Stability Of Meridionally-flowing Grounded
Abyssal Currents In The Ocean
Author(s)
G. E. Swaters
Abstract
Deep western boundary currents are an important component of the thermohaline
circulation in the ocean, which plays a dominant role in Earth’s evolving climate.
By exploiting the underlying Hamiltonian structure, sufficient stability (and hence
necessary instability) conditions are derived for meridionally-flowing grounded
abyssal currents, based on a baroclinic model corresponding to a low frequency
limit of the three-layer shallow water equations on a β-plane with variable
topography.
Keywords: abyssal overflows, deep western boundary currents, meridional overturning
circulation, baroclinic instability, climate dynamics.
1 Introduction
In a source region of deep water formation, the Sverdrup vorticity balance
predicts equatorward abyssal flow (Stommel and Arons [1]). Away from the
source region, Stommel-Arons theory cannot infer the flow direction of abyssal
currents. However, many abyssal currents are characterized by the isopycnal field
being grounded against sloping topography and the flow being in geostrophic
balance. As shown by Nof [2], a fully grounded abyssal water mass lying over
sloping topography flows, in the fully nonlinear but reduced gravity dynamical
limit, nondispersively and steadily in the along slope direction, irrespective of the
specific height or vorticity field within the abyssal water mass.
These two results provide a dynamical scenario for the initiation and maintenance
of source-driven grounded abyssal flow. That is, in high latitude regions
Keywords
abyssal overflows, deep western boundary currents, meridional overturning
circulation, baroclinic instability, climate dynamics.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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