Decadal ocean water mass changes : global observations and interpretation ...

• Main Author: Helm, KP
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; NADW; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23211341.v1; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Decadal_ocean_water_mass_changes_global_observations_and_interpretation/23211341/1

Using a combination of three quality controlled oceanographic datasets, changes in temperature, salinity, and oxygen were interpolated to neutral density surfaces and investigated on a global scale. The analysis was broken into two comparisons, where 759,713 profiles (1940-1988 with a mean year of 1970) and then 242,087 Argo profiles (mean year of 2005), were objectively mapped to the locations of 38,463 full-depth WOCE profiles (mean year of 1992). The largest water property changes along neutral density surfaces (1970-1992) occurred in the upper 1500 m, with a near-global cooling and freshening on density surfaces around the salinity minimum in both hemispheres (AAIW, NPIW), warming and salinity increases at the shallow salinity-maximum, freshening of NADW in the North Atlantic and salinity increases further south, and coherent salinity increases in CDWin the Southern Ocean for this period. Mid and high-latitude density surfaces all deepened, while there was shoaling in the equatorial low-latitudes. The ...