IOCAG: Physical Oceanography

Affiliated Research areas

• Fundamental Constituents of Matter

Scientific Areas

• Not available

Keywords

• NAV

Summary

- Large -scale circulation in the Atlantic: The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) of the ocean plays a central role in climate and climate variability by storing and transporting heat, fresh water and carbon around the globe. The North Atlantic Basin, a primary site where deep water is formed. Therefore, it is important to understand and characterize these convective formation areas. In addition, the seasonality of the AMOC highly-correlates with the seasonality of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre current system. Hence, we are on a great location to monitor this relation between the AMOC and the eastern boundary. This oceanic circulation is far more complicated than previously admitted and we refer now to it as the global overturning circulation (GOC). The GOC includes deep water formation in both hemispheres (in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans) as well as large wind-driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean and important internal diapycnal transformation in the deep Indian and Pacific Oceans. Under the WOCE project carried out in the 80s and 90s, mass, heat and freshwater transports of the overturning circulation has been determined. The objective of this research is to process and analyze past and new transoceanic sections carried out during the XXI century under the go-ship program. We will compare the results with previous measurements to determine the changes in the overturning circulation and its link with the global change.