Andrea A. Cimatoribus

Is a decline of AMOC causing the warming hole above the North Atlantic in observed and modeled warming patterns

AbstractThe pattern of global mean temperature (GMT) change is calculated by regressing local surface air temperature (SAT) to GMT for an ensemble of CMIP5 models and for observations over the last 132 years. Calculations are based on the historical period and climate change scenarios. As in the observations the warming pattern contains a warming hole over the subpolar North Atlantic. Using a bivariate regression of SAT to GMT and an index of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the warming pattern is decomposed in a radiatively forced part and an AMOC fingerprint. The North Atlantic warming hole is associated with a decline of the AMOC. The AMOC fingerprint resembles Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV), but details of the pattern change when the AMOC decline increases, underscoring the nonlinearity in the response.The warming hole is situated south of deep convection sites, indicating that it involves an adjustment of the gyre circulation, although it should be noted that some mode...

Where large deep-ocean waves break

Underwater topography like seamounts causes the breaking of large “internal waves” with associated turbulent mixing strongly affecting the redistribution of sediment. Here ocean turbulence is characterized and quantified in the lowest 100 m of the water column at three nearby sites above the slope of a deep-ocean seamount. Moored high-resolution temperature sensors show very different turbulence generation mechanisms over 3 and 5 km horizontal separation distances. At the steepest slope, turbulence was 100 times more energetic than at the shallowest slope where turbulence was still 10 times more energetic than found in the open ocean, away from topography. The turbulence on this extensive slope is caused by slope steepness and nonlinear wave evolution, but not by bottom-friction, “critical” internal tide reflection or lee wave generation.

Dansgaard–Oeschger events: bifurcation points in the climate system

Dansgaard-Oeschger events are a prominent mode of variability in the records of the last glacial cycle. Various prototype models have been proposed to explain these rapid climate fluctuations, and no agreement has emerged on which may be the more correct for describing the paleoclimatic signal. In this work, we assess the bimodality of the system reconstructing the topology of the multi--dimensional attractor over which the climate system evolves. We use high-resolution ice core isotope data to investigate the statistical properties of the climate fluctuations in the period before the onset of the abrupt change. We show that Dansgaard-Oeschger events have weak early warning signals if the ensemble of events is considered. We find that the statistics are consistent with the switches between two different climate equilibrium states in response to a changing external forcing (e.g. solar, ice sheets...), either forcing directly the transition or pacing it through stochastic resonance. These findings are most consistent with a model that associates Dansgaard-Oeschger with changing boundary conditions, and with the presence of a bifurcation point.

Temperature and density dependence of the structural relaxation time in water by inelastic ultraviolet scattering

The density and temperature dependence of the structural relaxation time (tau) in water was determined by inelastic ultraviolet scattering spectroscopy in the thermodynamic range (P=1-4000 bars, T=253-323 K), where several water anomalies take place. We observed an activation (Arrhenius) temperature dependence of tau at constant density and a monotonic density decrease at constant temperature. The latter trend was accounted for by introducing a density-dependent activation entropy associated to water local structure. The combined temperature and density behavior of tau indicates that differently from previous results, in the probed thermodynamic range, the relaxation process is ruled by a density-dependent activation Helmholtz free energy rather than a simple activation energy. Finally, the extrapolation of the observed phenomenology at lower temperature suggests a substantial agreement with the liquid-liquid phase transition hypothesis.

Sensitivity of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation to South Atlantic freshwater anomalies

The sensitivity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to changes in basin integrated net evaporation is highly dependent on the zonal salinity contrast at the southern border of the Atlantic. Biases in the freshwater budget strongly affect the stability of the AMOC in numerical models. The impact of these biases is investigated, by adding local anomaly patterns in the South Atlantic to the freshwater fluxes at the surface. These anomalies impact the freshwater and salt transport by the different components of the ocean circulation, in particular the basin-scale salt-advection feedback, completely changing the response of the AMOC to arbitrary perturbations. It is found that an appropriate dipole anomaly pattern at the southern border of the Atlantic Ocean can collapse the AMOC entirely even without a further hosing. The results suggest a new view on the stability of the AMOC, controlled by processes in the South Atlantic.

Meridional overturning circulation: stability and ocean feedbacks in a box model

A box model of the inter-hemispheric Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is developed, including a variable pycnocline depth for the tropical and subtropical regions. The circulation is forced by winds over a periodic channel in the south and by freshwater forcing at the surface. The model is aimed at investigating the ocean feedbacks related to perturbations in freshwater forcing from the atmosphere, and to changes in freshwater transport in the ocean. These feedbacks are closely connected with the stability properties of the meridional overturning circulation, in particular in response to freshwater perturbations. A separate box is used for representing the region north of the Antarctic circumpolar current in the Atlantic sector. The density difference between this region and the north of the basin is then used for scaling the downwelling in the north. These choices are essential for reproducing the sensitivity of the meridional overturning circulation observed in general circulation models, and therefore suggest that the southernmost part of the Atlantic Ocean north of the Drake Passage is of fundamental importance for the stability of the meridional overturning circulation. With this configuration, the magnitude of the freshwater transport by the southern subtropical gyre strongly affects the response of the meridional overturning circulation to external forcing. The role of the freshwater transport by the overturning circulation (Mov) as a stability indicator is discussed. It is investigated under which conditions its sign at the latitude of the southern tip of Africa can provide information on the existence of a second, permanently shut down, state of the overturning circulation in the box model. Mov will be an adequate indicator of the existence of multiple equilibria only if salt-advection feedback dominates over other processes in determining the response of the circulation to freshwater anomalies. Mov is a perfect indicator if feedbacks other than salt-advection are negligible.

