Gnanadesikan
Anand
Gnanadesikan
Anand
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ArticleCorrection to “Using altimetry to help explain patchy changes in hydrographic carbon measurements”(American Geophysical Union, 2009-12-09) Rodgers, Keith B. ; Key, Robert M. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Aumont, Olivier ; Bopp, Laurent ; Doney, Scott C. ; Dunne, John P. ; Glover, David M. ; Ishida, Akio ; Ishii, Masao ; Jacobson, Andrew R. ; Monaco, Claire Lo ; Maier-Reimer, Ernst ; Mercier, Herlé ; Metzl, Nicolas ; Perez, Fiz F. ; Rios, Aida F. ; Wanninkhof, Rik ; Wetzel, Patrick ; Winn, Christopher D. ; Yamanaka, Yasuhiro
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Technical ReportMeteorological and oceanographic data collected during the ASREX 91 field experiment(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1994-08) Galbraith, Nancy R. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Tupper, George H. ; Way, Bryan S.The 1991 Acoustic Surface Reverberation Experiment (ASREX 91) took place in November and December off the coast of British Columbia. As part of this experiment, three moorings were deployed to characterize the environmental background. The moorings consisted of a meteorological/oceanographic mooring designed to measure surface meteorology, current and temperature in the upper 120 meters, and nondirectional wave parameters and two wave moorings which were instrumented with pitch-roll buoys to characterize the directional wave spectrum. This report presents results from these three moorings. The conditions seen during the experiment were extremely rough, with wind speeds at 3.4m above the water surface reaching a maximum of 22 m/s and wave heights reaching a maximum of over 10 meters. The air-sea flux of heat was strongly cooling, and the mixed layer deepened over the course of the experiment from approximately 40 to approximately 70 meters. Spectra of the temperature showed a strong semidiurnal tidal signal associated with temperature excursions of several degrees C. The velocity signal showed strong inertial oscilations with amplitudes of 30-50 cm/s. Weaker low-frequency and semidiurnal tidal signals were also seen. The waves were very strong with significant wave heights of 5-6 meters persisting for up to 2 weeks at a time. Waves were generally out of the south or the west.
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ArticleChanges in ocean circulation and carbon storage are decoupled from air-sea CO2 fluxes(Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union, 2011-02-25) Marinov, Irina ; Gnanadesikan, AnandThe spatial distribution of the air-sea flux of carbon dioxide is a poor indicator of the underlying ocean circulation and of ocean carbon storage. The weak dependence on circulation arises because mixing-driven changes in solubility-driven and biologically-driven air-sea fluxes largely cancel out. This cancellation occurs because mixing driven increases in the poleward residual mean circulation result in more transport of both remineralized nutrients and heat from low to high latitudes. By contrast, increasing vertical mixing decreases the storage associated with both the biological and solubility pumps, as it decreases remineralized carbon storage in the deep ocean and warms the ocean as a whole.
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ThesisDynamics of Langmuir circulation in oceanic surface layers(Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1994-09) Gnanadesikan, AnandThis work investigates whether large-scale coherent vortex structures driven by wave-current interaction (Langmuir circulation) are responsible for maintaining the oceanic mixed layer. Langmuir circulations dominate the near-surface vertical transport of momentum and density when the characteristic scale for forcing (defined as the Craik-Leibovich instability parameter γCLS) is stronger than the characteristic scale for diffusive decay γdiff. Since the wave-current forcing is concentrated near the surface both terms depend on the cell geometry. Cells with long wavelengths penetrate more deeply into the water column. These cells grow more slowly than the fastest growing mode for most cases, but always dominate the solution in the absence of Coriolis forces. In the presence of Coriolis forces, the horizontal wavelength and thus the depth of penetration are limited. When a cell geometry is found such that γCLS » γdiff, the current profile produced by small-scale diffusion is unstable to Langmuir cells and the cells replace small-scale diffusion as the dominant vertical transport mechanism for momentum and density. The perturbation crosscell shear is predicted to scale as γCLS. Such a scaling is observed during two field experiments. The observed velocity profile during these experiments is more sheared than predicted by a model which implicitly assumes instantaneous mixing by large eddies, but less sheared than predicted by a model which assumes small-scale mixing by near-isotropic turbulence. The latter profile is unstable to Langmuir cells when waves are present. The inclusion of cells driven by wave-current interaction explains the failure of the mixed layer to restratify on two days with high waves and low wind. Wave-current interaction introduces a small but efficient source of energy for transporting density which goes as the surface stress times the Stokes drift.
