Physical oceanography

Abstract:

The Southern Ocean plays a pivotal role in climate change by exchanging heat and carbon, and provides the primary window for the global deep ocean to communicate with the atmosphere. There has been a widespread focus on explaining atmospheric CO2 changes in terms of changes in wind forcing in the Southern Ocean. Here, we develop a dynamically-motivated metric, the residual upwelling, that measures the primary effect of Southern Ocean dynamics on atmospheric CO2 on centennial to millennial timescales by determining the communication with the deep ocean. The metric encapsulates the combined, net effect of winds and air–sea buoyancy forcing on both the upper and lower overturning cells, which have been invoked as explaining atmospheric CO2 changes for the present day and glacial-interglacial changes. The skill of the metric is assessed by employing suites of idealized ocean model experiments, including parameterized and explicitly simulated eddies, with online biogeochemistry and integrated for 10,000 years to equilibrium. Increased residual upwelling drives elevated atmospheric CO2 at a rate of typically 1–1.5 parts per million/106 m3 s−1 by enhancing the communication between the atmosphere and deep ocean. This metric can be used to interpret the long-term effect of Southern Ocean dynamics on the natural carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2, alongside other metrics, such as involving the proportion of preformed nutrients and the extent of sea ice cover.

Abstract:

An analytical model of long Rossby waves is developed for a continuously-stratified, planetary geostrophic ocean in the presence of arbitrary bottom topography under the assumption that the potential vorticity is a linear function of buoyancy. The remaining dynamics are controlled by equations for material conservation of buoyancy along the sea surface and the sea floor. The mean, steady-state surface circulation follows characteristics that are intermediate to f and f /H contours, where f is the Coriolis parameter and H is the ocean depth; for realistic stratification and weak bottom currents, these characteristics are mostly zonal with weak deflections over the major topographic features. Equations are derived for linear long Rossby waves about this mean state. These are qualitatively similar to the long Rossby wave equations for a two-layer ocean, linearised about a state of rest, except that the surface characteristics in the wave equation, which dominate the propagation, follow precisely the same path as the mean surface flow. In addition to this topographic steering, it is shown that a weighted integral of the Rossby propagation term vanishes over any area enclosed by an f /H contour, which has been shown in the two-layer model to lead to Rossby waves “jumping” across the f /H contour. Finally, a nonlinear Rossby wave equation is derived as a specialisation of the result previously obtained by Rick Salmon. This consists of intrinsic westward propagation at the classical long Rossby speed, modified to account for the finite ocean depth, and a Doppler shift by the depth-mean flow. The latter dominates within the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, consistent with observed eastward propagation of sea surface height anomalies.

Abstract:

Attributing observed variability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) to past changes in surface forcing is challenging but essential for detecting any influence of anthropogenic forcing and reducing uncertainty in future climate predictions. Here, quantitative estimates of separate contributions from wind and buoyancy forcing to AMOC variations at 25°N are obtained. These estimates are achieved by projecting observed atmospheric anomalies onto model-based dynamical patterns of AMOC sensitivity to surface wind, thermal, and freshwater forcing over the preceding 15 years. Local wind forcing is shown to dominate AMOC variability on short time scales, whereas subpolar heat fluxes dominate on decadal time scales. The reconstructed transport time series successfully reproduces most of the interannual variability observed by RAPID–MOCHA. However, the apparent decadal trend in the RAPID–MOCHA time series is not captured, requiring improved model representation of ocean adjustment to subpolar heat fluxes over at least the past two decades and highlighting the importance of sustained monitoring of the high-latitude North Atlantic.

Abstract:

Barotropic eddy fluxes are analysed through a geometric decomposition of the eddy stress tensor. Specifically, the geometry of the eddy variance ellipse, a two-dimensional visualization of the stress tensor describing the mean eddy shape and tilt, is used to elucidate eddy propagation and eddy feedback on the mean flow. Linear shear and jet profiles are analysed and theoretical results are compared against fully nonlinear simulations. For flows with zero planetary vorticity gradient, analytic solutions for the eddy ellipse tilt and anisotropy are obtained that provide a direct relationship between the eddy tilt and the phase difference of a normal mode solution. This allows a straightforward interpretation of the eddy-mean flow interaction in terms of classical stability theory: the initially unstable jet gives rise to eddies which are tilted “against the shear” and extract energy from the mean flow; once the jet stabilises, eddies become tilted “with the shear” and return their energy to the mean flow. For a nonzero planetary vorticity gradient, ray-tracing theory is used to predict ellipse geometry and its impact on eddy propagation within a jet. An analytic solution for the eddy tilt is found for a Rossby wave on a constant background shear. The ray tracing results broadly agree with the eddy tilt diagnosed from a fully nonlinear simulation.

Abstract:

A signature of submesoscale flows in the upper ocean is skewness in the distribution of relative vorticity. Expected to result for high Rossby number flows, such skewness has implications for mixing, dissipation, and stratification within the upper ocean. An array of moorings deployed in the Northeast Atlantic for 1 year as part of the experiment of the Ocean Surface Mixing, Ocean Submesoscale Interaction Study (OSMOSIS) reveals that relative vorticity is positively skewed during winter even though the scale of the Rossby number is less than 0.5. Furthermore, this skewness is reduced to zero during spring and autumn. There is also evidence of modest seasonal variations in the gradient Rossby number. The proposed mechanism by which relative vorticity is skewed is that the ratio of lateral to vertical buoyancy gradients, as summarized by the inverse gradient Richardson number, restricts its range during winter but less so at other times of the year. These results support recent observations and model simulations suggesting that the upper ocean is host to a seasonal cycle in submesoscale turbulence.