Скачать или смотреть SoMAS / ITPA - Impact of Polar Mesoscale Storms on Atlantic Ocean Circulation

Alan Condron from the Department of Geosciences at University of Massachusetts, Amherst speaks to SoMAS on Wednesday, November 20, 2013.

Topic: "Impact of Polar Mesoscale Storms on Atlantic Ocean Circulation"

Abstract
Every year thousands of mesoscale (greater than 1000 km) storms cross the climatically sensitive sub-polar regions of the world's oceans. These storms are frequently too small, or short-lived, to be captured in meteorological reanalyses or numerical climate prediction models. As a result, the magnitude of the near-surface wind speeds and heat fluxes are considerably under-represented over the world's oceans where the atmosphere influences mixing, deep convection, upwelling, and deep water mass formation. Numerical models must, however, realistically simulate these processes in order to accurately predict future changes in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) and the climate system. Implementing a parameterization to simulate mesoscale cyclones in the atmospheric fields driving an ocean model produced air-sea fluxes in remarkable agreement with observations. Over the Nordic Seas we found that mesoscale cyclones increased the depth, frequency and area of open ocean deep convection. At Denmark Strait we found a significant increase in the southward transport of Denmark Strait Overflow Water (DSOW); the deep water mass that plays a significant role in driving the Atlantic MOC. Further south there was an increase in the cyclonic rotation of the sub-polar gyres and an increase in the northward transport of heat into the region. We conclude that polar mesoscale cyclones play an important role in driving the large-scale ocean circulation and so must be simulated globally in order to make accurate short-term climate predictions.