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Tracking water masses using passive-tracer transport in NEMO v3.4 with NEMOTAM: application to North Atlantic Deep Water and North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water

Tracking water masses using passive-tracer transport in NEMO v3.4 with NEMOTAM: application to North Atlantic Deep Water and North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water
Tracking water masses using passive-tracer transport in NEMO v3.4 with NEMOTAM: application to North Atlantic Deep Water and North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water

Water mass ventilation provides an important link between the atmosphere and the global ocean circulation. In this study, we present a newly developed, probabilistic tool for offline water mass tracking. In particular, NEMOTAM, the tangent-linear and adjoint counterpart to the NEMO ocean general circulation model, is modified to allow passive-tracer transport. By terminating dynamic feedbacks in NEMOTAM, tagged water can be tracked forward and backward in time as a passive dye, producing a probability distribution of pathways and origins, respectively. To represent surface (re-)ventilation, we optionally decrease the tracer concentration in the surface layer and track this concentration removal to produce a ventilation record. Two test cases are detailed, examining the creation and fate of North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water (NASMW) and North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) in a <span classCombining double low line"inline-formula">2ĝ&circ; </span> configuration of NEMO run with repeated annual forcing for up to 400 years. Model NASMW is shown to have an expected age of 4.5 years and is predominantly eradicated by internal processes. A bed of more persistent NASMW is detected below the mixed layer with an expected age of 8.7 years. It is shown that while model NADW has two distinct outcrops (in the Arctic and North Atlantic), its formation primarily takes place in the subpolar Labrador and Irminger seas. Its expected age is 112 years..

1991-9603
2031–2050
Stephenson, Dafydd
3817b4ce-3990-4455-b189-ed41463029db
Mueller, S.A.
198c1803-2b1d-4688-89a1-ae2624ba101b
Sévellec, Florian
01569d6c-65b0-4270-af2a-35b0a77c9140
Stephenson, Dafydd
3817b4ce-3990-4455-b189-ed41463029db
Mueller, S.A.
198c1803-2b1d-4688-89a1-ae2624ba101b
Sévellec, Florian
01569d6c-65b0-4270-af2a-35b0a77c9140

Stephenson, Dafydd, Mueller, S.A. and Sévellec, Florian (2020) Tracking water masses using passive-tracer transport in NEMO v3.4 with NEMOTAM: application to North Atlantic Deep Water and North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water. Geoscientific Model Development, 13 (4), 2031–2050. (doi:10.5194/gmd-13-2031-2020).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Water mass ventilation provides an important link between the atmosphere and the global ocean circulation. In this study, we present a newly developed, probabilistic tool for offline water mass tracking. In particular, NEMOTAM, the tangent-linear and adjoint counterpart to the NEMO ocean general circulation model, is modified to allow passive-tracer transport. By terminating dynamic feedbacks in NEMOTAM, tagged water can be tracked forward and backward in time as a passive dye, producing a probability distribution of pathways and origins, respectively. To represent surface (re-)ventilation, we optionally decrease the tracer concentration in the surface layer and track this concentration removal to produce a ventilation record. Two test cases are detailed, examining the creation and fate of North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water (NASMW) and North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) in a <span classCombining double low line"inline-formula">2ĝ&circ; </span> configuration of NEMO run with repeated annual forcing for up to 400 years. Model NASMW is shown to have an expected age of 4.5 years and is predominantly eradicated by internal processes. A bed of more persistent NASMW is detected below the mixed layer with an expected age of 8.7 years. It is shown that while model NADW has two distinct outcrops (in the Arctic and North Atlantic), its formation primarily takes place in the subpolar Labrador and Irminger seas. Its expected age is 112 years..

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Accepted/In Press date: 2 March 2020
Published date: 22 April 2020
Additional Information: Funding Information: Financial support. This research was supported by the Natural Funding Information: and Environmental Research Council UK (SMURPHS, grant no. NE/N005767/1, and MESO-CLIP, grant no. NE/K005928/1, and the SPITFIRE DTP) and the DECLIC and Meso-Var-Clim projects funded through the French CNRS–INSU LEFE programme. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry. All rights reserved.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 443215
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/443215
ISSN: 1991-9603
PURE UUID: 92729e98-ce93-4139-ad06-f16ee21223fd

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Date deposited: 17 Aug 2020 16:30
Last modified: 05 Jun 2024 17:21

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Author: Dafydd Stephenson
Author: S.A. Mueller

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