The Effects of Varying Winter Surface Heat Loss on the Labrador Sea Water and Its Export

As the environment is changing temperatures are changing, becoming more extreme. This is expected to affect the oceans and its transport, specifically the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The Labrador Sea is a part of the AMOC, where overturning in depth and density space occurs,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kollaard, Freek (author)
Other Authors: Katsman, C.A. (mentor), Pietrzak, J.D. (graduation committee), de Roode, S.R. (graduation committee), Delft University of Technology (degree granting institution)
Format: Master Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c3ef4ff0-d6a4-4e36-944c-f6d110b65f8a
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Summary:As the environment is changing temperatures are changing, becoming more extreme. This is expected to affect the oceans and its transport, specifically the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The Labrador Sea is a part of the AMOC, where overturning in depth and density space occurs, due to deep convection. Deep convection is the process of seawater losing its heat to the atmosphere, due to atmospheric cooling during the winter. This causes the seawater to become colder and denser, and it therefore sinks towards the bottom of the basin. Deep convection is previously studied extensively as it is a unique and important process of the global ocean circulation system. The key process that causes the AMOC water to overturn, is due to buoyant eddies shedding from the boundary current into the interior. The buoyant eddies exchange their buoyant boundary current water with the dense interior water, causing the boundary current (and in extension the AMOC water) to cool down. Previous studies have shown that the properties of the boundary current water are strongly dependent on the eddy exchange, and therefore on the surface heat loss. However, it is not known how consecutive strong winters impact the dynamics of the Labrador Sea on various timescales, which will therefore be the focus of this thesis. Data for this research will be obtained by using an idealised model configuration of the Labrador Sea, where the hydrostatic primitive equations of motion are solved by the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm). Different types of scenarios are defined to analyse different effects on the dynamics. These scenarios are analysed by looking into how the mean basin temperature changes, how the eddy kinetic energy (EKE) and mixed layer depth (MLD) develop, and how the properties through a transect of the basin change. The effects of these interactions are then studied by looking at how the transport of water throughout the boundary current, per density class and per vertical layer change. The thesis mainly shows ...