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Editorial Type:
Article

The Representation of Ocean Circulation and Variability in Thermodynamic Coordinates

Sjoerd Groeskamp 1 , Jan D. Zika 2 , Trevor J. McDougall 3 , Bernadette M. Sloyan 4 , and Frédéric Laliberté 5
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  • 1 CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, and Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
  • 2 University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom
  • 3 School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 4 CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, and Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
  • 5 Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Print Publication:
01 Jul 2014
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-13-0213.1
Page(s):
1735–1750
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Abstract

The ocean’s circulation is analyzed in Absolute Salinity SA and Conservative Temperature Θ coordinates. It is separated into 1) an advective component related to geographical displacements in the direction normal to SA and Θ isosurfaces and 2) into a local component, related to local changes in SA–Θ values, without a geographical displacement. In this decomposition, the sum of the advective and local components of the circulation is equivalent to the material derivative of SA and Θ. The sum is directly related to sources and sinks of salt and heat. The advective component is represented by the advective thermohaline streamfunction . After removing a trend, the local component can be represented by the local thermohaline streamfunction . Here, can be diagnosed using a monthly averaged time series of SA and Θ from an observational dataset. In addition, and are determined from a coupled climate model. The diathermohaline streamfunction is the sum of and and represents the nondivergent diathermohaline circulation in SA–Θ coordinates. The diathermohaline trend, resulting from the trend in the local changes of SA and Θ, quantifies the redistribution of the ocean’s volume in SA–Θ coordinates over time. It is argued that the diathermohaline streamfunction provides a powerful tool for the analysis of and comparison among ocean models and observation-based gridded climatologies.

Corresponding author address: Sjoerd Groeskamp, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, Castray Esplanade, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia. E-mail: sjoerd.groeskamp@csiro.au

Abstract

The ocean’s circulation is analyzed in Absolute Salinity SA and Conservative Temperature Θ coordinates. It is separated into 1) an advective component related to geographical displacements in the direction normal to SA and Θ isosurfaces and 2) into a local component, related to local changes in SA–Θ values, without a geographical displacement. In this decomposition, the sum of the advective and local components of the circulation is equivalent to the material derivative of SA and Θ. The sum is directly related to sources and sinks of salt and heat. The advective component is represented by the advective thermohaline streamfunction . After removing a trend, the local component can be represented by the local thermohaline streamfunction . Here, can be diagnosed using a monthly averaged time series of SA and Θ from an observational dataset. In addition, and are determined from a coupled climate model. The diathermohaline streamfunction is the sum of and and represents the nondivergent diathermohaline circulation in SA–Θ coordinates. The diathermohaline trend, resulting from the trend in the local changes of SA and Θ, quantifies the redistribution of the ocean’s volume in SA–Θ coordinates over time. It is argued that the diathermohaline streamfunction provides a powerful tool for the analysis of and comparison among ocean models and observation-based gridded climatologies.

Corresponding author address: Sjoerd Groeskamp, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, Castray Esplanade, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia. E-mail: sjoerd.groeskamp@csiro.au
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