Thermohaline circulations and global climate change. Annual progress report No. 1

• Main Author: Hanson, H. P.
• Other Authors: United States. Department of Energy.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: University of Colorado Boulder 1993
• Subjects: Oceanic Circulation; Carbon Dioxide; Environmental Impacts; Chemicals Monitoring And Transport; Progress Report; Salinity; Climatic Change; Air-Water Interactions 540320; 54 Environmental Sciences; Temperature Measurement; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2172/10182567; https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1395352/

The original project entitled ``Thennohaline Circulations and Global Climate Change`` was concerned with investigating the hypothesis that changes in surface thermal and hydrological forcing of the North Atlantic, changes that might be expected to accompany C0{sub 2}-induced global warming, could result in ocean-atmosphere interactions` exerting a positive feedback on the climate system. Because the North Atlantic is the source of much of the global ocean`s reservoir of deep water, and because this deep water could sequester large amounts of anthropogenically produced C0{sub 2}, changes in the rate of deep-water production are important to future climates. Since deep-water production is controlled by the annual cycle of the atmospheric forcing of the North Atlantic, and since this forcing depends on both hydrological and thermal processes as well as the windstress, there is the potential for feedback between the short-term response of the atmosphere to changing radiative forcing and the longer-term processes in the oceans. Work on this hypothesis led to a second line of investigation. The sensitivity of the annual cycle of the upper ocean to variable atmospheric forcing also determines the structure of the seasonal thermocline, and consequently it is necessary to include both synoptic-scale and interannual variability of atmospheric forcing to fully understand the potential effects of long-term trends of that forcing. Due to its large heat capacity and its nonlinear response to forcing, the upper ocean rectifies the forcing by radiative fluxes, turbulence, and windstress, creating responses on much longer time scales than those of the forcing.