Circulation of North Atlantic Deep Water

University Of California-San Diego Scripps Inst Of Oceanography, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

0241007 Reid This project will study the circulation of the various layers lying beneath the Intermediate water. This will follow from the results of the separate studies of the top-to-bottom circulation of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans (Reid, 1994, 1997, and in press). Some preliminary work has been done on the overturning streamlines in the three oceans . These deeper layers include the warm, saline, oxygen-rich and nutrient-poor waters formed in the northern North Atlantic and the less-saline and colder waters formed around Antarctica and in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea. The shallowest of these layers is the North Atlantic Deep Water. This very saline layer can be recognized throughout the Atlantic Ocean, along the Antarctic circumpolar current, and extending northward into the Indian and Pacific oceans. The work will be done by examining the patterns of salinity, oxygen, and silica along isopycnal surfaces and on vertical sections. The work should have a broad impact on studies of exchanges of water, heat, salt, and nutrients both vertically and among the three oceans. It may provide a background against which the various climate studies can be examined. One of the problems in studying ocean circulation is that it is possible to achieve models that balance heat transport and mass but do not have realistic flow patterns, and that results based upon geostrophic shear and tracers (Reid's work in the three oceans) may have balanced total transport and realistic flow patterns but do not balance heat transport or circulation within layers.