Determination of water component age in ocean models: application to the fate of North Atlantic Deep Water |
| |
| Authors: | Anthony C Hirst |
| |
| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 164 West Xingang Road, Guangzhou 510301, China;2. Graduate School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;3. School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA;1. Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal;2. Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal;1. Department ICEA, University of Padova, Via Loredan 20, Padova, Italy;2. International Center for Tidal Hidro- and Morphodynamics, University of Padova, Italy;1. School of Marine Science, SunYat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Coastal Engineering, Guangzhou 510275, China;3. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Climate Change and Natural Disaster Studies, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;4. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, 1208 Greate Road, Gloucester Point, VA 23062, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | A method allowing the calculation of both concentration and age of an individual water component is used to examine the penetration and fate of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) in a global ocean model. The method is consistent with the recent theory of water component age by Delhez et al. Its application in ocean models is straightforward and involves specification of two ideal tracers, and its efficacy is verified here via comparison with water component ages obtained by a second method, involving the time history of a single ideal tracer, and whose application is rather more restricted. Age estimates by the two methods are compared in the case of an interior ocean source region (suitable for marking the model's NADW, and forming the main focus of the study) and in the case of a ocean surface source region (featuring high density surface water in the far Northern Atlantic). The concentration and age of NADW are determined for two versions of the model, differing only in the inclusion or exclusion of isoneutral diffusion. The age and, especially, the concentration of NADW in the deep Southern, Indian and Pacific Oceans are significantly lower in the version with isoneutral diffusion. Both versions indicate that most of the NADW ultimately reaches the surface in the model Southern Ocean. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
