We’re hosting a session at OSM24 on ocean physics and biogeochemistry in the subpolar North Atlantic and would love to get submissions from the OSNAP community. The abstract and session link are below:
The subpolar North Atlantic is a key region for regulating Earth’s climate which features strong ocean-atmosphere interaction and connects the upper and lower branches of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The progressive transformation from warm surface waters into North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and their subsequent equatorward spreading drives northward ocean heat transport, sequesters anthropogenic carbon, and oxygenates the deep ocean. Recent advances have significantly improved our understanding of sources of AMOC variability and spreading pathways of NADW, as well as the biogeochemical implications of both.
This session will highlight the latest research on ocean physics and biogeochemistry in the subpolar North Atlantic in a broad interdisciplinary setting. We invite contributions on a diverse set of topics including AMOC variability and its connection to Earth’s climate, the transport pathways and transformation of heat, freshwater, oxygen, nutrients and carbon throughout the basin, and their links to air-sea gas exchange, carbon sequestration, and the biological carbon pump. The session encourages submissions using the wealth of data from past and ongoing observational programs, such as OSNAP, OVIDE, AZOMP, and BGC-Argo, as well as studies using regional or global models.
Atlantic Overturning: New Observations and Challenges
The Royal Society meeting will take place on 5-6 December 2022, 09:00 – 17:00 (London Time). Both in-person and online attendance will be available.
Please note that the number of participants is limited. Thus, you will have to request an invitation in advance to attend.
Although speakers are by invitation, posters may be submitted. If you would like to apply to present a poster please submit your proposed title, abstract (not more than 200 words and in third person), author list, name of the proposed presenter and institution to the Scientific Programmes team no later than Monday 17 October 2022. Please include the text ‘Poster abstract submission’ in the email subject line.
The deadline to submit your abstract is *3 August (23:59 EDT/03:59 GMT)*, instructions are found here.
We hope to meet you virtually or in person in December. Please don’t hesitate to forward this call to other colleagues who may be interested.
Raquel, Elizabeth, Yao and Dariia
*OS026 – Variability and controls of ocean climate revealed by long-term multidisciplinary eulerian observatories*
The global ocean absorbs, stores, and redistributes vast amounts of heat and carbon and is therefore the main driver of climate regulation. It means that human-induced forcing is superimposed on ocean natural variability, and that this variable forcing involves complex interactions and feedbacks of physical, chemical and biological processes from the air-sea interface to the sea-floor. To understand these complex relationships between ocean processes, their forcings, and effects, long term time-series of Essential Ocean Variables (EOV) from fixed point (Eulerian) multidisciplinary observatories, monitoring processes that take place over much shorter periods of time, are critical.
In this session, we aim to share most recent research based on long term OceanSITES data sets or on long term time-series from eulerian multidisciplinary observatories not included in the network addressing air/sea exchange processes such as heat and freshwater fluxes, and ocean carbon and oxygen update; ocean transport, but also other biogeochemical, biological, and deep ocean processes. We welcome contributions which describe ocean variability at different time-scales from large-scale climatic fluctuations to hurricanes, and examine their governing mechanisms and environmental implications. Submissions focused on processes-oriented studies integrating different observing platforms (e.g. satellite, Argo floats, gliders, …) with long-term eulerian observation (moorings, ship-based time-series) are also encouraged as well as studies combining observations and modelling.
*Conveners:*Raquel Somavilla (Spanish Institute of Oceanography), Elizabeth Shadwick (CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research), Yao Fu (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Dariia Atamanchuk (Dalhousie University)
*Index Terms: *4215 Climate and interannual variability, 4805 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling, 4504 Air/sea interactions, 4532 General circulation
OSNAP-related presentations at the 2022 US AMOC Science Team Meeting can be found on the site linked below. We look forward to ‘seeing’ everyone and learning about the latest findings. If you have any edits or questions please contact Anne-Sophie Fortin (afortin3@gatech.edu).
OSNAP related presentations at OSM 2022 can be found on the site linked below. We look forward to ‘seeing’ everyone and learning about the latest findings. If you have any edits or questions please contact Anne-Sophie Fortin (afortin3@gatech.edu)
OSNAP related presentations at EGU 2021 can be found on the site linked below. We look forward to ‘seeing’ everyone, and learning about the latest findings. If you have any edits or questions please contact Sarah Clem (sarah.clem@duke.edu)
If you’re at Ocean Sciences this week, and curious to learn more about ongoing OSNAP research, there are numerous opportunities. Follow the link below to find a list of oral and poster presentations featuring OSNAP related topics:
We are want to draw your attention to the following session at the Ocean Sciences Meeting, 16-21 February 2020 in San Diego, CA. Abstracts can be submitted by visiting https://agu.confex.com/agu/osm20/prelim.cgi/Session/85893 until the submission deadline Wednesday, 11 September.