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ArticleHow does ocean biology affect atmospheric pCO2? Theory and models(American Geophysical Union, 2008-07-22) Marinov, Irina ; Follows, Michael J. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Slater, Richard D.This paper examines the sensitivity of atmospheric pCO2 to changes in ocean biology that result in drawdown of nutrients at the ocean surface. We show that the global inventory of preformed nutrients is the key determinant of atmospheric pCO2 and the oceanic carbon storage due to the soft-tissue pump (OCS soft ). We develop a new theory showing that under conditions of perfect equilibrium between atmosphere and ocean, atmospheric pCO2 can be written as a sum of exponential functions of OCS soft . The theory also demonstrates how the sensitivity of atmospheric pCO2 to changes in the soft-tissue pump depends on the preformed nutrient inventory and on surface buffer chemistry. We validate our theory against simulations of nutrient depletion in a suite of realistic general circulation models (GCMs). The decrease in atmospheric pCO2 following surface nutrient depletion depends on the oceanic circulation in the models. Increasing deep ocean ventilation by increasing vertical mixing or Southern Ocean winds increases the atmospheric pCO2 sensitivity to surface nutrient forcing. Conversely, stratifying the Southern Ocean decreases the atmospheric CO2 sensitivity to surface nutrient depletion. Surface CO2 disequilibrium due to the slow gas exchange with the atmosphere acts to make atmospheric pCO2 more sensitive to nutrient depletion in high-ventilation models and less sensitive to nutrient depletion in low-ventilation models. Our findings have potentially important implications for both past and future climates.
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ArticleImpact of oceanic circulation on biological carbon storage in the ocean and atmospheric pCO2(American Geophysical Union, 2008-07-23) Marinov, Irina ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Toggweiler, J. R. ; Follows, Michael J. ; Mignone, B. K.We use both theory and ocean biogeochemistry models to examine the role of the soft-tissue biological pump in controlling atmospheric CO2. We demonstrate that atmospheric CO2 can be simply related to the amount of inorganic carbon stored in the ocean by the soft-tissue pump, which we term (OCS soft ). OCS soft is linearly related to the inventory of remineralized nutrient, which in turn is just the total nutrient inventory minus the preformed nutrient inventory. In a system where total nutrient is conserved, atmospheric CO2 can thus be simply related to the global inventory of preformed nutrient. Previous model simulations have explored how changes in the surface concentration of nutrients in deepwater formation regions change the global preformed nutrient inventory. We show that changes in physical forcing such as winds, vertical mixing, and lateral mixing can shift the balance of deepwater formation between the North Atlantic (where preformed nutrients are low) and the Southern Ocean (where they are high). Such changes in physical forcing can thus drive large changes in atmospheric CO2, even with minimal changes in surface nutrient concentration. If Southern Ocean deepwater formation strengthens, the preformed nutrient inventory and thus atmospheric CO2 increase. An important consequence of these new insights is that the relationship between surface nutrient concentrations, biological export production, and atmospheric CO2 is more complex than previously predicted. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we show that OCS soft can increase and atmospheric CO2 decrease, while surface nutrients show minimal change and export production decreases.
