The CANALES experiment (1996-1998). Interannual, seasonal, and mesoscale variability of the circulation in the Balearic Channels

Repeated hydrographic casts, mooring time series and satellite sea surface temperature collected during the CANALES experiment (1996–98) are used to describe the thermohaline circulation in the Balearic Channels (western Mediterranean) and to analyze its variability. Mass transports are estimated by inverse calculations. The role played by each channel in the meridional water exchange is clarified: the Ibiza Channel funnels southward cool, saline, northern waters whereas the Mallorca Channel appears as the preferred route for the northward progression of warm, fresh, southern waters. A neat interannual trend is revealed by the continuous decrease of the amount of Western Mediterranean Intermediate Waters (WIW) brought by the Northern Current, reflecting the increase in temperature of the winter mixed layer in the northern Mediterranean that occurred each year between 1996 and 1998. A clear seasonal signal was also seen in the transport of the Northern Current which decreased from 1 to 1.4 Sv in winter to < 0.5 Sv in summer. The current intensified again in fall. A number of mesoscale eddies, from 20 to 70 km in size, most of them anticyclonic vortex eddies were brought by the unstable Northern Current, these eddies strongly perturbed the water exchange in the Ibiza Channel forcing retroflections of northern waters back to the north-east into the Balearic Current. These eddies either stayed stalled for several months in the Gulf of Valencia to the north of the channel, or were slowly funnelled southward through the channel narrows. A decreasing trend was observed in the mesoscale activity of the Northern Current between 1996 and 1998. Conversely, large, anticyclonic eddies, 150-km diameter, progressively invaded the Algerian Basin to the south of the channels in 1997–98 and forcing northward inflows (up to 0.75 Sv) of fresh and warm waters of Atlantic origin (AW) into the Mallorca Channel. The marked interannual differences observed in both northern and southern eddy activity may be linked to the interannual variability of the large scale thermohaline circulation.     

Recovery of thermohaline circulation under CO2 stabilization and overshoot scenarios

In this study we examine the behavior of the thermohaline circulation, as simulated by the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3), for several centuries following CO₂ stabilization for the SRES B1 and A1B scenarios and for an “overshoot” scenario in which CO₂ levels temporarily reach the same level as in the A1B scenario before declining to an ultimate stabilization level that is identical to the B1 case. While we find no evidence for irreversible changes of the thermohaline circulation in the overshoot experiment, the interplay of the different timescales of the temperature response of the surface and interior ocean does lead to a number of differences in the long-term response of the ocean between it and the B1 stabilization scenario where the same GHG levels are approached by different paths. The stronger initial warming and its slow penetration into the deeper ocean, followed by a transient surface cooling in the overshoot scenario leads to lower static stability, deeper mixing, and a more rapid recovery of the thermohaline circulation than in the B1 stabilization scenario. While the overshoot scenario recovers surface conditions (e.g. SST, sea ice extent) very similar to the B1 scenario shortly after reaching the same GHG levels, the additional accumulation of heat in the interior ocean during the period of higher forcing causes the global mean ocean temperature and steric sea level to remain higher than in the B1 stabilization scenario for at least another several centuries.     

Sensitivity of a global ocean model to increased run-off from Greenland

We study the reaction of a global ocean–sea ice model to an increase of fresh water input into the northern North Atlantic under different surface boundary conditions, ranging from simple restoring of surface salinity to the use of an energy balance model (EBM) for the atmosphere. The anomalous fresh water flux is distributed around Greenland, reflecting increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet and increasing fresh water export from the Arctic Ocean. Depending on the type of surface boundary condition, the large circulation reacts with a slow-down of overturning and gyre circulations. Restoring of the total or mean surface salinity prevents a large scale redistribution of the salinity field that is apparent under mixed boundary conditions and with the EBM. The control run under mixed boundary conditions exhibits large and unrealistic oscillations of the meridional overturning. Although the reaction to the fresh water flux anomaly is similar to the response with the EBM, mixed boundary conditions must thus be considered unreliable. With the EBM, the waters in the deep western boundary current initially become saltier and a new fresh water mass forms in the north-eastern North Atlantic in response to the fresh water flux anomaly around Greenland. After an accumulation period of several decades duration, this new North East Atlantic Intermediate Water spreads towards the western boundary and opens a new southward pathway at intermediate depths along the western boundary for the fresh waters of high northern latitudes.     

The role of diapycnal mixing for the equilibrium response of thermohaline circulation

Using a zonally averaged, one-hemispheric numerical model of the thermohaline circulation, the dependence of the overturning strength on the surface equator-to-pole density difference is investigated. It is found that the qualitative behavior of the thermohaline circulation depends crucially on the nature of the small-scale vertical mixing in the interior of the ocean. Two different representations of this process are considered: constant vertical diffusivity and the case where the rate of mixing energy supply is taken to be a fixed quantity, implying that the vertical diffusivity decreases with increasing stability of the water column. When the stability-dependent diffusivity parameterization is applied, a weaker density difference is associated with a stronger circulation, contrary to the results for a fixed diffusivity. A counterintuitive consequence of the stability-dependent mixing is that the poleward atmospheric freshwater flux, which acts to reduce the thermally imposed density contrast, strengthens the thermally dominated circulation and its attendant poleward heat transport. However, for a critical value of the freshwater forcing, the thermally dominated branch of steady states becomes unstable, and is succeeded by strongly time-dependent states that oscillate between phases of forward and partly reversed circulation. When a constant vertical diffusivity is employed, on the other hand, the thermally dominated circulation is replaced by a steady salinity-dominated state with reversed flow. Thus in this model, the features of the vertical mixing are essential for the steady-state response to freshwater forcing as well as for the character of flow that is attained when the thermally dominated circulation becomes unstable.Responsible Editor: Jin-Song von Storch     

