Generated using version 3.1.2 of the official AMS LATEX template 1 A Theory of the Interhemispheric Meridional Overturning Circulation and 2 Associated Stratification

• Main Authors: Maxim Nikurashin, Geoffrey Vallis
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; North Atlantic Deep Water; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.221.9144; http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/cms-filesystem-action/user_files/m1n/nikurashin_vallis_submitted_to_jpo.pdf

A quantitative theoretical model of the meridional overturning circulation and associated deep stratification in an interhemispheric, single-basin ocean with a circumpolar channel is presented. The theory includes the effects of wind, eddies, and diapycnal mixing, and predicts the deep stratification and overturning streamfunction in terms of the surface forcing and other parameters of the problem. It relies on a matching among three regions: the circumpolar channel at high southern latitudes, a region of isopycnal outcrop at high northern latitudes and the ocean basin between. The theory describes both the middepth and abyssal cells of a circulation representing North Atlantic Deep Water and Antarctic Bottom Water. It suggests that whereas the strength of the middepth overturning cell is primarily set by the wind stress in the circumpolar channel, mid depth stratification results from a balance between the wind-driven upwelling in the channel and deep water formation at high northern latitudes. Diapycnal mixing in the ocean interior can lead to warming and upwelling warm of deep waters. However, for parameters most representative of the present ocean mixing seems to play a minor role for the middepth cell. In contrast, the abyssal cell is intrinsically diabatic and controlled by a balance between the deep mixing-driven upwelling and