Ocean Thermohaline Circulation

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Ocean Thermohaline Circulation

• Gerrit Lohmann
• 11 Jan 2007 _at_pep.University of Bremen, Germany

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Bipolar seesaw the view from polar ice cores
(Blunier Brook, 2001)
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Ocean Circulation Methaphor
conversion
surface
deep
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Stommel (1961) Box Model
Heat, freshwater surface fluxes
Z Depth
Y meridional direction
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Stommel (1961) Box Model
Heat, freshwater surface fluxes
Z Depth
Y meridional direction
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Upstream scheme

• Local terms (heat freshwater fluxes)
• Transport term (advection)
• dT1/dt q/V T2
• dT2/dt q/V T1

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advection
Surface fluxes
noise
Temperature
Salinity
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Salinity loop

• S1 low
• Rho1 low
• q low
• q S2 low
• S1 low
• -------------
• Positive feedback

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Stommel (1961) box model
On-mode
Off-mode
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z
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Box Models

• Stommels model was almost completey ignored (25
  years)
• Rooth, 1982 Two hemisphere counterpart
• Unaware of Stommel (1961) model
• Rooth suggested to F. Bryan test with a GCM

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