Stability and Variability of the Thermohaline Circulation

A Fully Implicit Model of the Three-Dimensional Thermohaline Ocean Circulation

“…Similar results were obtained for two-dimensional ocean models [43,31,8] and zonally integrated models [29,53]. In three-dimensional single hemispheric sector models, two different equilibrium flow patterns are found [46] when the strength of the freshwater flux forcing is large enough. When the amplitude of the forcing is increased even more, several types of time-dependent behavior are found.…”

Impacts of double-diffusive processes on the thermohaline circulation

“…For example, under mixed boundary conditions, multiple equilibria can be obtained (Stommel, 1960;F. Bryan, 1986;Marotzke, 1990;Weaver and Hughes, 1992), and the existence of multiple equilibria depends on the magnitude and distribution of surface freshwater forcing.…”

“…We find a transition from a multi-equilibria region to a single haline mode when we increase the magnitude of the freshwater forcing, and this is basically consistent with our scaling argument. However, in contrast to Weaver et al (1993), the criterion determining the behavior of the thermohaline circulation is a nondimensional number defined by (2.42), which includes not only the freshwater forcing versus thermal forcing, but also the effect of diapycnal diffusivity and the dimensions of the basin. For a given basin, the diapycnal diffusivity also determines the behavior of the thermohaline circulation.…”

On the physical processes associated with the water budget and discharge of the Mackenzie basin during the 1994/95 water year

“…As a result of global warming, some estimates indicate that there would be a 15-30% increase in the discharge from the Mackenzie basin (Miller and Russell, 1992). The increased discharge from the Mackenzie basin, as well as other northern-flowing rivers, as pointed out by Manack and Mysak (1989) and Mysak et al (1990), may lead to changes in salinity and sea-ice concentration in the Arctic and the North Atlantic, which in turn may induce climatic anomalies in the extratropics (Aagaard and Carmack, 1989;Weaver and Hughes, 1992;Bjornsson et al, 1995).…”