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Atlantic Ocean Variability in A Changing Climate: Observations, Modeling, and Theories
Description
By redistributing a large amount of heat and salt, the Atlantic Ocean significantly impacts regional and global climate over a wide range of time scales. In particular, the Atlantic has seen strong variations in the ocean heat and freshwater content over the past couple of decades, as well as in the uptake and storage of anthropogenic carbon, which has been attributed to changes in the ocean circulation, e.g., those related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). However, the mechanisms through which the ocean circulation changes (e.g., in the mean state and variability) and impacts the climate system (e.g., via a series of modes of variability such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability, the North Atlantic Oscillation), as well as the feedback, remain poorly understood. This session invites submissions that advance our understanding of the Atlantic Ocean variability, the role it plays in the atmosphere–ocean–sea-ice system, and its impact on the future climate. It aims to bring together recent progress in understanding the circulation and climate variability in the Atlantic sector from paleoclimate, historical and future perspectives. Studies utilizing observational, modeling and/or theoretical frameworks are all welcome.
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We very much hope to see you in San Diego.
Best regards,
Feili Li (Duke University)
Rohit Ghosh (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology)
Laifang Li (Duke University)
Dian Putrasahan (Max Planck Institute for Meterology)
Abstract: Changes in freshwater transport into the subpolar North Atlantic have the potential to disrupt or enhance the formation of dense water with subsequent impact on the meridional overturning circulation and associated ocean heat transport. Freshwater budget components in the subpolar North Atlantic include input from the atmosphere (precipitation vs evaporation, and river run-off), Greenland ice-sheet melt, saline subtropical water carried by the MOC, the dense overflow waters, and Arctic-origin freshwater carried by the shallow boundary currents that follow pathways west and east of Greenland. In this analysis we use a multi-decadal data set from the Labrador Shelf to characterise long-term variability in the transport of Arctic freshwater in the Labrador current. We first present evidence from an eddy-permitting global ocean circulation model to determine the origins of the water sampled by our time series. In particular we examine the dynamics of the currents on the Labrador Shelf in order to isolate the Arctic-origin water masses. We describe how we derive a 65-year record of changing Arctic freshwater transport from the observational data set. We will show that the multi-year changes in freshwater transport in the Labrador Current are consistent with independently-observed changes in subpolar freshwater storage.
Abstract: An international effort, Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), is a partnership among oceanographers from the US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and China whose goal is to measure and understand what drives the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its variability. With high-resolution mooring arrays from the Labrador coast to the Scottish shelf, OSNAP provides a continuous record of the full water column, trans-basin fluxes of heat, mass and freshwater in the subpolar North Atlantic and has been operational since 2014. Data from the first 21 months of the full OSNAP observing system has been used to produce the first continuous time series of these variables. In addition to these time series, time mean estimates for all fluxes and attendant uncertainties will be presented, along with comparisons with other contemporaneous AMOC measurements and a discussion of subpolar overturning variability.
Abstract: The international observational program, OSNAP (Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program) began in the summer of 2014 for the purpose of recording continuous trans-basin observations of volume, heat and freshwater. OSNAP will investigate the complex interplay between AMOC and gyre circulation, air-sea fluxes and ocean heat and freshwater transport convergence which presently lack observational evidence. The OSNAP array uses moored instruments, gliders and floats to measure velocity, temperature and salinity along a section from Canada to Greenland to Scotland. Here we present detailed views of the full-depth properties and velocity field from two high resolution hydrographic sections along the OSNAP line taken at the start of programme in June-July 2014 and during mooring turnaround cruises in May-August 2016. We derive estimates of the meridional overturning and gyre circulation and their components of heat and freshwater flux, finding that while the overturning dominates the heat flux, the freshwater flux is predominantly carried by the gyre. We show a notable difference in the magnitude of the overturning circulation and the heat and freshwater fluxes as measured by the two synoptic sections, and discuss how this relates to the associated differences in temperature, salinity and density fields.
