Physical oceanography

Abstract:

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Downstream of Drake Passage, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) veers abruptly northward along the continental slope of South America. This spins down the ACC, akin to the western boundary currents of ocean gyres. During this northward excursion, the mean potential vorticity (PV) increases dramatically (decreases in magnitude) by up to a factor of two along mean geostrophic streamlines on mid-depth buoyancy surfaces. This increase is driven by drag near the continental slope, or by breaking eddies further offshore, and is balanced by a remarkably steady, eddy-driven decrease of mean PV along these northern circumpolar streamlines in the open ocean. We show how two related eddy processes that are fundamental to ACC dynamics — poleward buoyancy fluxes and downward fluxes of eastward momentum — are also concomitant with materially forcing PV to increase on the northern flank of a jet at mid-depth, and decrease on the southern flank. For eddies to drive the required mean PV decrease along northern streamlines, the ACC merges with the subtropical gyres to the north, so these streamlines inhabit the southern flanks of the combined ACC-gyre jets. We support these ideas by analyzing the time-mean PV and its budget along time-mean geostrophic streamlines in the Southern Ocean State Estimate. Our averaging formalism is Eulerian, to match the model’s numerics. The Thickness Weighted Average is preferable, but its PV budget cannot be balanced using Eulerian 5-day averaged diagnostics, primarily because the z-level buoyancy and continuity equations’ delicate balances are destroyed upon transformation into the buoyancy-coordinate thickness equation.</jats:p>

Abstract:

&lt;p&gt;Models, theory and observations suggest that symmetric instability is excited in the North Brazil Current after it crosses the equator. The instability is fuelled by the advection of waters with anomalous potential vorticity from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere. There also exists a deep western boundary current which sits below the North Brazil Current. This current advects anomalous potential vorticity across the equator too, and so also becomes symmetrically unstable upon crossing it. Numerical models and scaling arguments will be used to predict the similarities and differences between the action of symmetric instability in the surface and deep currents. We will then explore how the excitement of the instability affects the structure of the deep western boundary current, and how this impacts the development of mesoscale features further down-stream.&lt;/p&gt;

Abstract:

The upper limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation draws waters with negative potential vorticity from the southern hemisphere into the northern hemisphere. The North Brazil Current is one of the cross-equatorial pathways in which this occurs: upon crossing the equator, fluid parcels must modify their potential vorticity to render them stable to symmetric instability and to merge smoothly with the ocean interior. In this work a linear stability analysis is performed on an idealized western boundary current, dynamically similar to the North Brazil Current, to identify features which are indicative of symmetric instability. Simple two-dimensional numerical models are used to verify the results of the stability analysis. The two-dimensional models and linear stability theory show that symmetric instability in meridional flows does not change when the non-traditional component of the Coriolis force is included, unlike in zonal flows. Idealized three-dimensional numerical models show anti-cyclonic barotropic eddies being spun off as the western boundary current crosses the equator. These eddies become symmetrically unstable \addd{a few degrees} north of the equator, and their PV is set to zero through the action of the instability. The instability is found to have a clear fingerprint in the spatial Fourier transform of the vertical kinetic energy. An analysis of the water mass formation rates suggest that symmetric instability has a minimal effect on water mass transformation in the model calculations; however, this may be the result of unresolved dynamics, such as secondary Kelvin Helmholtz instabilities, which are important in diabatic transformation.

Abstract:

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is pivotal for regional and global climate due to its key role in the uptake and redistribution of heat and carbon. Establishing the causes of historical variability in AMOC strength on different timescales can tell us how the circulation may respond to natural and anthropogenic changes at the ocean surface. However, understanding observed AMOC variability is challenging because the circulation is influenced by multiple factors that co-vary and whose overlapping impacts persist for years. Here we reconstruct and unambiguously attribute intermonthly and interannual AMOC variability at two observational arrays to the recent history of surface wind stress, temperature and salinity. We use a state-of-the-art technique that computes space- and time-varying sensitivity patterns of the AMOC strength with respect to multiple surface properties from a numerical ocean circulation model constrained by observations. While, on interannual timescales, AMOC variability at 26° N is overwhelmingly dominated by a linear response to local wind stress, overturning variability at subpolar latitudes is generated by the combined effects of wind stress and surface buoyancy anomalies. Our analysis provides a quantitative attribution of subpolar AMOC variability to temperature, salinity and wind anomalies at the ocean surface.