The South Atlantic Circulation Between 34.5°S, 24°S and Above the Mid-Atlantic Ridge From an Inverse Box Model

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
• Main Authors: Arumí-Planas, Cristina, Pérez-Hernández, María Dolores, Pelegrí, Josep Lluís, Vélez-Belchí, Pedro, Emelianov, Mikhail, Caínzos, Verónica, Cana-Cascallar, Luis, Firing, Yvonne L., García-Weil, Luis, Santana-Toscano, Daniel, Hernández Guerra, Alonso
• Other Authors: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España), European Commission, Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2023
• Subjects: Mid-Atlantic Ridge; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/330834; https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019614

21 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, 1 appendix .-- Data Availability Statement: The wind data were collected from NCEP Reanalysis Derived data can be found at http://www.eslr.noaa.gov/psd/. Hydrographic data were collected from the Carbon Hydrographic Data Office (CCHDO) website in the frame of International WOCE and GO-SHIP projects (https://cchdo.ucsd.edu/). The hydrographic data at 34.5°S were collected during the expedition of the German Research Vessel Maria S. Merian (MSM60) conducted in the summer of 2017 (Karstensen, 2020) can be found at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.915898. The hydrographic data at 24°S were collected as part of the Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA) program funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, Grant NE/N018095/1). ECCO data are available for download at https://ecco.jpl.nasa.gov/. GLORYS data are available for download at https://resources.marine.copernicus.eu/. The satellite altimetry data were collected from the Aviso database (http://las.aviso.oceanobs.com) The South Atlantic Ocean plays a key role in the heat exchange of the climate system, as it hosts the returning flow of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). To gain insights on this role, using data from three hydrographic cruises conducted in the South Atlantic Subtropical gyre at 34.5°S, 24°S, and 10°W, we identify water masses and compute absolute geostrophic circulation using inverse modeling. In the upper layers, the currents describe the South Atlantic anticyclonic gyre with the northwest flowing Benguela Current (26.3 ± 2.0 Sv at 34.5°S, and 21.2 ± 1.8 Sv at 24°S) flowing above the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) between 22.4°S and 28.4°S (−19.2 ± 1.4 Sv), and the southward flowing Brazil Current (−16.5 ± 1.3 Sv at 34.5°S, and −7.3 ± 0.9 Sv at 24°S); the deep layers feature the southward transports of Deep Western Boundary Current (−13.9 ± 3.0 Sv at 34.5°S, and −8.7 ± 3.8 Sv at 24°S) and Deep Eastern Boundary Current (−15.1 ± 3.5 Sv at ...