Abstract: Since 2014, an array of current meters deployed as part of the OSNAP trans-basin observing system has provided new measurements of the southward flow of Iceland-Scotland Overflow water (ISOW) along the eastern flank of the Reykjanes Ridge in the Iceland Basin. The location of the array, near 58°N, captures the ISOW Deep Western Boundary Current at the farthest downstream location in the Iceland Basin before significant amounts of ISOW can flow into the Irminger Basin through deep fractures in the Reykjanes Ridge. The transport of the ISOW plume at this location – based on the first two years of OSNAP observations (July 2014 to July 2016) – is 5.8 ± 0.9 Sv for ?? >27.8. Most of this transport is carried in a main branch of the plume along the upper ridge crest in depths from 1400-2200 m. A secondary branch in depths of 2400-2700 m along the lower ridge crest carries about 1 Sv. The transport of the ISOW plume varies over a considerable range, from about 2-10 Sv on weekly to monthly time scales (std. dev. = 2.4 Sv); however the mean currents from two individual year-long deployments are very similar and indicate a robust mean flow structure. Watermass analysis of the plume from continuous temperature/salinity measurements shows that about 50% of the plume transport (2.6-3.0 Sv) is derived from pure Norwegian Sea Overflow waters (NSOW) – consistent with the amount of NSOW known to be flowing over the northern sills into the Iceland Basin – while the remainder is made up of approximately equal parts of entrained Labrador Sea Water and modified Atlantic thermocline waters. The observed ISOW transport at this location is larger by almost 2 Sv than previous values obtained farther north in the Iceland Basin, suggesting that either additional entrainment into the ISOW plume occurs as it approaches the southern tip of the Reykjanes Ridge, or that the previous measurements did not fully capture the plume transport.
Abstract: The “null-hypothesis” for sea surface temperature (SST) variability is that the ocean mixed layer integrates stochastic atmospheric forcing, leading to red SST spectra. According to this hypothesis, decorrelation timescales (e.g., e-folding timescales) of SST are a function of the mixed-layer depth (MLD) and the damping parameter. In this work we evaluate the ability of the null-hypothesis to explain interannual SST variations in the extra-tropical North Atlantic and North Pacific. First, we develop an idealized red-noise model of the mixed layer heat balance in the North Atlantic, in which the oceanic contribution is neglected in order to isolate the effects of atmospheric forcing. We evaluate the e-folding timescale in this model using observational datasets. Results suggest that in both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, e-folding timescales depend strongly on the mixed layer depth, but the relationship is stronger in the North Atlantic. Then, we use gridded ocean temperature observations to directly calculate the decorrelation timescales for both SST and upper-ocean heat content and compare these timescales to those predicted by our theoretical model. Regions where decorrelation timescales differ significantly from those predicted by our theoretical model indicate the importance of processes other than local atmospheric forcing, including reemergence of SST anomalies, ocean dynamics, and/or external forcing.
Abstract: The North Atlantic undergoes swings in sea-surface temperature (SST) on multidecadal timescales, with consequent impacts on the climate of adjacent land areas. Proposed mechanisms behind this Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) fall into two main categories: external forcing e.g. due to anthropogenic aerosols; or internal modes of variability e.g. involving the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). In either case the relationship between the changes in oceanic heat transport and the SST is not well understood. Here we develop a framework to investigate which physical processes determine SST variability on decadal to multidecadal timescales by evaluating contributions from the net ocean-atmosphere heat flux, the divergence of the temperature transport, and entrainment between the mixed layer and the layer beneath. We analyse the 300-year present-day control simulation of the HADGEM3-GC2 coupled climate model, which shows a 20-30 year AMV variability similar to that observed.
We find that the AMOC leads the AMV by ~5 years. The model suggests that a key process connecting the AMOC to the AMV is heat transport divergence into/out of the mixed layer. AMOC changes themselves are preceded by changes in the eddy heat transport divergence in the deep ocean on times scales of ~12 years.
Abstract: Recent studies have shown that a thermohaline coordinate system can be used to simplify the complex spatial structure of the global ocean circulation with minimal loss of information (e.g. Zika et al 2012, Groeskamp et al 2014). This thermohaline framework is particularly useful in studying the fluxes of heat and freshwater within the ocean, such as those associated with the AMOC.
In contribution to OSNAP we have developed a novel inverse method in thermohaline coordinates called the Regional Thermohaline Inverse Method (RTHIM). For a control volume, RTHIM invokes a balance between advection into the volume, fluxes of heat and freshwater through the surface, and interior mixing within the volume. Taking known surface fluxes and temperature-salinity distributions, RTHIM determines unknown section velocities and rates of interior mixing.
Using a 20-year mean of NEMO model data from 1988-2007, we have validated RTHIM for an Arctic control volume bounded to the south by a section at around 60°N by comparing section transports and interior mixing rates from the inverse solution with those diagnosed from the model. We find that the RTHIM solutions are robust to various model parameters and initial conditions. The MOC, heat and freshwater transports calculated from the RTHIM solutions are within 15%, 11% and 8%, respectively, of the NEMO ‘truth’. We also see good agreement between mixing rates obtained from the RTHIM solution and those diagnosed from the model.
