Variability of the Thermohaline Staircase

Internal wave transmission through a thermohaline staircase

With the aim to predict energy transport by internal waves incident upon observed density staircases in the ocean, the theory for internal wave tunneling through a single finite-size mixed region is extended to predict the transmission of internal waves through a piecewise-constant density profile with an arbitrary number of steps. An analytic solution is found if all steps have equal vertical ...

Effects of the synoptic scale variability on the thermohaline circulation

In this paper the effect of the synoptic scale variability is analyzed using a simple atmosphere-ocean coupled model. This high frequency variability has been taken into account in the model adding white gaussian noise in variables related to zonal and meridional temperature differences. Results show that synoptic scale frequency variability on longitudinal heating contrast between land and sea...

15 Decadal Variability of the Thermohaline Ocean Circulation

Spatial variability of the Arctic Ocean’s double-diffusive staircase

The Arctic Ocean thermohaline stratification frequently exhibits a staircase structure overlying the Atlantic Water Layer that can be attributed to the diffusive form of double-diffusive convection. The staircase consists of multiple layers of O(1) m in thickness separated by sharp interfaces, across which temperature and salinity change abruptly. Through a detailed analysis of Ice-Tethered Pro...

Sensitivity of thermohaline circulation to decadal and multidecadal variability

In this paper, stochastic freshwater inputs with different variabilities are introduced into an Earth Model of Intermediate Complexity to study their effect on the behaviour of the thermohaline circulation (THC). The variability in the stochastic signal was set to be either decadal or multidecadal (70 years), based on intensity modulation of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. T...