Forcing Variations
7.1 The Buoyancy Experiments
7.1.1 Labrador Sea Salinity
It seems to be straightforward that adding salt to the surface waters of the Labrador Sea triggers a strengthening of the Noith Atlantic MOC. It weakens the stratification and hence leads to an intensification of the convective activity. The threshold value needed to increase deep water production appears to be rather low. There is no significant dif- ference in the strength of the NADW cell between runs LAB+ (+0.5 psu: 31.2 Sv) and LAB++ (+1 psu: 30.8 Sv). Both show a small cell with positive anomalies close to the southem slope of the Greenland-Scotland-Ridge, with an adjacent small negative anomaly (Fig. 7.3). This indicates a northward shift of the overturning cell for these experiments.
The entire cell south of 40° is strengthened resulting in an intensified cross-equatorial transport. At the Same time the cell extends to greater depths (almost 3.5 km instead of little more than 2.5 km in the control run (Fig. 4.5). The altered overturning cells have a direct effect on the temperature and salinity fields of the Atlantic Ocean. As can be Seen from the zonally averaged sections of Fig. 7.4 the ocean at intermediate depths becomes colder and fresher. This is due to a subduction of Labrador Sea surface water that is cold and fresh compared to these depths. As the overtuming cell now reaches deeper, Labrador Sea surface water is transported also into depths below 3 km. There it causes the deep ocean to become warmer and saltier. The effect of the strengthening of the AABW cell in the LAB++ case (approximately 0.3 Sv according to Table 7.1) can not be detected in temperature and salinity of the deep ocean as the increase of the NADW cell (by 6 Sv) is predominant there. The changes in the characteristics of the upper 1000 m can be explained by a shift of the pycnocline induced by changed upwelling and the strenger intrusion of subpolar mode waters. For LAB-- the deviations from the control run are small. There is a negative anomaly in the meridional overturning south of the Greenland- Scotland-Ridge (Fig. 7.3, bottom). This indicates a weaker overturning, which in tum leads to a weak temperature decrease in deeper layers (not shown). There is no salinity signal for that case.
In run LAB++ the changes of the barotropic mass transport streamfunction are domi- nated by the weakening of the ACC transport (Fig. 7.5). There is no instantaneous reaction
Figure 7.3: Mean meridional overtuming streamfunction for the Atlantic in Sv - deviations from mn CTRL; Integration years 4900 to 4999 for runs LAB++ (upper), LAB+ (middle) and LAB-- (lower panel). Contour interval is 1 Sv.
7.1 The Buovancv Experiments
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Figure 7.4: Atlantic zonal mean of potential temperature (top) and salinity (bottom); deviations of run LAB++ from CTRL; integration years 4900 to 4999. Contour intemal is 0.2OC and 0.02 psu, respectively.
of the streamfunction to the alteration in salinity restoring, but a gradual dirninishing. Af- ter 110 years (top of Fig. 7.5) no coherent trend for the ACC as a whole can be described.
A weak wave-like pattern of negative anomalies has forrned. After 310 years (middle) the single patches have merged and form a circumpolar structure that intensifies over the next 200 years (bottom). This Pattern then persists during the further integration. Outside the Southern Ocean, there is a positive anomaly at the source region of the disturbance, which decreases the strength of the cyclonic cell existing there, thereby deviating parts of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current (Fig. 7.6). The surface waters are now transported directly into the Labrador Sea to feed the strengthened NADW cell. The LAB-- experiment shows only minor changes in the streamfunction (not shown). There is no clear signal of a strengthening of the ACC. Its centennial mean value exceeds that of the control run by less than 1% after 1500 years of integration. There is a very weak wave-like pattern with a similar structure as that of Fig. 7.5 (middle) for single years, but in centennial means this pattern is not visible.
The temporal evolution of the main characteristics of the global and Atlantic Ocean circulation after introducing the anomalies is illustrated in Fig. 7.7. On the left deviations
1 10 years
3 10 years
Longi tude
5 10 years
Figure 7.5: Mean barotropic mass transport streamfunction; deviations of run LAB++ from CTRL; annual means for Integration years 110 (top), 310 (middle) and 510 (bottom) after in- troduction of the salinity anomaly. Contour intemal is 2 Sv; the 0 Sv contour is suppressed.
