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| Titel |
Monitoring Atlantic overturning circulation and transport variability with GRACE-type ocean bottom pressure observations – a sensitivity study |
| VerfasserIn |
K. Bentel, F. W. Landerer, C. Boening |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1812-0784
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Ocean Science ; 11, no. 6 ; Nr. 11, no. 6 (2015-12-11), S.953-963 |
| Datensatznummer |
250117332
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/os-11-953-2015.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a key mechanism for
large-scale northward heat transport and thus plays an important role for
global climate. Relatively warm water is transported northward in the upper
layers of the North Atlantic Ocean and, after cooling at subpolar latitudes,
sinks down and is transported back south in the deeper limb of the AMOC. The
utility of in situ ocean bottom pressure (OBP) observations to infer AMOC
changes at single latitudes has been characterized in the recent literature using
output from ocean models. We extend the analysis and examine the utility of
space-based observations of time-variable gravity and the inversion for ocean
bottom pressure to monitor AMOC changes and variability between 20
and 60° N. Consistent with previous results, we find a strong
correlation between the AMOC signal and OBP variations, mainly along the
western slope of the Atlantic Basin. We then use synthetic OBP data –
smoothed and filtered to resemble the resolution of the GRACE (Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment) gravity mission, but without errors – and
reconstruct geostrophic AMOC transport. Due to the coarse resolution of
GRACE-like OBP fields, we find that leakage of signal across the step slopes
of the ocean basin is a significant challenge at certain latitudes.
Transport signal rms is of a similar order of magnitude as error rms for
the reconstructed time series. However, the interannual AMOC anomaly time
series can be recovered from 20 years of monthly GRACE-like OBP fields with
errors less than 1 sverdrup in many locations. |
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