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    The contribution of the Weddell Gyre to the lower limb of the Global Overturning Circulation

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    Date
    2014-06-05
    Author
    Jullion, Loic  Concept link
    Naveira Garabato, Alberto C.  Concept link
    Bacon, Sheldon  Concept link
    Meredith, Michael P.  Concept link
    Brown, Pete J.  Concept link
    Torres-Valdes, Sinhue  Concept link
    Speer, Kevin G.  Concept link
    Holland, Paul R.  Concept link
    Dong, Jun  Concept link
    Bakker, Dorothee C. E.  Concept link
    Hoppema, Mario  Concept link
    Loose, Brice  Concept link
    Venables, Hugh J.  Concept link
    Jenkins, William J.  Concept link
    Messias, Marie-Jose  Concept link
    Fahrbach, Eberhard  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6852
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JC009725
    DOI
    10.1002/2013JC009725
    Keyword
     Weddell Sea; Southern Ocean; Meridional overturning circulation; Oceanography; Sea ice; Climate 
    Abstract
    The horizontal and vertical circulation of the Weddell Gyre is diagnosed using a box inverse model constructed with recent hydrographic sections and including mobile sea ice and eddy transports. The gyre is found to convey 42 ± 8 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s–1) across the central Weddell Sea and to intensify to 54 ± 15 Sv further offshore. This circulation injects 36 ± 13 TW of heat from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to the gyre, and exports 51 ± 23 mSv of freshwater, including 13 ± 1 mSv as sea ice to the midlatitude Southern Ocean. The gyre's overturning circulation has an asymmetric double-cell structure, in which 13 ± 4 Sv of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) and relatively light Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) are transformed into upper-ocean water masses by midgyre upwelling (at a rate of 2 ± 2 Sv) and into denser AABW by downwelling focussed at the western boundary (8 ± 2 Sv). The gyre circulation exhibits a substantial throughflow component, by which CDW and AABW enter the gyre from the Indian sector, undergo ventilation and densification within the gyre, and are exported to the South Atlantic across the gyre's northern rim. The relatively modest net production of AABW in the Weddell Gyre (6 ± 2 Sv) suggests that the gyre's prominence in the closure of the lower limb of global oceanic overturning stems largely from the recycling and equatorward export of Indian-sourced AABW.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 3357–3377, doi:10.1002/2013JC009725.
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    • Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry (MC&G)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 3357–3377
     

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