Temperature statistics above a deep-ocean sloping boundary

We present a detailed analysis of the temperature statistics in an oceanographic observational dataset. The data are collected using a moored array of thermistors, 100 m tall and starting 5 m above the bottom, deployed during four months above the slopes of a Seamount in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean. Turbulence at this location is strongly affected by the semidiurnal tidal wave. Mean stratification is stable in the entire dataset. We compute structure functions, of order up to 10, of the distributions of temperature increments. Strong intermittency is observed, in particular, during the downslope phase of the tide, and farther from the solid bottom. In the lower half of the mooring during the upslope phase, the temperature statistics are consistent with those of a passive scalar. In the upper half of the mooring, the temperature statistics deviate from those of a passive scalar, and evidence of turbulent convective activity is found. The downslope phase is generally thought to be more shear-dominated, but our results suggest on the other hand that convective activity is present. High-order moments also show that the turbulence scaling behaviour breaks at a well-defined scale (of the order of the buoyancy length scale), which is however dependent on the flow state (tidal phase, height above the bottom). At larger scales, wave motions are dominant. We suggest that our results could provide an important reference for laboratory and numerical studies of mixing in geophysical flows.

Effect of Atmospheric Feedbacks on the Stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

The impact of atmospheric feedbacks on the multiple equilibria (ME) regime of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is investigated using a fully implicit hybrid coupled model (HCM). The HCM consists of a global ocean model coupled to an empirical atmosphere model that is based on linear regressions of the heat, net evaporative, and momentum fluxes generated by a fully coupled climate model onto local as well as Northern Hemisphere averaged sea surface temperatures. Using numerical continuation techniques, bifurcation diagrams are constructed for the HCM with the strength of an anomalous freshwater flux as the bifurcation parameter, which allows for an efficient first-order estimation of the effect of interactive surface fluxes on the MOC stability. The different components of the atmospheric fluxes are first considered individually and then combined. Heat feedbacks act to destabilize the present-day state of the MOC and to stabilize the collapsed state, thus leaving the size of the ME regime almost unaffected. In contrast, interactive freshwater fluxes cause a destabilization of both the present-day and collapsed states of the MOC. Wind feedbacks are found to have a minor impact. The joint effect of the three interactive fluxes is to narrow the range of ME. The shift of the saddle-node bifurcation that terminates the present-day state of the ocean is further investigated by adjoint sensitivity analysis of the overturning rate to surface fluxes. It is found that heat feedbacks primarily affect the MOC stability when they change the heat fluxes over the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, whereas interactive freshwater fluxes have an effect everywhere in the Atlantic basin.

Comparison of Ellison and Thorpe scales from Eulerian ocean temperature observations

Ocean turbulence dissipation rate is estimated either by means of microstructure shear measurements, or by adiabatically reordering vertical profiles of density. The latter technique leads to the estimate of the Thorpe scale, which in turn can be used to obtain average turbulence dissipation rate by comparing the Thorpe scale to the Ozmidov scale. In both cases, the turbulence dissipation rate can be estimated using single vertical profiles from shipborne instrumentation. We present here an alternative method to estimate the length scale of overturns by using the Ellison length scale. The Ellison scale is estimated from temperature variance just beyond the internal wave band, measured by moored instruments. We apply the method to high resolution temperature data from two moorings deployed at different locations around the Josephine seamount (North Eastern Atlantic Ocean), in a region of bottom-intensified turbulence. The variance of the temperature time series just above the internal wave frequency band is well correlated with the Thorpe scale. The method is based on the time-frequency decomposition of variance called “maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform.” The results show that the Ellison length scale can be a viable alternative to the Thorpe scale for indirectly estimating turbulence dissipation rate from moored instruments in the ocean if time resolution is sufficiently high. We suggest that fine structure contaminated temperature measurements can provide reliable information on turbulence intensity.

A global hybrid coupled model based on atmosphere-SST feedbacks

A global hybrid coupled model is developed, with the aim of studying the effects of ocean-atmosphere feedbacks on the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The model includes a global ocean general circulation model and a statistical atmosphere model. The statistical atmosphere model is based on linear regressions of data from a fully coupled climate model on sea surface temperature both locally and hemispherically averaged, being the footprint of Atlantic meridional overturning variability. It provides dynamic boundary conditions to the ocean model for heat, freshwater and wind-stress. A basic but consistent representation of ocean-atmosphere feedbacks is captured in the hybrid coupled model and it is more than 10 times faster than the fully coupled climate model. The hybrid coupled model reaches a steady state with a climate close to the one of the fully coupled climate model, and the two models also have a similar response (collapse) of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation to a freshwater hosing applied in the northern North Atlantic.