Multidecadal climate variability in the Greenland Sea and surrounding regions: A coupled model simulation, Geophys

• Main Authors: Thomas L. Delworth, Syukuro Manabe, Ronald J. Stouffer
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1997
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; East Greenland; east greenland current; Greenland Sea; Labrador Sea; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.143.4259; http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/1997/td9701.pdf

Abstract. Pronounced oscillations of ocean temperature temperature (SST) and climate in the Greenland Sea (see and salinity occur in the Greenland Sea in a 2000 year Fig. 1) and surrounding regions. integration of a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. The oscillations, involving both the surface and subsurface Model Description and Experimental Design ocean layers, have a timescale of approximately 40-80 years, and are associated with fluctuations in the inten- The coupled ocean-atmosphere model used in this study is sity of the East Greenland Current. The Greenland Sea identical to that described in detail in Manabe et al. (1991). temperature and salinity variations are preceded by The model is global in domain, including the Arctic, with relarge-scale changes in near-surface salinity in the Arctic, alistic geography consistent with resolution. The model is which appear to propagate out of the Arctic through the forced with an annual cycle of insolation at the top of the at-East Greenland Current. These anomalies then propagate mosphere. The atmospheric component numerically intearound the subpolar gyre into the Labrador Sea and the grates the primitive equations of motion using a semi-spectral central North Atlantic. These oscillations are coherent technique in which the variables are represented by spherical