Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection

©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Convection penetrates to the ocean bottom in the North Atlantic but not in the North Pacific. This study examines the role of basin width in shutting down high-latitude ocean convection. Deep convection is triggered by polar cooling, but it is...

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Main Authors: Youngs, Madeleine K, Ferrari, Raffaele, Flierl, Glenn R
Other Authors: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133794
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author Youngs, Madeleine K
Ferrari, Raffaele
Flierl, Glenn R
author2 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
author_facet Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Youngs, Madeleine K
Ferrari, Raffaele
Flierl, Glenn R
author_sort Youngs, Madeleine K
collection MIT
description ©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Convection penetrates to the ocean bottom in the North Atlantic but not in the North Pacific. This study examines the role of basin width in shutting down high-latitude ocean convection. Deep convection is triggered by polar cooling, but it is opposed by precipitation. A two-layer analytical model illustrates that the overturning circulation acts to mitigate the effect of precipitation by advecting salty, dense water from subtropical latitudes to polar latitudes. The nonlinear dependence of the overturning strength on basin width makes it more efficient in a narrow basin, resulting in a convection shutdown at a stronger freshwater forcing. These predictions are confirmed by simulations with a general circulation model configured with a single closed basin to the north and a reentrant channel to the south. This suggests that basin width may play a role in suppressing convection in the North Pacific but not in the North Atlantic.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1337942024-01-05T21:42:09Z Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection Youngs, Madeleine K Ferrari, Raffaele Flierl, Glenn R Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences ©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Convection penetrates to the ocean bottom in the North Atlantic but not in the North Pacific. This study examines the role of basin width in shutting down high-latitude ocean convection. Deep convection is triggered by polar cooling, but it is opposed by precipitation. A two-layer analytical model illustrates that the overturning circulation acts to mitigate the effect of precipitation by advecting salty, dense water from subtropical latitudes to polar latitudes. The nonlinear dependence of the overturning strength on basin width makes it more efficient in a narrow basin, resulting in a convection shutdown at a stronger freshwater forcing. These predictions are confirmed by simulations with a general circulation model configured with a single closed basin to the north and a reentrant channel to the south. This suggests that basin width may play a role in suppressing convection in the North Pacific but not in the North Atlantic. 2021-10-27T19:56:42Z 2021-10-27T19:56:42Z 2020 2021-09-16T14:18:19Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133794 en 10.1029/2020GL089135 Geophysical Research Letters Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Geophysical Union (AGU) MIT web domain
spellingShingle Youngs, Madeleine K
Ferrari, Raffaele
Flierl, Glenn R
Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title_full Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title_fullStr Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title_full_unstemmed Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title_short Basin‐Width Dependence of Northern Deep Convection
title_sort basin width dependence of northern deep convection
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133794
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