A monitoring system for the South Atlantic as a component of the MOC

• Main Authors: Sabrina Speich, Silvia L. Garzoli, Alberto Piola
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; NADW; North Atlantic Deep Water; North Atlantic; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.582.38; http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/cronin/ARC/Speichetal_SAMOC_OO09.pdf

The overturning circulation and horizontal fluxes of heat and freshwater in the South Atlantic Ocean are fundamental controls on planetary climate. They are potentially at least as important on a global scale as those in the North Atlantic, to which they are strongly coupled. The South Atlantic Ocean is unique in its role as a nexus for water masses formed elsewhere and en-route to remote regions of the global ocean1. The figure to the right represents the pathways of the MOC in the South Atlantic Ocean, which links the strong forcing regions of the Southern Ocean with the North Atlantic, and which includes the large-scale conversion of surface waters (red) to deep waters (blue). Cold/salty North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) flows southward along the eastern coast of South America and