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PreprintAnthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms( 2005-07-29) Orr, James C. ; Fabry, Victoria J. ; Aumont, Olivier ; Bopp, Laurent ; Doney, Scott C. ; Feely, Richard A. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Gruber, Nicolas ; Ishida, Akio ; Joos, Fortunat ; Key, Robert M. ; Lindsay, Keith ; Maier-Reimer, Ernst ; Matear, Richard J. ; Monfray, Patrick ; Mouchet, Anne ; Najjar, Raymond G. ; Plattner, Gian-Kasper ; Rodgers, Keith B. ; Sabine, Christopher L. ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Schlitzer, Reiner ; Slater, Richard D. ; Totterdell, Ian J. ; Weirig, Marie-France ; Yamanaka, Yasuhiro ; Yool, AndrewThe surface ocean is everywhere saturated with respect to calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Yet increasing atmospheric CO2 reduces ocean pH and carbonate ion concentrations [CO32−] and thus the level of saturation. Reduced saturation states are expected to affect marine calcifiers even though it has been estimated that all surface waters will remain saturated for centuries. Here we show, however, that some surface waters will become undersaturated within decades. When atmospheric CO2 reaches 550 ppmv, in year 2050 under the IS92a business-as-usual scenario, Southern Ocean surface waters begin to become undersaturated with respect to aragonite, a metastable form of CaCO3. By 2100 as atmospheric CO2 reaches 788 ppmv, undersaturation extends throughout the entire Southern Ocean (< 60°S) and into the subarctic Pacific. These changes will threaten high-latitude aragonite secreting organisms including cold-water corals, which provide essential fish habitat, and shelled pteropods, an abundant food source for marine predators.
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ArticleExport is not enough : nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration(Inter-Research, 2008-07-29) Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Marinov, IrinaThe question of whether ocean iron fertilization (OIF) can yield verifiable carbon sequestration is often cast in terms of whether fertilization results in enhanced particle export. However, model studies show that oceanic carbon storage is only weakly related to global particle export—depending instead on an increase in the carbon associated with the pool of remineralized nutrients. The magnitude of such an increase depends on circulation, stoichiometric ratios and gas exchange. We argue that this puts serious challenges before efforts to properly credit OIF that must be taken into account at the design stage.
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ArticleEvaluation of ocean carbon cycle models with data-based metrics(American Geophysical Union, 2004-04-02) Matsumoto, K. ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Key, Robert M. ; Aumont, Olivier ; Bullister, John L. ; Caldeira, Ken ; Campin, J.-M. ; Doney, Scott C. ; Drange, Helge ; Dutay, J.-C. ; Follows, Michael J. ; Gao, Y. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Gruber, Nicolas ; Ishida, Akio ; Joos, Fortunat ; Lindsay, Keith ; Maier-Reimer, Ernst ; Marshall, John C. ; Matear, Richard J. ; Monfray, Patrick ; Mouchet, Anne ; Najjar, Raymond G. ; Plattner, Gian-Kasper ; Schlitzer, Reiner ; Slater, Richard D. ; Swathi, P. S. ; Totterdell, Ian J. ; Weirig, Marie-France ; Yamanaka, Yasuhiro ; Yool, Andrew ; Orr, James C.New radiocarbon and chlorofluorocarbon-11 data from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment are used to assess a suite of 19 ocean carbon cycle models. We use the distributions and inventories of these tracers as quantitative metrics of model skill and find that only about a quarter of the suite is consistent with the new data-based metrics. This should serve as a warning bell to the larger community that not all is well with current generation of ocean carbon cycle models. At the same time, this highlights the danger in simply using the available models to represent the state-of-the-art modeling without considering the credibility of each model.
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Technical ReportMeteorological and oceanographic measurements during the ASREX III field experiment : cruise and data report(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1996-09) Galbraith, Nancy R. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Ostrom, William M. ; Terray, Eugene A. ; Way, Bryan S. ; Williams, Neil J. ; Hill, Steven H. ; Terrill, EricThe Third Acoustic Surface Reverberation Experiment (AS REX III) took place from December 1993 to March 1994 at Site L (34°N, 70°W) in the mid-Atlantic. As part of this experiment, two moorings were deployed to measure the environmental background. A meteorological and oceanographic mooring was deployed to characterize the surface wind stress, buoyancy flux, and the current and temperature structure over the top 500 meters. A Seatex Wavescan buoy was deployed to characterize the directional wave spectrum. This report presents results from these moorings. Wind speeds up to 25 m/s were seen, with significant heat losses (up to 1050 W/m2) when cold continental air moved out over the warm Atlantic. The wave heights ranged up to 8 m, with significant wave heights of several meters persisting for relatively long periods. Wave height and period, nondirectional spectra, directional spectra and a typology of wave events are presented and related to surface forcing.
