Paola Cessi

Symmetry-Breaking Multiple Equilibria in Quasigeostrophic, Wind-Driven Flows

Abstract The classical Munk problem of barotropic flow driven by an antisymmetric wind stress exhibits multiple steady solutions in the range of moderate to high forcing and moderate to low dissipation. Everywhere in the parameter space a perfectly antisymmetric solution exists in which the strength of the cyclonic gyre is equal and opposite to that of the anticyclonic gyre. This kind of solution has been well documented in the literature. In a subset of the parameter a pair of nonsymmetric stationary solutions coexists with the antisymmetric solution. For one member of the pair the amplitude of the cyclonic circulation exceeds that of the anticyclonic flow. The other member of the pair is obtained from the quasigeostrophic symmetry y→&minusy and ψ→−ψ. As a result, the point at which the western boundary current separates from the coast can be either south or north of the latitude at which the antisymmetric Ekman pumping changes sign. This is the first oceanogrphic example of spontaneous breaking of the q...

Decadal Oceanic Response to Stochastic Wind Forcing

Abstract The low-frequency linear eigenmodes of the reduced-gravity shallow-water equations with weak friction are calculated numerically and using an analytic approximation. For basins with a large variation of the Coriolis parameter, large-scale eigenmodes emerge: the eigenfrequencies are integer multiples of the frequency for the gravest mode, which, in turn, has a period given by the transit time of the slowest long Rossby wave. The e-folding decay times are comparable to the period and independent of friction. These eigenmodes are excited by stochastic wind forcing and this leads to a weak peak in the spectral response near the frequency of the least-damped eigenmode. This decadal-frequency peak is most evident on the eastern and western boundaries and in the equatorial region of the basin.

What Sets the Strength of the Middepth Stratification and Overturning Circulation in Eddying Ocean Models

Abstract The processes maintaining stratification in the oceanic middepth (between approximately 1000 and 3000 m) are explored using an eddy-resolving general circulation model composed of a two-hemisphere, semienclosed basin with a zonal reentrant channel in the southernmost eighth of the domain. The middepth region lies below the wind-driven main thermocline but above the diffusively driven abyssal ocean. Here, it is argued that middepth stratification is determined primarily in the model’s Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Competition between mean and eddy overturning in the channel leads to steeper isotherms and thus deeper stratification throughout the basin than would exist without the channel. Isotherms that outcrop only in the channel are nearly horizontal in the semienclosed portion of the domain, whereas isotherms that also outcrop in the Northern Hemisphere deviate from horizontal and are accompanied by geostrophically balanced meridional transport. A northern source of deep water (water with temp...

A Simple Box Model of Stochastically Forced Thermohaline Flow

Abstract A modified Stommel two-box model is considered as a minimal representation of the buoyancy-driven ocean circulation. In the limit of fast temperature relaxation only the salinity evolves in time while the temperature is clamped to the prescribed ambient value. The box model has no intrinsic variability: just two linearly stable and one unstable equilibria. A finite perturbation is needed to shift the system from one stable equilibrium to the other. The minimum amplitude and duration in time of the perturbation are calculated. A stochastic component of the freshwater flux forcing is then added to model the effect of changes in the global hydrological cycle due to the “weather.” The stochastic forcing is a source of extrinsic time dependence. The salinity gradient obeys an equation analogous to the trajectory of a viscous particle in a double-welled potential, subject to Brownian agitation. If the amplitude of the stochastic driving is above a certain threshold, then there is a finite probability o...

A Model of the Inertial Recirculation Driven by Potential Vorticity Anomalies

Abstract Some essential features of a recirculating inertial gyre (the “recirculation”) can be analyzed with a very simple, analytically tractable model. In wind-driven eddy-resolving general circulation models the recirculation appears as a strong sub-basin-scale inertial flow with homogeneous potential vorticity. The constant value of potential vorticity decreases with increasing forcing/dissipation ratio while the size and the strength of the recirculating gyre increases. In the subtropical gyre the recirculating gyre might be driven by anomalous values of low potential vorticity carried northward by the western boundary current. We have modeled this process using a barotropic model and prescribing the values of potential vorticity at the edge of the gyre. Our model gyre is contained in a rectangular box in an attempt to simplify the geometry as much as possible and to isolate the processes occurring in the recirculating region. With weak diffusion the prescribed boundary forcing induces a flow with co...

