilities arising from ship body-surface wave-current interactions.

scholarly journals Simulating oceanic radiocarbon with the FAMOUS GCM: implications for its use as a proxy for ventilation and carbon uptake

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer E. Dentith ◽  
Ruza F. Ivanovic ◽  
Lauren J. Gregoire ◽  
Julia C. Tindall ◽  
Laura F. Robinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Water Age ◽  
Surface Ocean

Abstract. Constraining ocean circulation and its temporal variability is crucial for understanding changes in surface climate and the carbon cycle. Radiocarbon (14C) is often used as a geochemical tracer of ocean circulation, but interpreting ∆14C in geological archives is complex. Isotope-enabled models enable us to directly compare simulated ∆14C values to Δ14C measurements and investigate plausible mechanisms for the observed signals. We have added three new tracers (water age, abiotic 14C, and biotic 14C) to the ocean component of the FAMOUS General Circulation Model to study large-scale ocean circulation and the marine carbon cycle. Following a 10 000 year spin-up, we prescribed the Suess effect (the isotopic imprint of anthropogenic fossil fuel burning) and the bomb pulse (the isotopic imprint of thermonuclear weapons testing) in a transient simulation spanning 1765 to 2000 CE. To validate the new isotope scheme, we compare the model output to direct ∆14C observations in the surface ocean (pre-bomb and post-bomb) and at depth (post-bomb only). We also compare the timing, shape and amplitude of the simulated marine bomb spike to ∆14C in geological archives from shallow-to-intermediate water depths across the North Atlantic. The model captures the large-scale structure and range of ∆14C values (both spatially and temporally) suggesting that, on the whole, the uptake and transport of 14C are well represented in FAMOUS. Differences between the simulated and observed values arise due to physical model biases (such as weak surface winds and over-deep North Atlantic Deep Water), demonstrating the potential of the 14C tracer as a sensitive, independent tuning diagnostic. We also examine the importance of the biological pump for deep ocean 14C concentrations and assess the extent to which 14C can be interpreted as a ventilation tracer. Comparing the simulated biotic and abiotic δ14C, we infer that biology has a spatially heterogeneous influence on 14C distributions in the surface ocean (between 18 and 30 ‰), but a near constant influence at depth (≈ 20 ‰). Nevertheless, the decoupling between the simulated water ages and the simulated 14C ages in FAMOUS demonstrates that interpreting proxy ∆14C measurements in terms of ventilation alone could lead to erroneous conclusions about palaeocean circulation. Specifically, our results suggest that ∆14C is only a faithful proxy for water age in regions with strong convection; elsewhere, the temperature dependence of the solubility of CO2 in seawater complicates the signal.

scholarly journals Locations and Mechanisms of Ocean Ventilation in the High-Latitude North Atlantic in an Eddy-Permitting Ocean Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (23) ◽  
pp. 10113-10131
Author(s):  
Graeme A. MacGilchrist ◽  
Helen L. Johnson ◽  
David P. Marshall ◽  
Camille Lique ◽  
Matthew Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Surface Mixed Layer ◽  
Boundary Current ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Ocean Ventilation

AbstractA substantial fraction of the deep ocean is ventilated in the high-latitude North Atlantic. Consequently, the region plays a crucial role in transient climate change through the uptake of carbon dioxide and heat. However, owing to the Lagrangian nature of the process, many aspects of deep Atlantic Ocean ventilation and its representation in climate simulations remain obscure. We investigate the nature of ventilation in the high-latitude North Atlantic in an eddy-permitting numerical ocean circulation model using a comprehensive set of Lagrangian trajectory experiments. Backward-in-time trajectories from a model-defined North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) reveal the locations of subduction from the surface mixed layer at high spatial resolution. The major fraction of NADW ventilation results from subduction in the Labrador Sea, predominantly within the boundary current (~60% of ventilated NADW volume) and a smaller fraction arising from open ocean deep convection (~25%). Subsurface transformations—due in part to the model’s parameterization of bottom-intensified mixing—facilitate NADW ventilation, such that water subducted in the boundary current ventilates all of NADW, not just the lighter density classes. There is a notable absence of ventilation arising from subduction in the Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian Seas, due to the re-entrainment of those waters as they move southward. Taken together, our results emphasize an important distinction between ventilation and dense water formation in terms of the location where each takes place, and their concurrent sensitivities. These features of NADW ventilation are explored to understand how the representation of high-latitude processes impacts properties of the deep ocean in a state-of-the-science numerical simulation.

