The Large-Scale Vorticity Balance of the Antarctic Continental Margin in a Fine-Resolution Global Simulation
Abstract
The depth-integrated vorticity budget of a global, eddy-permitting ocean/sea ice simulation over the Antarctic continental margin (ACM) is diagnosed to understand the physical mechanisms implicated in meridional transport. The leading-order balance is between the torques due to lateral friction, nonlinear effects, and bottom vortex stretching, although details vary regionally. Maps of the time-averaged depth-integrated vorticity budget terms and time series of the spatially averaged, depth-integrated vorticity budget terms reveal that the flow in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen, and Weddell Seas and, to a lesser extent, in the western portion of East Antarctica, is closer to an approximate topographic Sverdrup balance (TSB) compared to other segments of the ACM. Correlation and coherence analyses further support these findings, and also show that inclusion of the vorticity tendency term in the response (the planetary vorticity advection and the bottom vortex stretching term) increases the correlation with the forcing (the vertical net stress curl), and also increases the coherence between forcing and response at high frequencies across the ACM, except for the West Antarctic Peninsula. Finally, these findings suggest that the surface stress curl, imparted by the wind and the sea ice, has the potential to contribute to the meridional, approximately cross-slope, transport to amore »
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States). Scripps Inst. of Oceanography
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1656890
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0020073; SC0014440
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Physical Oceanography
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 50; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 0022-3670
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; Southern Ocean; numerical modeling; continental shelf dynamic; Antarctica; max fluxes/transport; ocean dynamics; Ekman pumping; general circulation models; ocean
Citation Formats
Palóczy, André, McClean, Julie L., Gille, Sarah T., and Wang, He. The Large-Scale Vorticity Balance of the Antarctic Continental Margin in a Fine-Resolution Global Simulation. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1175/jpo-d-19-0307.1.
Palóczy, André, McClean, Julie L., Gille, Sarah T., & Wang, He. The Large-Scale Vorticity Balance of the Antarctic Continental Margin in a Fine-Resolution Global Simulation. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-19-0307.1
Palóczy, André, McClean, Julie L., Gille, Sarah T., and Wang, He. Tue .
"The Large-Scale Vorticity Balance of the Antarctic Continental Margin in a Fine-Resolution Global Simulation". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-19-0307.1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1656890.
@article{osti_1656890,
title = {The Large-Scale Vorticity Balance of the Antarctic Continental Margin in a Fine-Resolution Global Simulation},
author = {Palóczy, André and McClean, Julie L. and Gille, Sarah T. and Wang, He},
abstractNote = {The depth-integrated vorticity budget of a global, eddy-permitting ocean/sea ice simulation over the Antarctic continental margin (ACM) is diagnosed to understand the physical mechanisms implicated in meridional transport. The leading-order balance is between the torques due to lateral friction, nonlinear effects, and bottom vortex stretching, although details vary regionally. Maps of the time-averaged depth-integrated vorticity budget terms and time series of the spatially averaged, depth-integrated vorticity budget terms reveal that the flow in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen, and Weddell Seas and, to a lesser extent, in the western portion of East Antarctica, is closer to an approximate topographic Sverdrup balance (TSB) compared to other segments of the ACM. Correlation and coherence analyses further support these findings, and also show that inclusion of the vorticity tendency term in the response (the planetary vorticity advection and the bottom vortex stretching term) increases the correlation with the forcing (the vertical net stress curl), and also increases the coherence between forcing and response at high frequencies across the ACM, except for the West Antarctic Peninsula. Finally, these findings suggest that the surface stress curl, imparted by the wind and the sea ice, has the potential to contribute to the meridional, approximately cross-slope, transport to a greater extent in the Amundsen, Bellingshausen, Weddell, and part of the East Antarctic continental margin than elsewhere in the ACM.},
doi = {10.1175/jpo-d-19-0307.1},
journal = {Journal of Physical Oceanography},
number = 8,
volume = 50,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
Works referenced in this record:
Dynamic Topography and Sea Level Anomalies of the Southern Ocean: Variability and Teleconnections
journal, January 2018
- Armitage, Thomas W. K.; Kwok, Ron; Thompson, Andrew F.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 123, Issue 1
Vortex stretching and bottom torques in the Bryan-Cox ocean circulation model
journal, October 1999
- Bell, Michael J.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 104, Issue C10
Cross-Shelf Exchange
journal, January 2016
- Brink, K. H.
- Annual Review of Marine Science, Vol. 8, Issue 1
Temporal variability of the Circumpolar Deep Water inflow onto the Ross Sea continental shelf
journal, February 2017
- Castagno, Pasquale; Falco, Pierpaolo; Dinniman, Michael S.
- Journal of Marine Systems, Vol. 166
Effects of Eddy Vorticity Forcing on the Mean State of the Kuroshio Extension
journal, May 2015
- Delman, Andrew S.; McClean, Julie L.; Sprintall, Janet
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 45, Issue 5
Calving fluxes and basal melt rates of Antarctic ice shelves
journal, September 2013
- Depoorter, M. A.; Bamber, J. L.; Griggs, J. A.
