Dense water pathways feeding the Faroe Bank Channel Overflow

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

The overflow of dense water across the Greenland-Scotland Ridge (GSR), and its subsequent entrainment, is a fundamental component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) which helps maintain Earth’s climate. It is critically important to determine the mechanisms, forcing, and variability of the AMOC. The proposed collaborative program, including a mooring array, hydrographic surveys and modeling, will provide a major contribution towards this goal. This project will determine where the densest water is formed in the Nordic Seas, how this water progresses to the GSR, and how it is modified along the way, including the role of atmospheric forcing. This in turn will provide a better understanding of the means by which the warming climate may impact the AMOC. The project is part of a separately funded large international program. It will fund a post-doctoral investigator and two part-time guest graduate students. An outreach program will be undertaken that includes a project website and a host of activities engaging the public in the fieldwork. A professional photographer/filmmaker/illustrator/writer will participate on one of the shipboard surveys. This project would maintain a one year high-resolution mooring array to measure the Iceland-Faroe Slope Jet, which appears to be the main source of dense water feeding the Faroe Bank Channel overflow, and which in turn accounts for roughly half of the total overflow transport across the Greenland Scotland Ridge. Accompanying shipboard hydrographic/velocity surveys will trace the flow upstream to its source region(s), and also document its downstream evolution to where it overflows in the Faroe Bank Channel. The use of a Global Climate Model, idealized model, and simple theory will put the observations into a dynamical context. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.