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The Oceanic General Circulation

The Oceanic General Circulation. Regardless of hemisphere or ocean basin, there is an intense current on the western boundary. Gulf stream. Subtropics. Subtropics. Wind-driven ocean circulation. Key questions: How does the wind drive upper ocean circulation?

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The Oceanic General Circulation

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  1. The Oceanic General Circulation

  2. Regardless of hemisphere or ocean basin, there is an intense current on the western boundary

  3. Gulf stream

  4. Subtropics Subtropics

  5. Wind-driven ocean circulation • Key questions: • How does the wind drive upper ocean circulation? • How does the interior ocean respond? • Why is there a Gulf Stream?

  6. Surface forcing: annual mean pattern

  7. Upper ocean response to wind stress δ ~ 10-100 m

  8. Wind-driven upwelling keeps the SST low at eastern boundaries

  9. Equatorial Ekman upwelling keeps the SST low right along the equator

  10. Pumping and suction in the upper ocean - Wind stress curl controls vertical motion

  11. Global wind stress curl

  12. The Taylor column model Pumping at surface • Interior ocean flow can be modeled as flow organized into rigid columns. • Model properties: • Velocity vector cannot vary with depth • Column cannot get wider or tilt • Responds to Ekman pumping by expanding in length • Responds to Ekman suction by contracting Column gets longer

  13. Taylor column tank demo If there is no Ekman pumping or suction (as above), fluid columns must flow around obstacles

  14. Taylor columns on a sphere • Columns must stay parallel to Earth’s rotation axis (they cannot tilt) • For spherical geometry, columns near the equator are longer • Therefore, columns move equatorward as they stretch

  15. Subtropical ocean gyres can be explained by Sverdrup theory • Wind-driven Ekman pumping pushes down the water column at the surface • Due to the spherical geometry, equatorward flow dominates the interior ocean • Return flow occurs at the western boundary, generating an intense northward flow

  16. Why a western boundary current? • Symmetric gyres are unstableon a rapidly rotating, spherical planet • One side of the gyre must have a stronger boundary current than the other • The general sense of circulation must match the anticyclonic sense of driving wind stress

  17. Antarctic Circumpolar Current

  18. Vertical structure of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

  19. The Southern Ocean is the only place on Earth where deep water is directly upwelling from a depth of 2000 m to the surface

  20. End of lecture Next week, we will continue to discuss ocean general circulation, focusing on the thermohaline (i.e. buoyancy-driven) circulation New homework set on T-square! Due next Friday (9/28)

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