has been approved for the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Baylor Fox-Kemper
The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Yeager, S. G. (Ph.D., Atmospheric and Oceanic Science) Understanding and predicting changes i...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2013
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.642.9433 http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/oce/yeager/thesis.pdf |
| Summary: | The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Yeager, S. G. (Ph.D., Atmospheric and Oceanic Science) Understanding and predicting changes in North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature Thesis directed by Prof. Baylor Fox-Kemper Abstract The mechanisms associated with sea surface temperature variability in the North Atlantic are explored using observation-based reconstructions of the historical surface states of the atmosphere and ocean as well as simulations run with the Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1). The relationship between air-sea heat flux and SST between 1948 and 2009 yields evidence of a positive heat flux feedback at work in the subpolar gyre region on quasi-decadal timescales. Warming of the high latitude Atlantic precedes an atmospheric response which resembles a negative NAO state. The historical flux data set is used to estimate temporal variations in North Atlantic deep water formation which suggest that NAO variations drove strong decadal changes in thermohaline circulation strength in the last half century. Model simulations corroborate |
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