Our aim is to construct a domain bounded by the OSNAP line and Bering Strait, and apply RTHIM to observations from satellite altimetry, gridded Argo and a selection of surface flux products. From this we can obtain independent estimates of the AMOC at the array, and mixing rates within the Arctic and Subpolar North Atlantic basins. Since these products extend 20 years before the OSNAP observations, our analysis will help contextualise the AMOC variability measured by the array and assess the significance of trends.
Posters Session:
Tuesday, February 13, 2018; 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Oregon Convention Center; Poster Hall
Abstract: While it has generally been understood that the amount of deep water formed in the Labrador Sea (LSW) impacts the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), this relationship has not been validated against observations. A current observational program (Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program: OSNAP) is aimed at ascertaining this linkage, but it will be a few years before this observational time series has sufficient degrees of freedom to evaluate the necessary correlations on time scales exceeding the annual. For now, we turn to a suite of global ocean and ocean–sea-ice models, varying in resolution from non-eddy-permitting to eddy-permitting (1°–¼°), to investigate the local and downstream relationships between the LSW volume and the MOC on interannual to decadal time scales. Simulated measures of the LSW volume changes and MOC variability are compared to available observational measures. In this presentation, we show that all models display a strong relationship between the LSW volume changes and the local overturning variability within the Labrador Sea, but this relationship degrades downstream. However, there are some differences among the models in their representations of these relationships.
Abstract: The meridional heat flux in the subpolar North Atlantic is pivotal to maintaining a relatively warm climate in Northern Europe. Much of the variability in the basin-wide northward heat flux between Greenland and Scotland occurs in the Iceland Basin (east of the Reykjanes Ridge and west of the Rockall Plateau), where the North Atlantic Current (NAC) carries relatively warm and salty water northward. As a component of the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), WHOI-OUC jointly deployed gliders in the Iceland Basin to continuously monitor the circulation and corresponding temperature flux associated with the NAC. In-situ observations indicate two circulation regimes in the Iceland Basin: a mesoscale eddy like pattern and northward flowing NAC pattern. When a mesoscale eddy is generated, the rotational currents associated with the eddy lead to both northward and southward flow in the Iceland basin. This is quite different from the broad northward flow associated with the NAC when there is no eddy. The transition between the two regimes coupled with the strong temperature front in the Iceland basin can modify the meridional temperature flux on the order of 0.3PW. The dramatic variability induced by alternating eddy and frontal patterns is also found in high-resolution (1/12°) HYCOM simulations. In addition, a separation of large scale and mesoscale processes in the model results suggests that eddies in the Iceland Basin make significant contributions to the variability of the total basinwide poleward heat flux on time scales from subseasonal to interannual.
Wednesday, February 14, 2018 – Location: A107-A109
Abstract: The Gulf Stream has been characterized as either a barrier or blender to fluid transfer, a duality relevant to gyre-scale climate adjustment. However, previous characterization depended on relatively sparse, Lagrangian in-situ observations. The finite-time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) is calculated from satellite altimetry to identify Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS) in the Gulf Stream region. The focus here is on the transient and intermittent behavior associated with eddy propagation and eddy-jet interaction over timescales of a few days, in contrast to other studies characterized by longer integration times. These LCS provide dense sampling of flow, capture dynamically-distinct regions associated with transport and mixing, and even represent some flow structure at finer spatial scale than the observational grid. Independent satellite observations of ocean color contain similar flow-dependent structures, providing verification of the method and highlighting transport and mixing processes that influence sea surface temperature and chlorophyll, amongst other water properties.
Diagnosed LCS support the existing Bower (1991) kinematic model of the Gulf Stream, but also highlight many new processes of comparable importance. These include vortex pinch-off and formation of spiral eddies, clearly identified by LCS, and which may be explained by considering changes to flow topology and the dynamics of shear-flow instability at both small and large Rossby number. Such processes, seen though LCS, may enhance validation of climate models.
The spatial distribution of these intermittent processes is characterized in terms of the criticality of jet dynamics with respect to Rossby wave propagation, and whether the jet is in an unstable or wave-maker regime. The generation and connectivity of hyperbolic fixed points in the flow appear to play an important role in governing large-scale transport and mixing across the Gulf Stream.
Posters Session:
Wednesday, February 14, 2018; 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Oregon Convention Center; Poster Hall