Interannual variations of heat budget in the lower layer of the eastern Ross Sea shelf and the forcing mechanisms in the Southern Ocean State Estimate

• Published in: International Journal of Climatology
• Main Authors: Chen, Yuanjie, Zhang, Zhaoru, Wang, Xuezhu, Liu, Xiaohui, Zhou, Meng
• Other Authors: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, National Key Research and Development Program of China
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2023
• Subjects: Ross Sea; Southern Ocean; Western Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.8132; https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.8132

Abstract The temporal variation of heat budget in the lower layer of the eastern Ross Sea shelf (ERSS) is crucial for understanding the stability of ice shelves in the Ross Sea. In this study, a 6‐year (2005–2010) simulation from the Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) is employed to analyse the interannual variations of heat budget in the lower layer of the ERSS and the controlling mechanisms. The results reveal that the annual change in the heat content of the study region is dominated by the horizontal heat advection term, and only in 2015 the vertical advection and diffusion terms also play an important role. The horizontal advection term is affected by the intrusion of warm circumpolar deep water (CDW) onto the shelf across the northern boundary of the ERSS, the transport of cold dense shelf water (DSW) from the western Ross Sea shelf, and the transport of CDW across the western boundary of the ERSS. The contributions of these physical processes to the change in annual heat content vary between years. The interannual variation of the CDW intrusion is associated with the strength of eddy activity over the slope, and the interannual variation of heat transports associated with DSW is affected by both the extent of DSW on the western shelf and the coastal circulations that affect the eastward spread of DSW.