scholarly journals Asynchronous warming and δ18O evolution of deep Atlantic water masses during the last deglaciation

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (42) ◽  
pp. 11075-11080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaxu Zhang ◽  
Zhengyu Liu ◽  
Esther C. Brady ◽  
Delia W. Oppo ◽  
Peter U. Clark ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Water Mass ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Last Deglaciation ◽  
The Last Deglaciation

The large-scale reorganization of deep ocean circulation in the Atlantic involving changes in North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) played a critical role in regulating hemispheric and global climate during the last deglaciation. However, changes in the relative contributions of NADW and AABW and their properties are poorly constrained by marine records, including δ18O of benthic foraminiferal calcite (δ18Oc). Here, we use an isotope-enabled ocean general circulation model with realistic geometry and forcing conditions to simulate the deglacial water mass and δ18O evolution. Model results suggest that, in response to North Atlantic freshwater forcing during the early phase of the last deglaciation, NADW nearly collapses, while AABW mildly weakens. Rather than reflecting changes in NADW or AABW properties caused by freshwater input as suggested previously, the observed phasing difference of deep δ18Oc likely reflects early warming of the deep northern North Atlantic by ∼1.4 °C, while deep Southern Ocean temperature remains largely unchanged. We propose a thermodynamic mechanism to explain the early warming in the North Atlantic, featuring a strong middepth warming and enhanced downward heat flux via vertical mixing. Our results emphasize that the way that ocean circulation affects heat, a dynamic tracer, is considerably different from how it affects passive tracers, like δ18O, and call for caution when inferring water mass changes from δ18Oc records while assuming uniform changes in deep temperatures.

scholarly journals Transit-Time Distributions in a Global Ocean Model

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 474-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Synte Peacock ◽  
Mathew Maltrud
Keyword(s):  
Transit Time ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Thermohaline Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Ocean Surface ◽  
Ocean General Circulation Model ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Surface Boundary

Abstract Results from a simulation of the ocean “transit-time distribution” (“TTD”) for global and regional ocean surface boundary conditions are presented based on a 5000-yr integration using the Parallel Ocean Program ocean general circulation model. The TTD describes the probability that water at a given interior point in the ocean was at some point on the ocean surface a given amount of time ago. It is shown that the spatial distribution of ocean TTDs can be understood in terms of conventional wisdom regarding time scales and pathways of the ventilated thermocline and the thermohaline circulation–driven deep-ocean circulation. The true mean age from the model (the first moment of the TTD) is demonstrated to be very large everywhere, because of very long-tailed distributions. Regional TTD distributions are presented for distinct surface boundary subregions, and it is shown how these can help in the interpretation of the global TTD. The spatial structure of each regional TTD is shown to become essentially the same at relatively long times. The form of the TTD at a given point in the ocean can be very simple, but some regions do exhibit more complicated multimodal distributions. The degree to which a simple functional approximation to the TTD is able to predict the spatial and temporal evolution of selected idealized tracers (for which interior sources and sinks are known or zero) with knowledge of only the tracer surface boundary condition is explored.

On the impact of sea ice in a global ocean circulation model

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 111-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achim Stössel
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Thermohaline Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Convective Activity ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the long-term impact of sea ice on global climate using a global sea-ice–ocean general circulation model (OGCM). The sea-ice component involves state-of-the-art dynamics; the ocean component consists of a 3.5° × 3.5° × 11 layer primitive-equation model. Depending on the physical description of sea ice, significant changes are detected in the convective activity, in the hydrographic properties and in the thermohaline circulation of the ocean model. Most of these changes originate in the Southern Ocean, emphasizing the crucial role of sea ice in this marginally stably stratified region of the world's oceans. Specifically, if the effect of brine release is neglected, the deep layers of the Southern Ocean warm up considerably; this is associated with a weakening of the Southern Hemisphere overturning cell. The removal of the commonly used “salinity enhancement” leads to a similar effect. The deep-ocean salinity is almost unaffected in both experiments. Introducing explicit new-ice thickness growth in partially ice-covered gridcells leads to a substantial increase in convective activity, especially in the Southern Ocean, with a concomitant significant cooling and salinification of the deep ocean. Possible mechanisms for the resulting interactions between sea-ice processes and deep-ocean characteristics are suggested.

