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Old Dominion University

Series

2009

Thermohaline circulation

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Improving Oceanic Overflow Representation In Climate Models: The Gravity Current Entrainment Climate Process Team, Sonya Legg, Bruce Briegleb, Yeon Chang, Eric P. Chassignet, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Tal Ezer, Arnold L. Gordon, Stephen Griffies, Robert Hallberg, Laura Jackson, William Large, Tamay M. Ozgokmen, Hartmut Peters, Jim Price, Ulrike Riemenschneider, Wanli Wu, Xiaobiao Xu, Jiayan Yang May 2009

Improving Oceanic Overflow Representation In Climate Models: The Gravity Current Entrainment Climate Process Team, Sonya Legg, Bruce Briegleb, Yeon Chang, Eric P. Chassignet, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Tal Ezer, Arnold L. Gordon, Stephen Griffies, Robert Hallberg, Laura Jackson, William Large, Tamay M. Ozgokmen, Hartmut Peters, Jim Price, Ulrike Riemenschneider, Wanli Wu, Xiaobiao Xu, Jiayan Yang

CCPO Publications

Oceanic overflows are bottom-trapped density currents originating in semienclosed basins, such as the Nordic seas, or on continental shelves, such as the Antarctic shelf. Overflows are the source of most of the abyssal waters, and therefore play an important role in the large-scale ocean circulation, forming a component of the sinking branch of the thermohaline circulation. As they descend the continental slope, overflows mix vigorously with the surrounding oceanic waters, changing their density and transport significantly. These mixing processes occur on spatial scales well below the resolution of ocean climate models, with the result that deep waters and deep western …


On The Interpretation Of Caribbean Paleo-Temperature Reconstructions During The Younger Dryas, Xiuquan Wan, Ping Chang, R. Saravanan, Rong Zhang, Matthew W. Schmidt Jan 2009

On The Interpretation Of Caribbean Paleo-Temperature Reconstructions During The Younger Dryas, Xiuquan Wan, Ping Chang, R. Saravanan, Rong Zhang, Matthew W. Schmidt

OES Faculty Publications

A conundrum exists regarding whether the sea-surface temperatures decreased or increased over the southern Caribbean and the western Tropical Atlantic region during the Younger Dryas when the North Atlantic cooled substantially and the Atlantic thermohaline circulation was weakened significantly. Despite the proximity of core locations, some proxy reconstructions record a surface cooling, while others indicate a warming. We suggest that this seemingly paradoxical finding may, at least partially, be attributed to the competing physical processes that result in opposing signs of temperature change in the region in response to weakened North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Our coupled ocean-atmosphere model experiments …