Agulhas Leakage Predominantly Responds to the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies

• Published in: Journal of Physical Oceanography
• Main Authors: Durgadoo, Jonathan V., Loveday, Benjamin R., Reason, Chris J. C., Penven, Pierrick, Biastoch, Arne
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AMS (American Meteorological Society) 2013
• Subjects: Antarctic; Indian; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/22060/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/22060/1/Durgadoo.pdf; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/22060/7/jpo-d-13-047.1.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-13-047.1

The Agulhas Current plays a crucial role in the thermohaline circulation through its leakage into the South Atlantic. Under both past and present climates, the trade winds and westerlies could have the ability to modulate the amount of Indian-Atlantic inflow. Compelling arguments have been put forward suggesting that trade winds alone have little impact on the magnitude of Agulhas leakage. Here, employing three ocean models for robust analysis – a global coarse resolution, a regional eddy-permitting and a nested high-resolution eddy-resolving configuration – and systematically altering the position and intensity of the westerly wind belt in a series of sensitivity experiments, it is shown that the westerlies, in particular their intensity, control the leakage. Leakage responds proportionally to the westerlies intensity up to a certain point. Beyond this, through the adjustment of the large-scale circulation, energetic interactions occur between the Agulhas Return Current and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that result in a state where leakage no longer increases. This adjustment takes place within 1 to 2 decades. Contrary to previous assertions, our results further show that an equatorward (poleward) shift in westerlies increases (decreases) leakage. This occurs due to the redistribution of momentum input by the winds. It is concluded that the reported present-day leakage increase could therefore reflect an unadjusted oceanic response mainly to the strengthening westerlies over the last few decades.