Descripción del proyecto
Un método para cuantificar la huella hidrográfica de la circulación del agua de retorno
Como si fuera un anillo continuo de agua, el Océano Antártico sirve de unión para todos los demás océanos. El proceso de circulación de retorno tiene un efecto enorme en el clima de la Tierra. Los estudios numéricos indican que hay variaciones importantes en la circulación de retorno debido al aumento de los vientos occidentales, pero faltan pruebas observacionales de que estos cambios hayan ocurrido o estén ocurriendo en mediciones oceanográficas. El proyecto SOFIE, financiado con fondos europeos, detectará y medirá la huella hidrográfica de los cambios en este retorno. Los investigadores de SOFIE plantean la hipótesis de que los cambios en la circulación de retorno afectan de un modo perceptible a la estructura de densidad interior del océano, desde la superficie hasta las profundidades, en todo el océano Antártico. Esta teoría se comprobará con la ayuda de NEMO-OPA, un innovador modelo numérico.
Objetivo
The Southern Ocean overturning circulation exerts a powerful influence on Earth’s climate, and SOFIE is the first project seeking to detect and objectively measure the hydrographic fingerprint of changes in this overturning.The deep waters upwelling in the Southern Ocean account for up to half of the annual oceanic uptake of anthropogenic carbon from the atmosphere, dominate the global oceanic heat uptake with up to three quarters of the additional heat influx to the ocean occurring south of 30°S, and are a rich source of the nutrients that fertilise the majority of global ocean biological productivity north of 30°S.According to numerical studies, there is consensus that in response to increased westerly winds such as those occurring within contemporary climate change, variations in the overturning circulation are likely to be substantial.However there is no established approach to provide observational evidence that these variations have occurred or are occurring in oceanographic measurements;and the lack of such an approach stems from the uncertain fingerprint of Southern Ocean overturning circulation changes on measurable oceanographic variables.Based on preliminary results supported by recent studies, SOFIE proposes that changes in the overturning circulation affect discernibly the ocean interior density structure from surface to depth across the Southern Ocean.We will rigorously test this hypothesis in the state-of-the-art numerical NEMO-OPA model, and assess in-situ evidence of overturning changes from the pan–Antarctic Argo network.To do this, SOFIE will combine model diagnostics of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation with the application to the model and in-situ fields of a novel algorithm characterising the vertical structure of the ocean.Given the ocean overturning’s sensitivity to changes in atmospheric forcing,SOFIE results will be a major step to constrain the changing ability of the Southern Ocean to slow down the rate of global climate change.
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Régimen de financiación
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
SO17 1BJ Southampton
Reino Unido