scholarly journals Towards accounting for dissolved iron speciation in global ocean models

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 2775-2810 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tagliabue ◽  
C. Völker
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Test Bed ◽  
Fe Species ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Fe Speciation

Abstract. The trace metal iron (Fe) is now routinely included in state-of-the-art ocean general circulation and biogeochemistry models (OGCBMs) because of its key role as a limiting nutrient in regions of the world ocean important for carbon cycling and air-sea CO2 exchange. However, the complexities of the seawater Fe cycle, which impact its speciation and bioavailability, are highly simplified in such OGCBMs to avoid high computational costs. In a similar fashion to inorganic carbon speciation, we outline a means by which the complex speciation of Fe can be included in global OGCBMs in a reasonably cost-effective manner. We use our Fe speciation to suggest the global distribution of different Fe species is tightly controlled by environmental variability (temperature, light, oxygen and pH) and the assumptions regarding Fe binding ligands. Impacts on bioavailable Fe are highly sensitive to assumptions regarding which Fe species are bioavailable. When forced by representations of future ocean circulation and climate we find large changes to the speciation of Fe governed by pH mediated changes to redox kinetics. We speculate that these changes may exert selective pressure on phytoplankton Fe uptake strategies in the future ocean. We hope our modeling approach can also be used as a ''test bed'' for exploring our understanding of Fe speciation at the global scale.

scholarly journals Towards accounting for dissolved iron speciation in global ocean models

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 3025-3039 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tagliabue ◽  
C. Völker
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Co2 Exchange ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Fe Species ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Fe Speciation

Abstract. The trace metal iron (Fe) is now routinely included in state-of-the-art ocean general circulation and biogeochemistry models (OGCBMs) because of its key role as a limiting nutrient in regions of the world ocean important for carbon cycling and air-sea CO2 exchange. However, the complexities of the seawater Fe cycle, which impact its speciation and bioavailability, are simplified in such OGCBMs due to gaps in understanding and to avoid high computational costs. In a similar fashion to inorganic carbon speciation, we outline a means by which the complex speciation of Fe can be included in global OGCBMs in a reasonably cost-effective manner. We construct an Fe speciation model based on hypothesised relationships between rate constants and environmental variables (temperature, light, oxygen, pH, salinity) and assumptions regarding the binding strengths of Fe complexing organic ligands and test hypotheses regarding their distributions. As a result, we find that the global distribution of different Fe species is tightly controlled by spatio-temporal environmental variability and the distribution of Fe binding ligands. Impacts on bioavailable Fe are highly sensitive to assumptions regarding which Fe species are bioavailable and how those species vary in space and time. When forced by representations of future ocean circulation and climate we find large changes to the speciation of Fe governed by pH mediated changes to redox kinetics. We speculate that these changes may exert selective pressure on phytoplankton Fe uptake strategies in the future ocean. In future work, more information on the sources and sinks of ocean Fe ligands, their bioavailability, the cycling of colloidal Fe species and kinetics of Fe-surface coordination reactions would be invaluable. We hope our modeling approach can provide a means by which new observations of Fe speciation can be tested against hypotheses of the processes present in governing the ocean Fe cycle in an integrated sense

Interannual to Decadal Changes in the ECCO Global Synthesis

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Köhl ◽  
D. Stammer ◽  
B. Cornuelle
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Sea Surface Height ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
The World

Abstract An estimate of the time-varying global ocean circulation for the period 1992–2002 was obtained by combining most of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) ocean datasets with a general circulation model on a 1° horizontal grid. The estimate exactly satisfies the model equations without artificial sources or sinks of momentum, heat, and freshwater. To bring the model into agreement with observations, its initial temperature and salinity conditions were permitted to change, as were the time-dependent surface fluxes of momentum, heat, and freshwater. The estimation of these “control variables” is largely consistent with accepted uncertainties in the hydrographic climatology and meteorological analyses. The estimated time-mean horizontal transports of volume, heat, and freshwater, which were largely underestimated in the previous 2° optimization performed by Stammer et al., have converged with time-independent estimates from box inversions over most parts of the World Ocean. Trends in the model’s heat content are 7% larger than those reported by Levitus and correspond to a global net heat uptake of about 1.1 W m−2 over the model domain. The associated model trend in sea surface height over the estimation period resembles the observations from Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon over most of the global ocean. Sea surface height changes in the model are primarily steric but show contributions from mass redistributions from the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean and the Southern Ocean to the subtropical Pacific Ocean gyres. Steric contributions are primarily temperature based but are partly compensated by salt variation. However, the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean reveal a clear contribution of salt to large-scale sea level variations.

