No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic
Recent Lagrangian analyses of surface drifters have questioned the existence of a surface current connecting the Gulf Stream (GS) to the subpolar gyre (SPG) and have cast doubt on the mechanism underlying an apparent pathway for sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies between the two regions. Here w...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4844697 2023-05-15T17:32:23+02:00 No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic Foukal, Nicholas P. Lozier, M. Susan 2016-04-22 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844697/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27103496 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844697/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27103496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 Copyright © 2016, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 2016-05-01T00:11:30Z Recent Lagrangian analyses of surface drifters have questioned the existence of a surface current connecting the Gulf Stream (GS) to the subpolar gyre (SPG) and have cast doubt on the mechanism underlying an apparent pathway for sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies between the two regions. Here we use modelled Lagrangian trajectories to determine the fate of surface GS water and satellite SST data to analyse pathways of GS SST anomalies. Our results show that only a small fraction of the surface GS water reaches the SPG, the water that does so mainly travels below the surface mixed layer, and GS SST anomalies do not propagate into the SPG on interannual timescales. Instead, the inter-gyre heat transport as part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation must be accomplished via subsurface pathways. We conclude that the SST in the SPG cannot be predicted by tracking SST anomalies along the GS. Text North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Nature Communications 7 1 |
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Article Foukal, Nicholas P. Lozier, M. Susan No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
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Article |
description |
Recent Lagrangian analyses of surface drifters have questioned the existence of a surface current connecting the Gulf Stream (GS) to the subpolar gyre (SPG) and have cast doubt on the mechanism underlying an apparent pathway for sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies between the two regions. Here we use modelled Lagrangian trajectories to determine the fate of surface GS water and satellite SST data to analyse pathways of GS SST anomalies. Our results show that only a small fraction of the surface GS water reaches the SPG, the water that does so mainly travels below the surface mixed layer, and GS SST anomalies do not propagate into the SPG on interannual timescales. Instead, the inter-gyre heat transport as part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation must be accomplished via subsurface pathways. We conclude that the SST in the SPG cannot be predicted by tracking SST anomalies along the GS. |
format |
Text |
author |
Foukal, Nicholas P. Lozier, M. Susan |
author_facet |
Foukal, Nicholas P. Lozier, M. Susan |
author_sort |
Foukal, Nicholas P. |
title |
No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
title_short |
No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
title_full |
No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
title_fullStr |
No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
title_full_unstemmed |
No inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic |
title_sort |
no inter-gyre pathway for sea-surface temperature anomalies in the north atlantic |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844697/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27103496 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844697/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27103496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2016, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11333 |
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Nature Communications |
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7 |
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1 |
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