• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Role of residual overturning for the sensitivity of Southern Ocean isopycnal slopes to changes in wind forcing

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Article (1.041Mb)
    Date
    2019-10-30
    Author
    Youngs, Madeleine K.  Concept link
    Flierl, Glenn R.  Concept link
    Ferrari, Raffaele  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/25332
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0072.1
    DOI
    10.1175/JPO-D-19-0072.1
    Keyword
     Southern Ocean; Eddies; Storm tracks; Quasigeostrophic models 
    Abstract
    The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays a central role in the ventilation of heat and carbon in the global ocean. In particular, the isopycnal slopes determine where each water mass outcrops and thus how the ocean interacts with the atmosphere. The region-integrated isopycnal slopes have been suggested to be eddy saturated, that is, stay relatively constant as the wind forcing changes, but whether or not the flow is saturated in realistic present day and future parameter regimes is unknown. This study analyzes an idealized two-layer quasigeostrophic channel model forced by a wind stress and a residual overturning generated by a mass flux across the interface between the two layers, with and without a blocking ridge. The sign and strength of the residual overturning set which way the isopycnal slopes change with the wind forcing, leading to an increase in slope with an increase in wind forcing for a positive overturning and a decrease in slope for a negative overturning, following the usual conventions; this behavior is caused by the dominant standing meander weakening as the wind stress weakens causing the isopycnal slopes to become more sensitive to changes in the wind stress and converge with the slopes of a flat-bottomed simulation. Eddy saturation only appears once the wind forcing passes a critical level. These results show that theories for saturation must have both topography and residual overturning in order to be complete and provide a framework for understanding how the isopycnal slopes in the Southern Ocean may change in response to future changes in wind forcing.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(11), (2019): 2867-2881, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-19-0072.1.
    Collections
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Youngs, M. K., Flierl, G. R., & Ferrari, R. (2019). Role of residual overturning for the sensitivity of Southern Ocean isopycnal slopes to changes in wind forcing. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 49(11), 2867-2881.
     

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      Rates and mechanisms of turbulent dissipation and mixing in the Southern Ocean : results from the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES) 

      Sheen, Katy L.; Brearley, J. Alexander; Naveira Garabato, Alberto C.; Smeed, David A.; Waterman, Stephanie N.; Ledwell, James R.; Meredith, Michael P.; St. Laurent, Louis C.; Thurnherr, Andreas M.; Toole, John M.; Watson, Andrew J. (John Wiley & Sons, 2013-06-04)
      The spatial distribution of turbulent dissipation rates and internal wavefield characteristics is analyzed across two contrasting regimes of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), using microstructure and finestructure ...
    • Thumbnail

      Data collected daily along the ship track in JGOFS format from ARSV Laurence M. Gould and RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruises to the Southern Ocean from 2001-2003 as part of the Southern Ocean GLOBEC project. 

      Beardsley, Robert C; Costa, Daniel P.; Limeburner, Richard; Torres, Joseph J.; Wiebe, Peter H. (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2020-03-27)
      Data collected daily along the ship track in JGOFS format from ARSV Laurence M. Gould and RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruises to the Southern Ocean from 2001-2003 as part of the Southern Ocean GLOBEC project For a complete ...
    • Thumbnail

      Zooplankton abundance and stages from MOCNESS nets from the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer from the Southern Ocean, 2001-2002 (SOGLOBEC project, Southern Ocean Krill project) 

      Ashjian, Carin J.; Wiebe, Peter H. (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-02-06)
      Zooplankton from MOCNESS nets were identified and the net sample displacement volume was measured from the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer, Southern Ocean, 2001-2002. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset ...
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy
    Core Trust Logo