Circumpolar Influences on the Weddell Sea: Indication of an Antarctic Circumpolar Coastal Wave

• Main Authors: Beckmann, A., Timmermann, Ralph
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; Sea ice; Weddell Sea
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/4136/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/4136/1/Bec2001a.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.14713; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.14713.d001

The Antarctic Circumpolar Wave is now a well-known feature that can bedetected in atmospheric, oceanic mixed layer, and sea ice data. Inour coupled ice-ocean model driven by 40 years of daily atmosphericforcing data it represents a significant part of the interannualvariability, linking the sea ice and water mass formation processes inthe Weddell Sea with other areas in the Antarctic water ring. Inaddition our model results show a decadal-period wavelike anomalypattern near the coast of Antarctica, propagating westward at about 2cm/s. This coastally trapped, bottom-intensified phenomenonseems to have important effects on the dense water formation rate inthe Weddell Sea and even the occurrence of the Weddell polynya.