Effects of fluctuating daily surface fluxes on the time-mean oceanic circulation

The effect of fluctuating daily surface fluxes on the time-mean oceanic circulation is studied using an empirical flux model. The model produces fluctuating fluxes resulting from atmospheric variability and includes oceanic feedbacks on the fluxes. Numerical experiments were carried out by driving an ocean general circulation model with three different versions of the empirical model. It is found that fluctuating daily fluxes lead to an increase in the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic of about 1 Sv and a decrease in the Antarctic circumpolar current (ACC) of about 32 Sv. The changes are approximately 7% of the MOC and 16% of the ACC obtained without fluctuating daily fluxes. The fluctuating fluxes change the intensity and the depth of vertical mixing. This, in turn, changes the density field and thus the circulation. Fluctuating buoyancy fluxes change the vertical mixing in a non-linear way: they tend to increase the convective mixing in mostly stable regions and to decrease the convective mixing in mostly unstable regions. The ACC changes are related to the enhanced mixing in the subtropical and the mid-latitude Southern Ocean and reduced mixing in the high-latitude Southern Ocean. The enhanced mixing is related to an increase in the frequency and the depth of convective events. As these events bring more dense water downward, the mixing changes lead to a reduction in meridional gradient of the depth-integrated density in the Southern Ocean and hence the strength of the ACC. The MOC changes are related to more subtle density changes. It is found that the vertical mixing in a latitudinal strip in the northern North Atlantic is more strongly enhanced due to fluctuating fluxes than the mixing in a latitudinal strip in the South Atlantic. This leads to an increase in the density difference between the two strips, which can be responsible for the increase in the Atlantic MOC

Stochastic Parameterization Toward a New View of Weather and Climate Models

Peer reviewe

M2 Internal-Tide Generation in STORMTIDE2

Internal-tide generation has been quantified using both pressure work and energy conversion. When calculating the pressure work from simulated or observed data, the internal-tide pressure has to be decomposed from the full pressure, for which various options exist. We show that the conversion, that has to be derived from the depth-integrated energy equations, contains the work done by both the form drag at the bottom and that at the surface, with the latter being about 1% of the former. For calculating the pressure work, the internal-tide pressure identified as the deviation from the depth-averaged pressure perturbation has to be used. We analyzed the work done by the bottom form drag in STORMTIDE2, a concurrent simulation of circulations and tides. As expected, the identified internal-tide pressure reveals the characteristic pressure drop from the windward to the leeward side of an obstacle. The M2 internal-tide generation in STORMTIDE2 is more strongly controlled by the barotropic tide than by the topographic slope, partly because the tidal velocity can change up to one order of magnitude from the top to the foot of a high ridge within a short distance, a feature only produced by a high-resolution model. Consequently, the intense generation maps the immediate proximities of the summits of high ridges, making the global generation to be strongest near 1,200 m and decreasing drastically below 3,000 m. The depth structure of the generation differs in different basins, which could impact differently on circulations in different basins