Barotropic and baroclinic processes in the transport variability of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current |
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| Authors: | Dirk Olbers Karsten Lettmann |
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| Institution: | (1) Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Synoptic scale variability of the Southern Ocean wind field in the high-frequency range of barotropic Rossby waves results
in transport variations of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which are highly coherent with the bottom pressure field
all around the Antarctic continent. The coherence pattern, in contrast to the steady state ACC, is steered by the geostrophic
f/h contours passing through Drake Passage and circling closely around the continent. At lower frequencies, with interannual
and decadal periods, the correlation with the bottom pressure continues, but baroclinic processes gain importance. For periods
exceeding a few years, variations of the ACC transport are in geostrophic balance with the pressure field associated with
the baroclinic potential energy stored in the stratification, whereas bottom pressure plays a minor role. The low-frequency
variability of the ACC transport is correlated with the baroclinic state variable in the entire Southern Ocean, mediated by
baroclinic topographic–planetary Rossby waves that are not bound to f/h contours. To clarify the processes of wave dynamics and pattern correlation, we apply a circulation model with simplified
physics (the barotropic–baroclinic-interaction model BARBI) and use two types of wind forcing: the National Centers for Environmental
Prediction (NCEP) wind field with integrations spanning three decades and an artificial wind field constructed from the first
three empirical orthogonal functions of NCEP combined with a temporal variability according to an autoregressive process.
Experiments with this Southern Annular Mode type forcing have been performed for 1,800 years. We analyze the spin-up, trends,
and variability of the model runs. Particular emphasis is placed on coherence and correlation patterns between the ACC transport,
the wind forcing, the bottom pressure field and the pressure associated with the baroclinic potential energy. A stochastic
dynamical model is developed that describes the dominant barotropic and baroclinic processes and represents the spectral properties
for a wide range of frequencies, from monthly periods to hundreds of years. |
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| Keywords: | Antarctic circumpolar current ACC transport Coherence patterns |
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