- Nature, Vol. 502, Issue 7469
Wind-Driven Processes Controlling Oceanic Heat Delivery to the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
journal, November 2019
- Dotto, Tiago S.; Naveira Garabato, Alberto C.; Bacon, Sheldon
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 49, Issue 11
Role of tides on the formation of the Antarctic Slope Front at the Weddell-Scotia Confluence: FORMATION OF THE ANTARCTIC SLOPE FRONT
journal, May 2015
- Flexas, M. M.; Schodlok, M. P.; Padman, L.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 120, Issue 5
Antarctic Circumpolar Current response to zonally averaged winds
journal, February 2001
- Gille, Sarah T.; Stevens, David P.; Tokmakian, Robin T.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 106, Issue C2
Baroclinic and topographic influences on the transport in western boundary currents
journal, January 1973
- Holland, William R.
- Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 4, Issue 3
Stronger ocean circulation and increased melting under Pine Island Glacier ice shelf
journal, June 2011
- Jacobs, Stanley S.; Jenkins, Adrian; Giulivi, Claudia F.
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 4, Issue 8
Is Ekman pumping responsible for the seasonal variation of warm circumpolar deep water in the Amundsen Sea?
journal, January 2017
- Kim, T. W.; Ha, H. K.; Wåhlin, A. K.
- Continental Shelf Research, Vol. 132
The global climatology of an interannually varying air–sea flux data set
journal, August 2008
- Large, W. G.; Yeager, S. G.
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 33, Issue 2-3
Vorticity Balance in Coarse-Resolution Global Ocean Simulations
journal, March 2004
- Lu, Youyu; Stammer, Detlef
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 34, Issue 3
Variation in the Distribution and Properties of Circumpolar Deep Water in the Eastern Amundsen Sea, on Seasonal Timescales, Using Seal-Borne Tags
journal, May 2018
- Mallett, Helen K. W.; Boehme, Lars; Fedak, Mike
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 10
Interpretations of the JEBAR Term
journal, March 1992
- Mertz, Gordon; Wright, Daniel G.
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 22, Issue 3
Shelf–ocean exchange and hydrography west of the Antarctic Peninsula: a review
journal, May 2018
- Moffat, C.; Meredith, M.
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 376, Issue 2122
Oceanic Heat Delivery to the Antarctic Continental Shelf: Large‐Scale, Low‐Frequency Variability
journal, November 2018
- Palóczy, André; Gille, Sarah T.; McClean, Julie L.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 123, Issue 11
Ice-Shelf Melting Around Antarctica
journal, June 2013
- Rignot, E.; Jacobs, S.; Mouginot, J.
- Science, Vol. 341, Issue 6143
Ocean heat drives rapid basal melt of the Totten Ice Shelf
journal, December 2016
- Rintoul, Stephen Rich; Silvano, Alessandro; Pena-Molino, Beatriz
- Science Advances, Vol. 2, Issue 12
An oceanic heat transport pathway to the Amundsen Sea Embayment
journal, May 2016
- Rodriguez, Angelica R.; Mazloff, Matthew R.; Gille, Sarah T.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 121, Issue 5
Multidecadal warming of Antarctic waters
journal, December 2014
- Schmidtko, Sunke; Heywood, Karen J.; Thompson, Andrew F.
- Science, Vol. 346, Issue 6214
Ocean-Ice Shelf Interaction in East Antarctica
journal, December 2016
- Silvano, Alessandro; Rintoul, Stephen; Herraiz-Borreguero, Laura
- Oceanography, Vol. 29, Issue 4
Distribution of water masses and meltwater on the continental shelf near the Totten and Moscow University ice shelves: OCEAN PROPERTIES NEAR TOTTEN ICE SHELF
journal, March 2017
- Silvano, Alessandro; Rintoul, Stephen R.; Peña-Molino, Beatriz
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 122, Issue 3
Numerical Simulation of the North Atlantic Ocean at 1 / 10 °
journal, July 2000
- Smith, Richard D.; Maltrud, Mathew E.; Bryan, Frank O.
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 30, Issue 7
Localized rapid warming of West Antarctic subsurface waters by remote winds
journal, July 2017
- Spence, Paul; Holmes, Ryan M.; Hogg, Andrew McC.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 7, Issue 8
Circum-Antarctic Shoreward Heat Transport Derived From an Eddy- and Tide-Resolving Simulation
journal, January 2018
- Stewart, Andrew L.; Klocker, Andreas; Menemenlis, Dimitris
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 2
Eddy transport as a key component of the Antarctic overturning circulation
journal, November 2014
- Thompson, Andrew F.; Heywood, Karen J.; Schmidtko, Sunke
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 7, Issue 12
Some Implications of Ekman Layer Dynamics for Cross-Shelf Exchange in the Amundsen Sea
journal, September 2012
- Wåhlin, A. K.; Muench, R. D.; Arneborg, L.
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 42, Issue 9
Oceanographic observations at the shelf break of the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica: Amundsen Sea Shelf-Edge Currents
journal, June 2013
- Walker, Dziga P.; Jenkins, Adrian; Assmann, Karen M.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 118, Issue 6
Ocean and Atmosphere Storm Tracks: The Role of Eddy Vorticity Forcing
journal, September 2007
- Williams, Richard G.; Wilson, Chris; Hughes, Chris W.
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 37, Issue 9
The decadal mean ocean circulation and Sverdrup balance
journal, March 2011
- Wunsch, Carl
- Journal of Marine Research, Vol. 69, Issue 2
Topographic Coupling of the Atlantic Overturning and Gyre Circulations
journal, May 2015
- Yeager, Stephen
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 45, Issue 5