ON EVALUATION OF THE ROLE OF THERMAL AND WIND FACTORS FOR A PHYSICAL MODEL OF THE WORLD OCEAN GENERAL CIRCULATION SYSTEM

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
V. G. Neiman
Keyword(s):  
Physical Model ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Circulation System ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The main content of the work consists of certain systematization and addition of longexisting, but eventually deformed and partly lost qualitative ideas about the role of thermal and wind factors that determine the physical mechanism of the World Ocean’s General Circulation System (OGCS). It is noted that the conceptual foundations of the theory of the OGCS in one form or another are contained in the works of many well-known hydrophysicists of the last century, but the aggregate, logically coherent description of the key factors determining the physical model of the OGCS in the public literature is not so easy to find. An attempt is made to clarify and concretize some general ideas about the two key blocks that form the basis of an adequate physical model of the system of oceanic water masses motion in a climatic scale. Attention is drawn to the fact that when analyzing the OGCS it is necessary to take into account not only immediate but also indirect effects of thermal and wind factors on the ocean surface. In conclusion, it is noted that, in the end, by the uneven flow of heat to the surface of the ocean can be explained the nature of both external and almost all internal factors, in one way or another contributing to the excitation of the general, or climatic, ocean circulation.

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.

The geography of numerical mixing in a suite of global ocean models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Holmes ◽  
Jan Zika ◽  
Stephen Griffies ◽  
Andrew Hogg ◽  
Andrew Kiss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Vertical Diffusivity ◽  
Mixing Parameters ◽  
Ocean Models ◽  
Numerical Mixing ◽  
Comparable Magnitude ◽  
Ice Model

<p>Numerical mixing, the physically spurious diffusion of tracers due to the numerical discretization of advection, is known to contribute to biases in ocean circulation models. However, quantifying numerical mixing is non-trivial, with most studies utilizing specifically targeted experiments in idealized settings. Here, we present a precise method based on water-mass transformation for quantifying numerical mixing, including its spatial structure, that can be applied to any conserved variable in global general circulation ocean models. The method is applied to a suite of global MOM5 ocean-sea ice model simulations with differing grid spacings and sub-grid scale parameterizations. In all configurations numerical mixing drives across-isotherm heat transport of comparable magnitude to that associated with explicitly-parameterized mixing. Numerical mixing is prominent at warm temperatures in the tropical thermocline, where it is sensitive to the vertical diffusivity and resolution. At colder temperatures, numerical mixing is sensitive to the presence of explicit neutral diffusion, suggesting that much of the numerical mixing in these regions acts as a proxy for neutral diffusion when it is explicitly absent. Comparison of equivalent (with respect to vertical resolution and explicit mixing parameters) 1/4-degree and 1/10-degree horizontal resolution configurations shows only a modest enhancement in numerical mixing at the eddy-permitting 1/4-degree resolution. Our results provide a detailed view of numerical mixing in ocean models and pave the way for future improvements in numerical methods.</p>

Global Ocean Meridional Overturning

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 2550-2562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Lumpkin ◽  
Kevin Speer
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Mixing Processes ◽  
Boundary Currents ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Meridional Overturning ◽  
Global Ocean Circulation ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract A decade-mean global ocean circulation is estimated using inverse techniques, incorporating air–sea fluxes of heat and freshwater, recent hydrographic sections, and direct current measurements. This information is used to determine mass, heat, freshwater, and other chemical transports, and to constrain boundary currents and dense overflows. The 18 boxes defined by these sections are divided into 45 isopycnal (neutral density) layers. Diapycnal transfers within the boxes are allowed, representing advective fluxes and mixing processes. Air–sea fluxes at the surface produce transfers between outcropping layers. The model obtains a global overturning circulation consistent with the various observations, revealing two global-scale meridional circulation cells: an upper cell, with sinking in the Arctic and subarctic regions and upwelling in the Southern Ocean, and a lower cell, with sinking around the Antarctic continent and abyssal upwelling mainly below the crests of the major bathymetric ridges.

