scholarly journals Oceanic Heat Delivery to the Antarctic Continental Shelf: Large-Scale, Low-Frequency Variability

2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (11) ◽  
pp. 7678-7701 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Palóczy ◽  
Sarah T. Gille ◽  
Julie L. McClean
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Antarctic Continental Shelf ◽  
Low Frequency Variability ◽  
The Antarctic

scholarly journals Multidecadal warming of Antarctic waters

Science ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 346 (6214) ◽  
pp. 1227-1231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunke Schmidtko ◽  
Karen J. Heywood ◽  
Andrew F. Thompson ◽  
Shigeru Aoki
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Bottom Water ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Antarctic Continental Shelf ◽  
Antarctic Waters ◽  
Core Depth ◽  
The Antarctic

Decadal trends in the properties of seawater adjacent to Antarctica are poorly known, and the mechanisms responsible for such changes are uncertain. Antarctic ice sheet mass loss is largely driven by ice shelf basal melt, which is influenced by ocean-ice interactions and has been correlated with Antarctic Continental Shelf Bottom Water (ASBW) temperature. We document the spatial distribution of long-term large-scale trends in temperature, salinity, and core depth over the Antarctic continental shelf and slope. Warming at the seabed in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas is linked to increased heat content and to a shoaling of the mid-depth temperature maximum over the continental slope, allowing warmer, saltier water greater access to the shelf in recent years. Regions of ASBW warming are those exhibiting increased ice shelf melt.

Pathways and timescales of connectivity around the Antarctic continental shelf 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Dawson ◽  
Adele Morrison ◽  
Veronica Tamsitt ◽  
Matthew England
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
Ross Sea ◽  
Coastal Current ◽  
West Antarctica ◽  
Source Regions ◽  
Freshwater Forcing ◽  
Antarctic Continental Shelf ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Antarctic Slope Current ◽  
The Antarctic

<p><span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span>The Antarctic margin is surrounded by two westward flowing currents: the Antarctic Slope Current and the Antarctic Coastal Current. The former influences key processes near the Antarctic margin by regulating the flow of heat and nutrients onto and off the continental shelf, while together they </span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span>advect</span></span><span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span> nutrients, biological organisms, and temperature and salinity anomalies around the coastline, providing a connective link between different shelf regions. However, the extent to which these currents transport water from one sector of the continental shelf to another, and the timescales over which this occurs, remain poorly understood. Concern that crucial water formation sites around the Antarctic coastline could respond to non-local freshwater forcing </span></span><span><span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span>from ice shel</span></span></span><span><span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span>f meltwater</span></span></span> <span xml:lang="EN-US" data-contrast="auto"><span>motivates a more thorough understanding of zonal connectivity around Antarctica. In this study, we use daily velocity fields from a global high-resolution ocean-sea ice model, combined with the <span>Lagrangian</span> tracking software Parcels, to investigate the pathways and timescales connecting different regions of the Antarctic continental shelf<span> with a view to understanding</span><span> the timescales of meltwater transport around the continent</span>. Virtual particles are released over the continental shelf, poleward of the 1000 <span>metre</span> isobath, and are tracked for 20 years. Our results show a strong seasonal cycle connecting different sectors of the Antarctic continent, with more particles arriving further downstream during winter than during summer months. Strong advective links exist between West Antarctica and the Ross Sea while shelf geometry in some other regions acts as barriers to transport. We also highlight the varying importance of the Antarctic Slope Current and Antarctic Coastal Current in connecting different sectors of the coastline. Our results help to improve our understanding of circum-Antarctic connectivity <span>and the timescales </span><span>of meltwater transport from source regions to downstream </span><span>shelf locations. </span><span>Further</span><span>more, t</span><span>he timescales and pathways we </span><span>present </span><span>p</span>rovide a baseline from which to assess long-term changes in Antarctic coastal circulation due to local and remote forcing.<br></span></span></p>

scholarly journals An Assessment of GCM Skill in Simulating Persistence across Multiple Time Scales

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (14) ◽  
pp. 3609-3623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Johnson ◽  
Seth Westra ◽  
Ashish Sharma ◽  
Andrew J. Pitman
Keyword(s):  
Interannual Variability ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Multiple Time Scales ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Reservoir Storage ◽  
Low Frequency Variability

Abstract Climate change impact studies for water resource applications, such as the development of projections of reservoir yields or the assessment of likely frequency and amplitude of drought under a future climate, require that the year-to-year persistence in a range of hydrological variables such as catchment average rainfall be properly represented. This persistence is often attributable to low-frequency variability in the global sea surface temperature (SST) field and other large-scale climate variables through a complex sequence of teleconnections. To evaluate the capacity of general circulation models (GCMs) to accurately represent this low-frequency variability, a set of wavelet-based skill measures has been developed to compare GCM performance in representing interannual variability with the observed global SST data, as well as to assess the extent to which this variability is imparted in precipitation and surface pressure anomaly fields. A validation of the derived skill measures is performed using GCM precipitation as an input in a reservoir storage context, with the accuracy of reservoir storage estimates shown to be improved by using GCM outputs that correctly represent the observed low-frequency variability. Significant differences in the performance of different GCMs is demonstrated, suggesting that judicious selection of models is required if the climate impact assessment is sensitive to low-frequency variability. The two GCMs that were found to exhibit the most appropriate representation of global low-frequency variability for individual variables assessed were the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) ECHAM4 and L’Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace Coupled Model, version 4 (IPSL CM4); when considering all three variables, the Max Planck Institute (MPI) ECHAM5 performed well. Importantly, models that represented interannual variability well for SST also performed well for the other two variables, while models that performed poorly for SST also had consistently low skill across the remaining variables.

scholarly journals Comments on “Reconstruction of the Extratropical NH Mean Temperature over the Last Millennium with a Method That Preserves Low-Frequency Variability”

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (22) ◽  
pp. 7991-7997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Temperature Reconstruction ◽  
Noise Variance ◽  
Low Frequencies ◽  
Scale Temperature ◽  
Low Frequency Variability ◽  
High Frequency Variability ◽  
Frequency Temperature ◽  
Correct Estimate

Abstract Christiansen and Ljungqvist have presented an extratropical NH temperature reconstruction using a method (LOC) that they claim “preserves” low-frequency variability, at the expense of exaggerated high-frequency variability. Using theoretical arguments and a pseudoproxy experiment, it is demonstrated here that the LOC method is not guaranteed to preserve variability at any frequency. Rather, LOC reconstructions will have more variance than true large-scale temperature averages at all frequencies. This variance inflation, however, can be negligible at those frequencies where the noise variance in individual proxies is small enough to be effectively cancelled when computing an average over the available proxies. Because the proxy noise variance at low frequencies cannot be directly estimated, and thus has to be regarded as unknown, it is safer to regard a reconstruction with the LOC method as providing an estimate of the upper bound of the large-scale low-frequency temperature variability rather than one with a correct estimate of this variance.

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