Sensitivity of Southern Ocean circulation to wind stress changes: Role of relative wind stress

Munday, David and Zhai, Xiaoming (2015) Sensitivity of Southern Ocean circulation to wind stress changes: Role of relative wind stress. Ocean Modelling, 95. 15–24. ISSN 1463-5003

Preview

PDF (Munday_Zhai15) - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

The influence of different wind stress bulk formulae on the response of the Southern Ocean circulation to wind stress changes is investigated using an idealised channel model. Surface/mixed layer properties are found to be sensitive to the use of the relative wind stress formulation, where the wind stress depends on the difference between the ocean and atmosphere velocities. Previous work has highlighted the surface eddy damping effect of this formulation, which we find leads to increased circumpolar transport. Nevertheless the transport due to thermal wind shear does lose sensitivity to wind stress changes at sufficiently high wind stress. In contrast, the sensitivity of the meridional overturning circulation is broadly the same regardless of the bulk formula used due to the adiabatic nature of the relative wind stress damping. This is a consequence of the steepening of isopycnals offsetting the reduction in eddy diffusivity in their contribution to the eddy bolus overturning, as predicted using a residual mean framework.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ocean modelling,relative wind stress,wind forcing,eddy saturation,eddy compensation
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Meteorology, Oceanography and Climate Dynamics (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climate, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2015 15:02
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 14:33
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/54808
DOI:	10.1016/j.ocemod.2015.08.004

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item