The past and future ocean circulation from a contemporary perspective

Wunsch, Carl

doi:10.1029/173gm06

Cited by 31 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Ocean heat uptake caused by TC-induced upper ocean mixing is thus estimated to be in the range of 0 -0.3 PW, much smaller than previously calculated. To put this result in perspective, the annual average ocean heat uptake integrated over the tropics is on the order of 3 ± 1 PW [e.g., Wunsch, 2007] and the expected contribution of TC mixing is well within the error bars of this estimate.…”

Section: Role Of the Seasonal Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

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Seasonal versus permanent thermocline warming by tropical cyclones

Jansen

Ferrari

Mooring

2010

Geophysical Research Letters

105

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Recent studies suggest that the enhanced upper ocean mixing caused by tropical cyclones significantly contributes to the ocean heat transport. However, existing studies that try to quantify this contribution make the assumption that all heat pumped below the mixed layer by tropical cyclones is finally released in higher latitudes. Tropical cyclones occur primarily during summer and early fall, when the ocean mixed layer is generally shallow. As the mixed layer deepens in the following winter, any warm anomaly deposited within the seasonal thermocline will be reabsorbed by the mixed layer and lost to the atmosphere. Analysis of satellite sea surface temperature and sea surface height data, together with climatological subsurface ocean data, suggests that only about one quarter of the heat that is mixed downward by tropical cyclones eventually makes it into the permanent thermocline.

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Section: Role Of the Seasonal Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…[4] The total OHT out of the tropics is about 3 PW [e.g., Wunsch, 2007]. If heat anomalies generated in the wake of TCs propagate poleward, the estimates by Emanuel [2001] and Sriver et al [2008] imply that TCs contribute a large fraction of the total heat transport.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal versus permanent thermocline warming by tropical cyclones

Jansen

Ferrari

Mooring

2010

Geophysical Research Letters

105

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“…In models, the degree of this north-south connection may depend on the representation of the individual components of the MOC. In particular, coarse-resolution models that capture only the largescale features of the circulation are obliged to parameterize the effects of unresolved mesoscale motions, that is, the motions that account for most of the kinetic energy in the ocean (e.g., Ducet et al 2000;Wunsch 2007). In the Southern Ocean, where mesoscale eddies play a fundamental role in closing the MOC, there is a particular need to rely on such parameterizations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Southern Ocean Overturning: Parameterized versus Permitted Eddies

Spence

Saenko

Eby

et al. 2009

Journal of Physical Oceanography

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Four versions of the same global climate model, with horizontal resolution ranging from 1.88 3 3.68 to 0.28 3 0.48, are employed to evaluate the resolution dependence of the Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation. At coarse resolutions North Atlantic Deep Water tends to upwell diabatically at low latitudes, so that the Southern Ocean is weakly coupled with the rest of the ocean. As resolution increases and eddy effects become less parameterized the interior circulation becomes more adiabatic and deep water increasingly upwells by flowing along isopycnals in the Southern Ocean, despite each model having the same vertical diffusivity profile. Separating the overturning circulation into mean and eddy-induced components demonstrates that both the permitted and the parameterized eddies induce overturning cells in the Southern Ocean with mass fluxes across mean isopycnals. It is found that for some density classes the transformation rate derived from surface buoyancy fluxes can provide a proxy for the net meridional transport in the upper Southern Ocean. Changes in the Southern Ocean overturning in response to poleward-intensifying Southern Hemisphere winds concomitant with increasing atmospheric CO 2 through the twenty-first century are also investigated. Results suggest that the circulation associated with the formation of Antarctic Intermediate Water is likely to strengthen, or stay essentially unchanged, rather than to slow down.

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“…I have written previously at some length about some of this contrast (including Wunsch, 2006Wunsch, , 2007Huybers and Wunsch, 2010) to which I refer the interested reader, and repeating that material would not be very productive. Instead, I will take the opportunity to discuss some of the less technical, more general, aspects of the problems of understanding the ocean circulation of the past.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%