Deep-ocean circulation in the North Atlantic during the Plio-Pleistocene intensification of Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (~2.65–2.4 Ma)

2021 ◽  
pp. 101998
Author(s):  
Kim A. Jakob ◽  
Jörg Pross ◽  
Jasmin M. Link ◽  
Patrick Blaser ◽  
Anna Hauge Braaten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Deep Ocean Circulation

scholarly journals The role of continental shelves in nitrogen and carbon cycling

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-205
Author(s):  
K. Fennel
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Biogeochemical Models ◽  
Inorganic Matter ◽  
Continental Shelves ◽  
Shelf Region ◽  
Transformation Processes

Abstract. Continental shelves play a key role in the cycling of nitrogen and carbon. Here the physical transport and biogeochemical transformation processes affecting the fluxes into and out of continental shelf systems are reviewed, and their role in the global cycling of both elements is discussed. Uncertainties in observation-based estimates of nitrogen and carbon fluxes mostly result from uncertainties in the shelf-open ocean exchange of organic and inorganic matter, which is hard to quantify based on observations alone, but can be inferred from biogeochemical models. Model-based nitrogen and carbon budgets are presented for the Northwestern North Atlantic continental shelf. Results indicate that shelves are an important sink for fixed nitrogen and a source of alkalinity, but are not much more efficient in exporting organic carbon to the deep ocean than the adjacent open ocean for the shelf region considered.

Shifting ocean circulation warms the Subpolar North Atlantic since 2016

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Desbruyères ◽  
Léon Chafik ◽  
Guillaume Maze
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Driving Mechanisms ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Meridional Overturning ◽  
Ocean Observing

<p>The Subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is known for rapid reversals of decadal temperature trends, with ramifications encompassing the large-scale meridional overturning and gyre circulations, Arctic heat and mass balances, or extreme continental weather. Here, we combine datasets derived from sustained ocean observing systems (satellite and in situ), and idealized observation-based modelling (advection-diffusion of a passive tracer) and machine learning technique (ocean profile clustering) to document and explain the most-recent and ongoing cooling-to-warming transition of the SPNA. Following a gradual cooling of the region that was persisting since 2006, a surface-intensified and large-scale warming sharply emerged in 2016 following an ocean circulation shift that enhanced the northeastward penetration of warm and saline waters from the western subtropics. Driving mechanisms and ramification for deep ocean heat uptake will be discussed.</p>

Evaluating Effects of Observational Data Assimilation in General Ocean Circulation Model by Ensemble Kalman Filtering: Numerical Experiments with Synthetic Observations

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-66
Author(s):  
V. N. Stepanov ◽  
◽  
Yu. D. Resnyanskii ◽  
B. S. Strukov ◽  
A. A. Zelen’ko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Observational Data ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Numerical Experiments ◽  
Turbulent Viscosity ◽  
Bottom Topography ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Global Ocean

The quality of simulation of model fields is analyzed depending on the assimilation of various types of data using the PDAF software product assimilating synthetic data into the NEMO global ocean model. Several numerical experiments are performed to simulate the ocean–sea ice system. Initially, free model was run with different values of the coefficients of horizontal turbulent viscosity and diffusion, but with the same atmospheric forcing. The model output obtained with higher values of these coefficients was used to determine the first guess fields in subsequent experiments with data assimilation, while the model results with lower values of the coefficients were assumed to be true states, and a part of these results was used as synthetic observations. The results are analyzed that are assimilation of various types of observational data using the Kalman filter included through the PDAF to the NEMO model with real bottom topography. It is shown that a degree of improving model fields in the process of data assimilation is highly dependent on the structure of data at the input of the assimilation procedure.

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