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ArticleEvaluating global ocean carbon models : the importance of realistic physics(American Geophysical Union, 2004-09-15) Doney, Scott C. ; Lindsay, Keith ; Caldeira, Ken ; Campin, J.-M. ; Drange, Helge ; Dutay, J.-C. ; Follows, Michael J. ; Gao, Y. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Gruber, Nicolas ; Ishida, Akio ; Joos, Fortunat ; Madec, G. ; Maier-Reimer, Ernst ; Marshall, John C. ; Matear, Richard J. ; Monfray, Patrick ; Mouchet, Anne ; Najjar, Raymond G. ; Orr, James C. ; Plattner, Gian-Kasper ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Schlitzer, Reiner ; Slater, Richard D. ; Totterdell, Ian J. ; Weirig, Marie-France ; Yamanaka, Yasuhiro ; Yool, AndrewA suite of standard ocean hydrographic and circulation metrics are applied to the equilibrium physical solutions from 13 global carbon models participating in phase 2 of the Ocean Carbon-cycle Model Intercomparison Project (OCMIP-2). Model-data comparisons are presented for sea surface temperature and salinity, seasonal mixed layer depth, meridional heat and freshwater transport, 3-D hydrographic fields, and meridional overturning. Considerable variation exists among the OCMIP-2 simulations, with some of the solutions falling noticeably outside available observational constraints. For some cases, model-model and model-data differences can be related to variations in surface forcing, subgrid-scale parameterizations, and model architecture. These errors in the physical metrics point to significant problems in the underlying model representations of ocean transport and dynamics, problems that directly affect the OCMIP predicted ocean tracer and carbon cycle variables (e.g., air-sea CO2 flux, chlorofluorocarbon and anthropogenic CO2 uptake, and export production). A substantial fraction of the large model-model ranges in OCMIP-2 biogeochemical fields (±25–40%) represents the propagation of known errors in model physics. Therefore the model-model spread likely overstates the uncertainty in our current understanding of the ocean carbon system, particularly for transport-dominated fields such as the historical uptake of anthropogenic CO2. A full error assessment, however, would need to account for additional sources of uncertainty such as more complex biological-chemical-physical interactions, biases arising from poorly resolved or neglected physical processes, and climate change.
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ArticleUsing altimetry to help explain patchy changes in hydrographic carbon measurements(American Geophysical Union, 2009-09-18) Rodgers, Keith B. ; Key, Robert M. ; Gnanadesikan, Anand ; Sarmiento, Jorge L. ; Aumont, Olivier ; Bopp, Laurent ; Doney, Scott C. ; Dunne, John P. ; Glover, David M. ; Ishida, Akio ; Ishii, Masao ; Jacobson, Andrew R. ; Monaco, Claire Lo ; Maier-Reimer, Ernst ; Mercier, Herlé ; Metzl, Nicolas ; Perez, Fiz F. ; Rios, Aida F. ; Wanninkhof, Rik ; Wetzel, Patrick ; Winn, Christopher D. ; Yamanaka, YasuhiroHere we use observations and ocean models to identify mechanisms driving large seasonal to interannual variations in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and dissolved oxygen (O2) in the upper ocean. We begin with observations linking variations in upper ocean DIC and O2 inventories with changes in the physical state of the ocean. Models are subsequently used to address the extent to which the relationships derived from short-timescale (6 months to 2 years) repeat measurements are representative of variations over larger spatial and temporal scales. The main new result is that convergence and divergence (column stretching) attributed to baroclinic Rossby waves can make a first-order contribution to DIC and O2 variability in the upper ocean. This results in a close correspondence between natural variations in DIC and O2 column inventory variations and sea surface height (SSH) variations over much of the ocean. Oceanic Rossby wave activity is an intrinsic part of the natural variability in the climate system and is elevated even in the absence of significant interannual variability in climate mode indices. The close correspondence between SSH and both DIC and O2 column inventories for many regions suggests that SSH changes (inferred from satellite altimetry) may prove useful in reducing uncertainty in separating natural and anthropogenic DIC signals (using measurements from Climate Variability and Predictability's CO2/Repeat Hydrography program).