Variation in upwelling intensity along the NorthWest Iberian Peninsula (Galicia)

Thermohaline variables were simultaneously measured, July 17, 2000, at four Galician rias under favourable upwelling conditions to analyse upwelling intensity. The intensity of coastal upwelling is shown to be strongly dependent on the wind pattern. The maximum amplitudes of wind stress were observed at the western coast (0.30 Nm^-2) with southward direction (favourable to upwelling) and these are shown to be related to low temperature (12°C) and high salinity (35.8) in the estuaries mouth. From Cape Finisterre to Cape Estaca de Bares the wind stress showed a lower magnitude (0.05-0.10 Nm^-2) with a direction oblique to the coast. The temperature showed an increase (14°C) and the salinity a decrease (35.4) because the lower upwelling intensity at this part of the coast. The observed decrease in upwelling from south to north is not an isolated event, since the measured wind conditions are persistent during summer months, at least in the period with available QuikSCAT data (1999-2004).     

大洋温盐环流的稳定性及变率模拟研究进展

围绕大洋温盐环流的稳定性和变率,以三维原始方程大洋环流模式（OGCM）和海气耦合模式为重点,兼顾理想概念模式,总结了近年来模拟研究的主要成果。概括了几个主要前沿方向——大洋温盐环流的多平衡态现象、数十年／年代际变率以及百年到千年尺度的变率特性等的研究成果,探讨了其内部机制。     

Earthquakes as a potential contributing factor to climate change at multi-decadal scale

Climate changes at the multi-decadal scale are often associated with multi-decadal phase shifts of the dominant sea surface temperature （SST） pattern, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation （PDO）. The PDO may be associated with the North Pacific branch of the Thermohaline Circulation （THC）. Great earthquakes （M 〉8）, particularly along the route of the THC, might modulate the vertical mixing and bring deep, cold water to surface, contributing to multi-decadal changes in surface currents and the PDO. This may eventually lead to multi-decadal climate changes. We tested this hypothesis for the Pacific Ocean where great earthquakes have been frequently recorded. We found associations between the PDO and recurrent earthquakes along the route of the deep currents of the THC in the modern period since 1900, and relationships between hydroclimate change in Monsoonal Asia and historical earthquakes since 1300. However, it should be noted that this hypothesis is very preliminary and has many gaps that needs further evidences from more observational records and modeling studies.     

Surface and deep water response to rapid climate changes at the Western Iberian Margin

Rapid climate changes at the onset of the last deglaciation and during Heinrich Event H4 were studied in detail at IMAGES cores MD95-2039 and MD95-2040 from the Western Iberian margin. A major reorganisation of surface water hydrography, benthic foraminiferal community structure, and deepwater isotopic composition commenced already 540 years before the Last Isotopic Maximum (LIM) at 17.43 cal. ka and within 670 years affected all environments. Changes were initiated by meltwater spill in the Nordic Seas and northern North Atlantic that commenced 100 years before concomitant changes were felt off western Iberia. Benthic foraminiferal associations record the drawdown of deepwater oxygenation during meltwater and subsequent Heinrich Events H1 and H4 with a bloom of dysoxic species. At a water depth of 3380 m, benthic oxygen isotopes depict the influence of brines from sea ice formation during ice-rafting pulses and meltwater spill. The brines conceivably were a source of ventilation and provided oxygen to the deeper water masses. Some if not most of the lower deep water came from the South Atlantic. Benthic foraminiferal assemblages display a multi-centennial, approximately 300-year periodicity of oxygen supply at 2470-m water depth. This pattern suggests a probable influence of atmospheric oscillations on the thermohaline convection with frequencies similar to Holocene climate variations. For Heinrich Events H1 and H4, response times of surface water properties off western Iberia to meltwater injection to the Nordic Seas were extremely short, in the range of a few decades only. The ensuing reduction of deepwater ventilation commenced within 500–600 years after the first onset of meltwater spill. These fast temporal responses lend credence to numerical simulations that indicate ocean–climate responses on similar and even faster time scales.     

Economic impacts on key Barents Sea fisheries arising from changes in the strength of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation

A bioeconomic model of key fisheries of the Barents Sea is run with scenarios generated by an earth system model of intermediate complexity to assess how the Barents Sea fisheries of cod (Gadus morhua) and capelin (Mallotus villosus) are affected by changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) arising from anthropogenic climate change. Changes in hydrographic conditions have an impact on recruitment success and survival rates, which constitute a lasting effect on the stocks. The economic development of the fisheries is determined for the 21st century, considering a purely stock size based and a coupled stock size-hydrography based harvesting strategy. Results show that a substantial weakening of the THC leads to impaired cod stock development, causing the associated fishery to become unprofitable in the long run. Simultaneous improvements in capelin stock development help the capelin fishery, but are insufficient to offset the losses incurred by the cod fishery. A comparison of harvest strategies reveals that in times of high variability in stock development, coupled stock size-hydrography based management leads to more stable economic results of these fisheries than the stock size based fishing strategy.     

Abrupt climate changes: from the past to the future – a review

 A review of climatic variability is given with a focus on abrupt changes during the last glacial. Evidence from palaeoclimatic archives suggests that these were most likley due to reorganisations of the atmosphere–ocean system. The mechanisms responsible for these changes are presented. Their implication for future climate changes is discussed in light of recent climate model simulations. Received: 24 June 1998 / Accepted: 27 November 1998