The ocean's saltiness and its overturning

Cael, B. B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1317-5718; Ferrari, Raffaele. 2017 The ocean's saltiness and its overturning. Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (4). 1886-1891. 10.1002/2016GL072223

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016GL072223

Abstract/Summary

Here we explore the relationship between the mean salinity urn:x-wiley:grl:media:grl55555:grl55555-math-0001 of the ocean and the strength of its Atlantic and Pacific Meridional Overturning Circulations (AMOC and PMOC). We compare simulations performed with a realistically configured coarse‐grained ocean model, spanning a range of mean salinities. We find that the AMOC strength increases approximately linearly with urn:x-wiley:grl:media:grl55555:grl55555-math-0002. In contrast, the PMOC strength declines approximately linearly with urn:x-wiley:grl:media:grl55555:grl55555-math-0003 until it reaches a small background value similar to the present‐day ocean. Well‐established scaling laws for the overturning circulation explain both of these dependencies on urn:x-wiley:grl:media:grl55555:grl55555-math-0004.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1002/2016GL072223
ISSN:	0094-8276
Date made live:	25 Apr 2020 13:37 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527324

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1002/2016GL072223

ISSN:

0094-8276

Date made live:

25 Apr 2020 13:37 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527324