An Adjoint Analysis of the Meridional Overturning Circulation in a Hybrid Coupled Model

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (15) ◽  
pp. 3751-3767 ◽  
Author(s):  
Véronique Bugnion ◽  
Chris Hill ◽  
Peter H. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Wind Stress ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Overturning Circulation ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Meridional Overturning

Abstract Multicentury sensitivities in a realistic geometry global ocean general circulation model are analyzed using an adjoint technique. This paper takes advantage of the adjoint model’s ability to generate maps of the sensitivity of a diagnostic (i.e., the meridional overturning’s strength) to all model parameters. This property of adjoints is used to review several theories, which have been elaborated to explain the strength of the North Atlantic’s meridional overturning. This paper demonstrates the profound impact of boundary conditions in permitting or suppressing mechanisms within a realistic model of the contemporary ocean circulation. For example, the so-called Drake Passage Effect in which wind stress in the Southern Ocean acts as the main driver of the overturning’s strength, is shown to be an artifact of boundary conditions that restore the ocean’s surface temperature and salinity toward prescribed climatologies. Advective transports from the Indian and Pacific basins play an important role in setting the strength of the overturning circulation under “mixed” boundary conditions, in which a flux of freshwater is specified at the ocean’s surface. The most “realistic” regime couples an atmospheric energy and moisture balance model to the ocean. In this configuration, inspection of the global maps of sensitivity to wind stress and diapycnal mixing suggests a significant role for near-surface Ekman processes in the Tropics. Buoyancy also plays an important role in setting the overturning’s strength, through direct thermal forcing near the sites of convection, or through the advection of salinity anomalies in the Atlantic basin.

scholarly journals A multi-year timeseries of observation-based 3D horizontal and vertical quasi-geostrophic global ocean currents

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Ocean Currents ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Diagnostic Model ◽  
Geostrophic Balance ◽  
Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche ◽  
Marine Environment Monitoring

Abstract. Estimates of 3D ocean circulation are needed to improve our understanding of ocean dynamics and to assess its impact on marine ecosystems and Earth climate. Here we present the OMEGA3D product, an observation-based timeseries of (quasi) global 3D ocean currents covering the 1993–2018 period, developed by the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche within the European Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). This dataset was obtained by applying a diabatic quasi-geostrophic (QG) diagnostic model to CMEMS data-driven ARMOR3D weekly reconstruction of temperature and salinity and ERA-Interim fluxes. Outside the equatorial band, vertical velocities were retrieved in the upper 1500 m, at nominal ¼° resolution, and successively used to compute the horizontal ageostrophic components. Root mean square differences between OMEGA3D total horizontal velocities and totally independent drifter observations at two different depths (15 m and 1000 m) decrease with respect to corresponding estimates obtained from zero-order geostrophic balance, meaning that estimated vertical velocities can also be deemed reliable. OMEGA3D horizontal velocities are also closer to drifter observations than velocities provided by a set of re-analyses spanning a comparable time period, but based on data assimilation in ocean general circulation numerical models. The full OMEGA3D product (released on 31st of March 2020) is available upon free registration at https://doi.org/10.25423/cmcc/multiobs_glo_phy_w_rep_015_007. The reduced subset used here for validation and review purposes is openly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3696885 (Buongiorno Nardelli, 2020).

scholarly journals Effects of mesoscale eddies on global ocean distributions of CFC-11, CO<sub>2</sub> and Δ<sup>14</sup>C

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1011-1063
Author(s):  
Z. Lachkar ◽  
J. C. Orr ◽  
J.-C. Dutay ◽  
P. Delecluse
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean General Circulation Model ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Residual Circulation ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Meridional Transport ◽  
Anthropogenic Co2 ◽  
Short Time

Abstract. Global-scale tracer simulations are typically made at coarse resolution without explicitly modeling eddies. Here we ask what role do eddies play in ocean uptake, storage, and meridional transport of transient tracers. We made global anthropogenic transient-tracer simulations in non-eddying (2°cosφ×2°, ORCA2) and eddying (½°cosφ×½°, ORCA05) versions of the ocean general circulation model OPA9. We focus on the Southern Ocean where tracer air-sea fluxes are largest. Eddies have little effect on global and regional bomb Δ14C uptake and storage. Yet for anthropogenic CO2 and CFC-11, increased eddy activity reduces southern extratropical uptake by 28% and 25% respectively. There is a similar decrease in corresponding inventories, which provides better agreement with observations. With higher resolution, eddies strengthen upper ocean vertical stratification and reduce excessive ventilation of intermediate waters by 20% between 60° S and 40° S. By weakening the Residual Circulation, i.e., the sum of Eulerian mean flow and the opposed eddy-induced flow, eddies reduce the supply of tracer-impoverished deep waters to the surface near the Antarctic divergence, thus reducing the air-sea tracer flux. Consequently, inventories for both CFC-11 and anthropogenic CO2 decrease because their mixed layer concentrations in that region equilibrate with the atmosphere on relatively short time scales (15 days and 6 months, respectively); conversely, the slow air-sea equilibration of bomb Δ14C of 6 years, gives surface waters little time to exchange with the atmosphere before they are subducted.

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