Collaborative Project: Three-Dimensional Structure of the Southern Ocean Overturning Circulation
- Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States)
The large-scale upwelling in the Southern Ocean provides a pathway for the deep and abyssal water masses of the global ocean to return to the surface, creating a mechanism for the exchange of carbon and heat between the deep ocean water masses and the atmosphere. Despite the significance of the overturning circulation in the Southern Ocean for global climate, very little is known about the depth and longitudinal distribution of the overturning pathways and their influence on heat uptake, regional sea level change and ocean carbon transport. The focus of this grant was to assess the three-dimensional structure of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation in models and observations, with the following three objectives: 1. Quantify and contrast modeled (using GFDL and CESM models) and observed (Argo based) upwelling pathways in the Southern Ocean. 2. Evaluate the impact of model resolution on transport pathways and the associated meridional fluxes of heat and salt. 3. Determine the influence of climate-driven changes in upwelling on the regional patterns and magnitude of heat and carbon uptake and sea level change. We have successfully achieved our three objectives through (1) running Southern Ocean particle tracking simulations in global coupled models with varying resolutions, and (2) quantifying the role played by the overturning circulation and its changes to the surface heat and carbon uptake, in climate models as well as observations. The research funded under this grant led to 8 published papers and 2 submitted papers, with 2 additional papers in preparation.
- Research Organization:
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- Contributing Organization:
- NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory; Los Alamos National Lab
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0012457
- OSTI ID:
- 1495703
- Report Number(s):
- Final Report: DOE-Princeton-SC0012457
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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