Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:19:37.063Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Southern ocean–sea-ice interaction: implications for climate and modelling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Douglas G. Martinson
Douglas G. Martinson
Affiliation:
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and Department of Geological Sciences, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ocean/sea-ice interaction of the Antarctic open ocean region is described through a one-dimensional model. The model includes processes responsible for maintaining stability in this marginally stable region and reveals the importance of the various processes controlling deep water formation/ventilation and sea-ice thickness and their sensitivity to climate change. This information is used to estimate changes, as they impact water column stability, induced by glacial conditions. Increased stability is conducive to greater ice cover and less deep water formation/ventilation; decreased stability conducive to the opposite.

Sensitivity studies show that the system is destabilised given: (1) shallowing of the pycnocline (induced by increased gyre vigor); (2) decrease in the ratio of heat to salt through the pycnocline (induced by introducing a colder and/or saltier deep water or by increasing the salinity of the surface water); (3) decreased pycnocline strength (induced by a fresher deep water or saltier surface water) and (4) increased atmospheric heat loss. Most of the assumed glacial conditions drive the system toward destabilisation, but the critical effect of changes in NADW characteristics depends strongly on the temperature and salinity of the replacement water. The importance of this deep water influence is evident today—as little as 3Wm−2 in the upper ocean heat balance or an additional 15 cm of ice growth is sufficient to overturn the water column in some regions.

Keywords

deep water formationdeep water ventilationopen ocean convectionAntarctic oceanographyclimate change.
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 81 , Issue 4: The Late Cezozoic Ice Age , 1990 , pp. 397 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackley, S. F., Clarke, D. B. & Smith, S. J. 1982. Weddell Polynya Expedition preliminary data report: Physical, chemical and biological properties of ice cores. Technical note, U.S. Army Cold Water Regions Res. and Eng. Lab., Hanover, N.H.Google Scholar
Bagriantsev, N. V., Gordon, A. L. & Huber, B. A. 1989. Weddell Gyre: Temperature maximum stratum. J GEOPHYS RES 94, 8331–4.Google Scholar
Boyle, E. A. & Keigwin, L. D. 1987. Deep circulation of the North Atlantic over the last 200,000 years: Geochemical evidence, Science 218, 784–7.Google Scholar
Corliss, B. H., Martinson, D. G. & Keffer, T. 1986. Late Quaternary deep-ocean circulation. GEOL SOC AM 97, 1106–21.Google Scholar
Crowley, T. J. & Parkinson, C. L. 1988. Late Pleistocene variations in Antarctic sea ice II: effect of interhemispheric deep-ocean heat exchange. CLIM DYN 3, 93–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgi, D. T. 1981. On the relationship between the large-scale property variations and fine structure in the Circumpolar Deep Water. J GEOPHYS RES 86, 6556–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, A. L. 1978. Deep Antarctic convection of Maud Rise. J PHYS OCEANOGR 8, 600–612.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. L. 1981. Seasonality of Southern Ocean sea ice. J GEOPHYS RES 85, 4193–7.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. L. 1982. Weddell Deep Water variability. J MAR RES 40, 199–217.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. L. & Huber, B. A. 1984. Thermohaline stratification below the Southern Ocean sea ice. J GEOPHYS RES 89, 641–8.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. L. & Huber, B. A. 1990. Southern Ocean winter mixed layer. J GEOPHYS RES 95, 11655–72.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. L., Martinson, D. G. & Taylor, H. W. 1981. The wind-driven circulation in the Weddell–Enderby Basin. DEEP-SEA RES 28A, 151–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, B. A., Mele, P. & Gordon, A. L. 1989. Report of the Winter Weddell Sea Project, ANT V/II, Hydrographic data, L-DGO-89-1. Lamont-Doherty Geol. Observ., Palisades, N.Y.Google Scholar
Lemke, P. 1987. A coupled one-dimensional sea ice-ocean model. J GEOPHYS RES 92, 13164–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinson, D. G. 1990. Winter Antarctic mixed layer and sea ice evolution, open ocean deep water formation and ventilation. J GEOPHYS RES 95, 11641–54.Google Scholar
Martinson, D. G. & Wamser, C. 1990. Ice drift and momentum exchange in winter Antarctic pack ice. J GEOPHYS RES 95, 1741–55.Google Scholar
Martinson, D. G., Killworth, P. D. & Gordon, A. L. 1981. A convective model for the Weddell Polynya. J PHYS OCEANOGR 11, 466–88.Google Scholar
Oppo, D. W. & Fairbanks, R. G. 1987. Variability in the deep and intermediate water circulation of the Atlantic Ocean during the past 25,000 years: Northern Hemisphere modulation of the Southern Ocean. EARTH & PLANET SCI LETT 86, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, C. L. 1983. On the development and cause of the Weddell Polynya in a sea ice simulation. J PHYS OCEANOGR 13, 501–11.Google Scholar
Shackleton, N. J. & Opdyke, N. D. 1973. Oxygen isotope and paleomagnetic stratigraphy of equatorial Pacific core V28–238: Oxygen isotope temperatures and ice volumes on a 105 year and 106 year scale. QUATERN RES 3, 39–55.Google Scholar
Turner, J. S. 1973. Buoyancy Effects in Fluids. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadhams, P., Lange, M. A. & Ackley, S. F. 1987. The ice thickness distribution across the Atlantic sector of the Antarctic Ocean in midwinter. J GEOPHYS RES 92, 14535–52.Google Scholar
Zwally, H. J., Comiso, J. C., Parkinson, C. L., Campbell, W. J., Carsey, F. D. & Gloersen, P. 1983. Antarctic Sea Ice, 1973–1976: Satellite Passive-Microwave Observations. NASA Scientific and Technical Information Branch, Washington, D.C., 206 pp.Google Scholar