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    On the circulation of Atlantic Water in the Arctic Ocean

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    jpo-d-13-079.1.pdf (2.219Mb)
    Date
    2013-11
    Author
    Spall, Michael A.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6438
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-13-079.1
    DOI
    10.1175/JPO-D-13-079.1
    Keyword
    Arctic
    Abstract
    An idealized eddy-resolving numerical model and an analytic three-layer model are used to develop ideas about what controls the circulation of Atlantic Water in the Arctic Ocean. The numerical model is forced with a surface heat flux, uniform winds, and a source of low-salinity water near the surface around the perimeter of an Arctic basin. Despite this idealized configuration, the model is able to reproduce many general aspects of the Arctic Ocean circulation and hydrography, including exchange through Fram Strait, circulation of Atlantic Water, a halocline, ice cover and transport, surface heat flux, and a Beaufort Gyre. The analytic model depends on a nondimensional number, and provides theoretical estimates of the halocline depth, stratification, freshwater content, and baroclinic shear in the boundary current. An empirical relationship between freshwater content and sea surface height allows for a prediction of the transport of Atlantic Water in the cyclonic boundary current. Parameters typical of the Arctic Ocean produce a cyclonic boundary current of Atlantic Water of O(1 − 2 Sv; where 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) and a halocline depth of O(200 m), in reasonable agreement with observations. The theory compares well with a series of numerical model calculations in which mixing and environmental parameters are varied, thus lending credibility to the dynamics of the analytic model. In these models, lateral eddy fluxes from the boundary and vertical diffusion in the interior are important drivers of the halocline and the circulation of Atlantic Water in the Arctic Ocean.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. 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 43 (2013): 2352–2371, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-079.1.
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    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 2352–2371
     

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