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| Titel |
Decadal covariability of the Deep Western Boundary Current and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation |
| VerfasserIn |
Charlotte Mielke, Stefan Gary, Johanna Baehr |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250109428
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-9335.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| We investigate the decadal variability of the North Atlantic Deep Western Boundary Current
(DWBC), its meridional coherence and relation to the Atlantic meridional overturning
circulation (AMOC) in a high-resolution ocean model. The modeled DWBC is defined after a
comparison of model results of both scalar quantities and integrated transports to
observations, and its mean and the structure of its temporal variability correspond well to
observations.
We find that the DWBC exhibits multidecadal variability, which is mostly coherent
between 26°N and 53°N, and is closely related to the negative integrated wind stress
curl at the western boundary, particularly in the subtropical gyre. This implies that
the DWBC and the AMOC show opposing behavior if the western boundary and
basin interior wind stress curl anomalies are of opposite sign. The relation is thus
non-stationary.
Our results suggest that – on decadal timescales – both the AMOC and the
DWBC at one latitude are representative of the variability of the same quantity
over a wide range of adjacent latitudes. However, observations of the DWBC can
only be used as a proxy for the AMOC variability if the boundary and basin-wide
wind stress curl are in phase. This indicates that observations of the DWBC cannot
easily be used as a shortcut to obtain an estimate of the decadal AMOC variability. |
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