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ACC Subduction by MesoscalesThe mesoscale contribution to Subduction in the Southern Ocean was recently studied by Salle'e and Rintoul (2011, SR) using the following mesoscale model. The adiabatic A-regime was modeled with the GM stream function, the diabatic D-regime was modeled with tapering functions,the D-A interface was taken to be at the mixed layer depth and the mesoscale diffusivity was either a constant or given by a 2D model. Since the resulting subductions were an order of magnitude smaller than the data of ±200 m/yr (Mazloff et al., 2010), SR showed that if instead of the above model-dependent mesoscale diffusivities, they employed the ones by Salle'e et al. (2008) from surface drifter observations, the subductions compared significantly better with the data. On those grounds, SR suggested a tenfold increase of the diffusivity. In this work, we suggest that since the mesoscale diffusivity is but one component of a muc large mesoscale parameterization, one should first assess the latter's overall performance followed by the assessment of the predicted ACC subduction. We employ the mesoscale model formulated31 in Canuto et al. (2018; 2019, that includes recent theoretical and observational advances and that was assessed against a variety of data including the output of 17 other OGCMs. The ACC diffusivities compare well with drifter data by Salle'e et al. (2008) and the ACC subduction rates are in agreement with the data.
Document ID
20190032187
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Accepted Manuscript (Version with final changes)
Authors
V M Canuto
(Goddard Institute for Space Studies New York, New York, United States)
Y Cheng
(Columbia University New York, New York, United States)
Date Acquired
October 21, 2019
Publication Date
December 1, 2019
Publication Information
Publication: Journal of Physical Oceanography
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
Volume: 49
Issue: 12
Issue Publication Date: December 1, 2019
ISSN: 0022-3670
e-ISSN: 1520-0485
URL: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/phoc/49/12/jpo-d-19-0043.1.xml
Subject Category
Oceanography
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN74282
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80NSSC17M0057
PROJECT: SCMD-EarthScienceSystem_509496
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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