Downslope processes, deep ventilation and meridional overturning circulation

• Main Authors: Bergamasco, Andrea, Budgell, William Paul, Chiantore, Maria Chiara, Aliani, Stefano
• Other Authors: Fouzia DLADZI and Katarzyna JANIAK - EURO PEAN COMMISSION Directorate-General for Research Directorate Environment Climate change and Environmental Risks Unit
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: European Communities 2007
• Subjects: shelf break; deep ocean; Indian Ocean; Pacific Ocean; circulation control; downslope processes; global climate system; Indian; Pacific; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://puma.isti.cnr.it/dfdownloadnew.php?ident=cnr.ismar/cnr.ismar.sp/2007-A2-001; http://puma.isti.cnr.it/rmydownload.php?filename=cnr.ismar/cnr.ismar.sp/2007-A2-001/2007-A2-001.pdf

The processes governing the continental shelf break and deep ocean interactions are crucial to an understanding of the global climate system. In particular, downslope processes, deep ocean ventilation and meridional oceanic overturning circulation control the main exchange between the Southern Ocean and the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. However, the Southern Hemisphere is often given too little weight in our analyses and this leads to an underestimation of the role of these processes in global climate evolution at the right time scale.