7.1 The Buovancv Exoeriments
Longitude Longitude
Figure 7.6: Surface velocities in the North Atlantic; runs LAB++ (left) and CTRL (right); mean over integration years 4900 to 4999; the reference arrows represent 5 c d s .
- 5 0 ~ ' " " ' " ' ' ~
Figure 7.7: Temporal evolution of deviations
'
(dotted black), Atlantic (solid grey) and global AABW (dotted grey). NADW, ACC and (Atlantic) AABW are defined as in Table 7.1; global AABW: amount of the minimum of the global over- tuming streamfunction below 300 m depth. Top: LAB++; bottom: LAB--. Left: annual means for the first 110 years after introduction of the anomalies; right: 50 years mnning averages for the integration years 3490 to 4000; scales are different between the plots; note that the dotted black ACC curve meets the abscissa or is close to it during most of the time.of annual means from the control run for the first 110 years after switching o n the anoma- 79
lies are displayed; the right panels show 50 years running averages for the first 510 years.
In both plots the deviations are in % relative to the control run. For the LAB++ experiment (upper panels) an instantaneous reaction of the NADW strength (solid black line) can be seen with an intensification of the streamfunction maximum by almost 70%, followed by a smooth decline to its final value of 25% 500 years later. The absolute value of the deep minimum of the overtuming streamfunction in the Atlantic Ocean represents the maxi- mum strength of the AABW in this basin, which is located in the northern hemisphere.
Its reaction has a delay of about 10 years (solid grey line) compared to the NADW signal and shows an intense peak with an amplification by almost 200% after 20 years. In the Course of the integration it reaches an increase in the order of magnitude of the NADW signal. It should be kept in mind that in the control run the strength of the AABW cell is less than 2 Sv, while the NADW value almost reaches 25 Sv. Furthermore, there is vari- ability on a number of different time scales superimposed on this signal. A sirnilar degree of variability can be found in the global AABW extremum (defined as the absolute value of the minimum of the global vertical overtuming streamfunction below 300 m depth which typically is located south of 40's - displayed by the dotted grey curve). It takes 30 years before a deviation from the control sun becomes noticeable. The signal in the Drake Passage throughflow (dotted black line) is more steady showing a continuous de- crease of the ACC strength. The LAB+ experiment shows characteristics and amplitudes similar to those of LAB++ (not shown). For the LAB-- experiment the amplitudes of the deviations are far weaker than for the runs with positive salinity anomalies. The outstand- ing peaks of the first years in the LAB++ case are not present. Except for NADW, which shows a decrease of about 5%, the deviations oscillate around Zero. Fig. 7.7 indicates that the global and the Atlantic AABW signals are out of phase.
The mechanism revealed by the Labrador Sea experiments can be described as fol- lows: introduction of additional salt into the surface layer of the Labrador Sea destabilizes the water column. An unstable water column triggers additional convection, strengthens the deep water production, and deepens the meridional overtuming cell. The altered den- sity structure changes the ambient conditions in the intermediate and deep layers of the Atlantic Ocean. In a first phase the Atlantic branch of the AABW intensifies and then col- lapses. Then the AABW cell slowly re-establishes. The density anomalies are advected southwards with the Atlantic conveyor and subsequently change the water mass properties in the southern hemisphere. The altered structure of the deep density field with decreased meridional gradients in turn changes the magnitude of water mass transport in the ACC.
The experiment with the negative salinity anomaly in the Labrador Sea does not show substantial changes in the circulation pattems and water mass properties. Theoretically, a freshwater injection into the ocean (which the negative salinity anomaly amounts to) stabilizes the water column, thereby weakening andlor hindering deep water forrnation.
This does not take place in the LAB-- experiment. The explanation is that the model's deep water formation region was not met with the grid boxes chosen'. As there is only little to no deep water forrned in this region, it is obvious than it can not be diminished by stabilizing the stratification. The effect of a slight weakening of the NADW cell that can be Seen from the lower graphs of Fig. 7.7 is then to be explained by the advection of the less saltier water masses to the adjacent convection sites with subsequent stabilization of the stratification there.
'This was not realized before the model integration had been carried out completely. As another run (WED--) that included the desired effect of slowing down deep water production was successful, I decided to keep LAB-- even if its results highlight different mechanisms than those originally in mind.
7.1 The Buoyancy Experiments