Multiple equilibria in two-dimensional thermohaline circulation

As a model of the thermohaline circulation of the ocean we study the two-dimensional Boussinesq equations forced by prescribing the surface temperature and the surface salinity flux. We simplify the equations of motion using an expansion based on the small aspect ratio of the domain. The result is an amplitude equation governing the evolution of the depth averaged salinity field. This amplitude equation has multiple, linearly stable equilibria.

Dissipative Selection of Low-Frequency Modes in a Reduced-Gravity Basin

The spectrum of linear free modes of a reduced-gravity ocean in a closed basin with weak dissipation is examined. The constraint of total mass conservation, which in the quasigeostrophic formulation determines the pressure on the boundary as a function of time, allows the existence of selected large-scale, low-frequency basin modes that are very weakly damped in the presence of dissipation. These weakly damped modes can be quasi-resonantly excited by time-dependent forcing near the eigenperiods, or during the process of adjustment to Sverdrup balance with a steady wind from arbitrary initial conditions. In both cases the frequency of the oscillations is a multiple of 2 p /t 0, where t 0 is the long Rossby wave transit time, which is of the order of decades for midlatitude, large-scale basins. These oscillatory modes are missed when the global mass conservation constraint is overlooked.

Thermal feedback on wind stress as a contributing cause of climate variability

A model that isolates the interaction between midlatitude ocean gyres and the wind stress due to atmospheric baroclinic eddies is formulated. The ocean and atmosphere are coupled through their respective heat balances and global heat and momentum conservations are enforced. The ocean flow creates a steep oceanic thermal front at the midlatitude intergyre boundary. This frontogenesis sharpens the atmospheric temperature gradients and locally increases the atmospheric eddy heat transport. The result is a well-defined storm track that, because of the delayed adjustment of the gyres to the wind stress, oscillates in time with a period of about 18 yr.

The Adiabatic Pole-to-Pole Overturning Circulation

AbstractThe adiabatic pole-to-pole cell of the residual overturning circulation (ROC) is studied in a two-hemisphere, semienclosed basin, with a zonally reentrant channel occupying the southernmost eighth of the domain. Three different models of increasing complexity are used: a simple, analytically tractable zonally averaged model; a coarse-resolution numerical model with parameterized eddies; and an eddy-resolving general circulation model. Two elements are found to be necessary for the existence of an adiabatic pole-to-pole cell: 1) a thermally indirect, wind-driven overturning circulation in the zonally reentrant channel, analogous to the Deacon cell in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) region, and 2) a set of outcropping isopycnals shared between the channel and the semienclosed region of the Northern Hemisphere. These points are supported by several computations varying the domain geometry, the surface buoyancy distribution, and the wind forcing. All three models give results that are qualitat...

Topographic Enhancement of Eddy Efficiency in Baroclinic Equilibration

AbstractThe processes that determine the depth of the Southern Ocean thermocline are considered. In existing conceptual frameworks, the thermocline depth is determined by competition between the mean and eddy heat transport, with a contribution from the interaction with the stratification in the enclosed portion of the ocean. Using numerical simulations, this study examines the equilibration of an idealized circumpolar current with and without topography. The authors find that eddies are much more efficient when topography is present, leading to a shallower thermocline than in the flat case. A simple quasigeostrophic analytical model shows that the topographically induced standing wave increases the effective eddy diffusivity by increasing the local buoyancy gradients and lengthening the buoyancy contours across which the eddies transport heat. In addition to this local heat flux intensification, transient eddy heat fluxes are suppressed away from the topography, especially upstream, indicating that local...