Mechanisms of interannual steric sea level variability

Piecuch, C. G.; Ponte, Rui M.

doi:10.1029/2011gl048440

Cited by 58 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…We used the ECCO version 4 ocean reanalysis to unravel the role of ocean transport and surface buoyancy fluxes in the ocean climate fluctuations and analyse the associated signatures on the observed SSH, SST and OC. Our analyses corroborate the findings from past studies on the role of ocean transport and surface buoyancy fluxes in the SSH variations at interannual to decadal timescales (Piecuch and Ponte 2011;Fukumori and Wang 2013;. They also provide new insights on the role of ocean transport and surface buoyancy fluxes in the SST variations and on the relation between the SSH, SST and OC variations at interannual to decadal timescales.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…In contrast, SST has a different dependency on ocean circulation from SSH: SST depends on the circulation of the upper mixed layer, while SSH depends on the circulation of the ocean from the surface down to the bottom (see, for example, Fig. 1d in Piecuch and Ponte 2011). This will result in different responses of the SST and SSH to the oceanic circulation and variability at interannual and longer timescales that are not correlated.…”

Section: Sst Variations Deduced From the Heat Budget Of The Upper Ocementioning

confidence: 99%

“…where subscripts T and S refer to thermosteric and halosteric sea level and a, d and BF refer to advection, diffusion and buoyancy forcing (a more detailed explanation of the g st budget can be found in Piecuch and Ponte 2011). Thermosteric effects (g T Þ dominate steric sea level variability over most of the ocean (see Sect.…”

Section: Ssh Variations Deduced From the Pressure Budget Of The Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

Meyssignac

Piecuch

Merchant

et al. 2017

Space Sciences Series of ISSI

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We analyse the regional variability in observed sea surface height (SSH), sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean colour (OC) from the ESA Climate Change Initiative datasets over the period [1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011]. The analysis focuses on the signature of the ocean large-scale climate fluctuations driven by the atmospheric forcing and do not address the mesoscale variability. We use the ECCO version 4 ocean reanalysis to unravel the role of ocean transport and surface buoyancy fluxes in the observed SSH, SST and OC variability. We show that the SSH regional variability is dominated by the steric effect (except at high latitude) and is mainly shaped by ocean heat transport divergences with some contributions from the surface heat fluxes forcing that can be significant regionally (confirming earlier results). This is in contrast with the SST regional variability, which is the result of the compensation of surface heat fluxes by ocean heat transport in the mixed layer and arises from small departures around this background balance. Bringing together the results of SSH and SST analyses, we show that SSH and SST bear some common variability. This is because both SSH and SST variability show significant contributions from the surface heat fluxes forcing. It is evidenced by the high correlation between SST and buoyancy-forced SSH almost everywhere in the ocean except at high latitude. OC, which is determined by phytoplankton biomass, is governed by the availability of light and nutrients that essentially depend on climate fluctuations. For this reason, OC shows significant correlation with SST and SSH. We show that the correlation with SST displays the same pattern as the correlation with SSH with a negative correlation in the tropics and subtropics and a positive correlation at high latitude. We discuss the reasons for this pattern.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Sst Variations Deduced From the Heat Budget Of The Upper Ocementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ssh Variations Deduced From the Pressure Budget Of The Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

Meyssignac

Piecuch

Merchant

et al. 2017

Space Sciences Series of ISSI

Self Cite

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“…For instance, in the Indian and Pacific Oceans it was shown that DSL change is mainly driven by wind stress, using either a simplified dynamical ocean model (Timmermann et al 2010) or an ocean general circulation model (Nidheesh et al 2013). In addition, Piecuch andPonte (2011, 2012) pointed out that buoyancy forcing is important to explain interannual variability in sea level in both the tropical Atlantic and the tropical Pacific regions. Using AOGCMs, Bouttes et al (2012Bouttes et al ( , 2014 and Bouttes and Gregory (2014) found that changes in sea level can mostly be explained by wind stress (e.g., in the Southern Ocean) but also by heat (e.g., in the North Atlantic) and freshwater fluxes (e.g., in the Arctic Ocean).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sea Level Response to External Forcings in Historical Simulations of CMIP5 Climate Models*

et al. 2015

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Changes in Earth's climate are influenced by internal climate variability and external forcings, such as changes in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG), and aerosols. Although the response of surface temperature to external forcings has been studied extensively, this has not been done for sea level. Here, a range of climate model experiments for the twentieth century is used to study the response of global and regional sea level change to external climate forcings. Both the global mean thermosteric sea level and the regional dynamic sea level patterns show clear responses to anthropogenic forcings that are significantly different from internal climate variability and larger than the difference between models driven by the same external forcing. The regional sea level patterns are directly related to changes in surface winds in response to the external forcings. The spread between different realizations of the same model experiment is consistent with internal climate variability derived from preindustrial control simulations. The spread between the different models is larger than the internal variability, mainly in regions with large sea level responses. Although the sea level responses to GHG and anthropogenic aerosol forcing oppose each other in the global mean, there are differences on a regional scale, offering opportunities for distinguishing between these two forcings in observed sea level change.

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“…Advection, mixing and surface exchanges all affect the steric sea level, and advection contributes to more than half of the low-frequency variability of steric sea level in many regions (Piecuch and Ponte, 2011). We speculate that eddies play a non-negligible role in advection and thus investigating eddies is useful for predicting regional sea-level trends.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy pathways and structures of oceanic eddies from the ECCO2 state estimate and simplified models

Chen¹

2013

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Studying oceanic eddies is important for understanding and predicting ocean circulation and climate variability. The central focus of this dissertation is the energy exchange between eddies and mean flow and banded structures in the low-frequency component of the eddy field. A combination of a realistic eddy-permitting ocean state estimate and simplified theoretical models is used to address the following specific questions. (1) What are the major spatial characteristics of eddy-mean flow interaction from an energy perspective? Is eddy-mean flow interaction a local process in most ocean regions? (2) The banded structures in the low-frequency eddy field are termed striations. How much oceanic variability is associated with striations? How does the time-mean circulation, for example a subtropical gyre or constant mean flow, influence the origin and characteristics of striations? How much do striations contribute to the energy budget and tracer mixing?

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Mechanisms of interannual steric sea level variability

Cited by 58 publications

References 21 publications

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

The Sea Level Response to External Forcings in Historical Simulations of CMIP5 Climate Models*

Energy pathways and structures of oceanic eddies from the ECCO2 state estimate and simplified models

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