12 research outputs found
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Heat and mass balances of the South Atlantic Ocean calculated from a numerical model
The general circulation model of Bryan (1969), modified by the introduction of open boundary
conditions at the Drake Passage and between Africa and Antarctica, has been used to study the mass
and heat budgets of the South Atlantic Ocean. The model was initialized with the climatological annual
mean values of temperature and salinity of Levitus (1982) and forced at its surface with the
climatological wind stress data of Hellernian and Rosenstein (1983). After 3 years of integration the
model reached a quasi-stationary state. A heat balance shows that the model transports 0.19 PW of
heat toward the north across 30°S. While a large part of this heat is supplied by the atmosphere and
involves the conversion of intermediate waters into surface waters, a comparison with climatological
data of atmospheric heat fluxes suggests that an extra source of heat is necessary to maintain the
northward heat flux.Copyrighted by American Geophysical Union
El Niño and the delayed action oscillator
We study the dynamics of the El Niño phenomenon using the mathematical model of delayedaction oscillator (DAO). Topics such as the influence of the annual cycle, global warming, stochastic influences due to weather conditions and even off-equatorial heat-sinks can all be discussed using only modest analytical and numerical resources. Thus the DAO allows for a pedagogical introduction to the science of El Niño and La Niña while at the same time avoiding the need for large-scale computing resources normally associated with much more sophisticated coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models. It is an approach which is ideally suited for student projects both at high school and undergraduate level