Impact of flow through the Canadian Archipelago and Bering Strait on the North Atlantic and Arctic circulation: An ocean modelling study

Wadley, Martin R.; Bigg, Grant R.

doi:10.1256/qj.00.35

Cited by 92 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In both simulations the Arctic liquid FW content increases rapidly during the first 20-30 years, the same as in other ocean 25 climate models participating in the CORE-II intercomparison project analyzed by Wang et al (2016b). They showed that the source of excessive FW is sea surface salinity (SSS) restoring.…”

Section: Freshwatersupporting

confidence: 69%

“…After initial spin-up the depth of temperature maxima is located at about 400 m in LOW, while in HIGH it remains at about 300 m, the observed depth suggested by the hydrographic climatology. In the Canadian Basin the thickening and deepening of the AW layer is also 25 very obvious in LOW. In this simulation the core of the AW layer deepens by about 100 m, changing from about 450 m to 550 m during the 60 model years.…”

Section: Spin-up Of the Aw In Arctic Basinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A 4.5 km resolution Arctic Ocean simulation with the global multi-resolution model FESOM1.4

Wang¹,

Wekerle²,

Danilov³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. In the framework of developing a global modeling system which can facilitate modeling studies on Arctic Ocean and high-mid latitude linkage, we evaluate the Arctic Ocean simulated by the multi-resolution ocean sea-ice model FESOM.To explore the value of using high horizontal resolution for Arctic Ocean modeling, we use two global meshes differing in Atlantic Water (AW) mean state and variability. The deepening and thickening bias of the AW layer, a common issue found in coarse resolution simulations, is significantly alleviated by using higher resolution. The topographic steering of the AW is stronger and the seasonal and interannual temperature variability along the ocean bottom topography is enhanced in the high resolution simulation. The high resolution also improves the ocean surface circulation, mainly through a better representation of the narrow straits in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA). The representation of CAA throughflow not only influences 10 the release of water masses through the other gateways, but also the circulation pathways inside the Arctic Ocean. However, the mean state and variability of Arctic freshwater content and the variability of freshwater transport through the Arctic gateways appear not to be very sensitive to the increase in resolution employed here. We also discuss model issues that are not directly linked to resolution, highlighting the need for further model development including improving parameterizations.

show abstract

Section: Freshwatersupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Spin-up Of the Aw In Arctic Basinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 4.5 km resolution Arctic Ocean simulation with the global multi-resolution model FESOM1.4

Wang¹,

Wekerle²,

Danilov³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In coarser-resolution models the complex network of islands and channels in this region are poorly represented (if at all). However, having an accurate representation of these straits has been shown to play an important role in obtaining a realistic strength for the MOC in a climate model, as it controls the fraction of freshwater exported either directly into the Nordic or Labrador Seas where it plays a role in modulating deep convective overturning (Wadley and Bigg 2002). Our finding that the flow through the Canadian Archipelago remained high as the model began to equilibrate after 30 yr of NAO1 forcing reiterates the need to resolve this region in order to accurately model the transport of freshwater from the Arctic to the sub-Arctic seas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated Response of the Arctic Freshwater Budget to Extreme NAO Wind Forcing

et al. 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The authors investigate the response of the Arctic Ocean freshwater budget to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) using a regional-ocean configuration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology GCM (MITgcm) and carry out several different 10-yr and 30-yr integrations. At 1 / 6 8 (;18 km) resolution the model resolves the major Arctic transport pathways, including Bering Strait and the Canadian Archipelago. Two main calculations are performed by repeating the wind fields of two contrasting NAO years in each run for the extreme negative and positive NAO phases of 1969 and 1989, respectively. These calculations are compared both with a control run and the compiled observationally based freshwater budget estimate of Serreze et al.The results show a clear response in the Arctic freshwater budget to NAO forcing, that is, repeat NAO negative wind forcing results in virtually all freshwater being retained in the Arctic, with the bulk of the freshwater content being pooled in the Beaufort gyre. In contrast, repeat NAO positive forcing accelerates the export of freshwater out of the Arctic to the North Atlantic, primarily via Fram Strait (;900 km 3 yr 21 ) and the Canadian Archipelago (;500 km 3 yr 21 ), with a total loss in freshwater storage of ;13 000 km 3 (15%) after 10 yr. The large increase in freshwater export through the Canadian Archipelago highlights the important role that this gateway plays in redistributing the freshwater of the Arctic to subpolar seas, by providing a direct pathway from the Arctic basin to the Labrador Sea, Gulf Stream system, and Atlantic Ocean.The authors discuss the sensitivity of the Arctic Ocean to long-term fixed extreme NAO states and show that the freshwater content of the Arctic is able to be restored to initial values from a depleted freshwater state after ;20 yr.

show abstract

“…This inflow is balanced by an outflow at the southern boundary of the domain in the Atlantic Ocean. Although the seasonal variability of the Bering Strait transport is not considered, it seems to have a rather limited impact on the circulation (Ness et al, 2010;Wadley and Bigg, 2002).…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

TOPAZ4: an ocean-sea ice data assimilation system for the North Atlantic and Arctic

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We present a detailed description of TOPAZ4, the latest version of TOPAZ -a coupled ocean-sea ice data assimilation system for the North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic. It is the only operational, large-scale ocean data assimilation system that uses the ensemble Kalman filter. This means that TOPAZ features a time-evolving, state-dependent estimate of the state error covariance. Based on results from the pilot MyOcean reanalysis for 2003-2008, we demonstrate that TOPAZ4 produces a realistic estimate of the ocean circulation in the North Atlantic and the sea-ice variability in the Arctic. We find that the ensemble spread for temperature and sea-level remains fairly constant throughout the reanalysis demonstrating that the data assimilation system is robust to ensemble collapse. Moreover, the ensemble spread for ice concentration is well correlated with the actual errors. This indicates that the ensemble statistics provide reliable state-dependent error estimates -a feature that is unique to ensemble-based data assimilation systems. We demonstrate that the quality of the reanalysis changes when different sea surface temperature products are assimilated, or when in-situ profiles below the ice in the Arctic Ocean are assimilated. We find that data assimilation improves the match to independent observations compared to a free model. Improvements are particularly noticeable for ice thickness, salinity in the Arctic, and temperature in the Fram Strait, but not for transport estimates or underwater temperature. At the same time, the pilot reanalysis has revealed several flaws in the system that have degraded its performance. Finally, we show that a simple bias estimation scheme can effectively detect the seasonal or constant bias in temperature and sea-level.

show abstract

Impact of flow through the Canadian Archipelago and Bering Strait on the North Atlantic and Arctic circulation: An ocean modelling study

Cited by 92 publications

References 66 publications

A 4.5 km resolution Arctic Ocean simulation with the global multi-resolution model FESOM1.4

A 4.5 km resolution Arctic Ocean simulation with the global multi-resolution model FESOM1.4

Simulated Response of the Arctic Freshwater Budget to Extreme NAO Wind Forcing

TOPAZ4: an ocean-sea ice data assimilation system for the North Atlantic and Arctic

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About