Interacting Climates Of Ocean Basins

A comprehensive review of interactions between the climates of different ocean basins and their key contributions to global climate variability and change. Providing essential theory and discussing outstanding examples as well as impacts on monsoons, it a useful resource for graduate students and researchers in the atmospheric and ocean sciences.

"Climate variability in different ocean basins can impact one another, for instance the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific Ocean has remote effects on other tropical oceans around the world, which in turn modulate ENSO. With chapters by eminent researchers, this book provides a comprehensive review on how interactions among the climates in different ocean basins are key contributors to global climate variability. It discusses how interbasin interactions are mediated by oceanic and atmospheric bridges and explains exciting new possibilities for enhancing climate prediction globally. The first part of the book covers essential theory and introduces the basic mechanisms for remote connection and local amplification. The second presents outstanding examples. The latter part discusses applications to cases of societal interest such as impacts on monsoon systems and expectations after climate change. This comprehensive reference is a useful resource for graduate students and researchers in the atmospheric and ocean sciences"--

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 147. It is more than 30 years since the publication of Jacob Bjerknes' groundbreaking ideas made clear the importance of ocean-atmosphere interaction in the tropics. It is now more than 20 years since the arrival of a massive El Niño in the fall of 1982 set off a cascade of observational and theoretical studies. During the following decades, the climate research community has made exceptional progress in refining our capacity to observe earth's climate and theorize about it, including new satellite-based and in situ monitoring systems and coupled ocean-atmosphere predictive numerical models. Of equal importance. is the expanding scope ofresearch, which now reaches far beyond the Pacific El Niño and includes climate phenomena in other ocean basins. In order to cover the now global context of ocean-atmosphere interaction we have organized this monograph around five principal themes, each introduced by one or more broad overview papers. Theme I covers interaction and climate variability in the Pacific sector, with extensive discussion of El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and with the possible causes and consequences of variability on both shorter and longer timescales. Theme II is devoted to interaction in the Atlantic sector. This basin exhibits complex behavior, reflecting its geographic location between two major zones of convection as well as neighboring the tropical Pacific. Theme III reviews the recent, exciting progress in our understanding of climate variability in the Indian sector. Theme IV addresses the interaction between the tropics and the extratropics, which are linked through the presence of shallow meridional overturning cells in the ocean. Finally, Theme V discusses overarching issues of cross-basin interaction.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. It is bounded by the continents of America, Europe and Africa and at its pole wards margins by the Arctic and the Southern Oceans. Different climatic patterns can be observed along its large latitudinal domain, which extends from the equator to sub-polar regions. Thus, different tropical and extra-tropical meteorological systems may have some influence on the characterization of precipitation regimes observed surrounding the basin, such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), tropical monsoon systems, westerly storm tracks and atmospheric rivers. The subtropical regions of the Azores and South Atlantic high pressure systems are large evaporative areas which act as important moisture sources for the adjacent continents. Variations in the oceanic characteristics may influence the moisture transport towards the neighboring landmasses and alter the precipitation. The influence of climatic variability modes manifest not only over the Atlantic Ocean, but also over other oceanic regions, may also interact with the regional hydrological budget, thereby generating long periods of drought or excessive precipitation over the Atlantic rim landmasses. This Research Topic intends to highlight the advances of the scientific community in investigating the continental precipitation surrounding the Atlantic Ocean and its variability on various temporal and spatial scales.

Preface This book is the culmination of a workshop jointly organized by NATO and CEC on Climate-Ocean Interaction which was held at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University during 26-30 September 1988. The objective of the ARW was to assess the current status of research on climate-ocean interaction, with a major focus on the development of coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice models and their application in the study of past, present and possible future climates. This book contains 16 chapters divided into four parts: Introduction; Observations of the Climate of the Ocean; Modelling the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Sea Ice Components of the Climatic System; and Simulating the Variability of Climate on Short, Medium and Long Time Scales. A fifth part contains the reports of the five Working Groups on: Climate Observations, Modelling, ENSO Modelling and Prediction, Climate-Ocean Interaction on TIme Scales of Decades to Centuries, and Impact of Paleoclimatic Proxy Data on Climate Modelling. Preface ix Acknowledgements I thank Howard Cattle and Neil Wells for their guidance and assistance as members of the Workshop Organizing Committee. I particularly thank Michael Davey for all his efforts as Local Organizer to make the ARW a success. I also thank the staff of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, for their help with the arrangements for the ARW.

Strong, persistent currents along the western boundaries of the world’s major ocean basins are called “western boundary currents” (WBCs). This chapter describes the structure and dynamics of WBCs, their roles in basin-scale circulation, regional variability, and their influence on atmosphere and climate. WBCs are largely a manifestation of wind-driven circulation; they compensate the meridional Sverdrup transport induced by the winds over the ocean interior. Some WBCs also play a role in the global thermohaline circulation, through inter-gyre and inter-basin water exchanges. After separation from the boundary, most WBCs have zonal extensions, which exhibit high eddy kinetic energy due to flow instabilities, and large surface fluxes of heat and carbon dioxide. The WBCs described here in detail are the Gulf Stream, Brazil and Malvinas Currents in the Atlantic, the Somali and Agulhas Currents in the Indian, and the Kuroshio and East Australian Current in the Pacific Ocean.

An engaging and accessible textbook focusing on climate dynamics from the perspective of the ocean, specifically interactions between the atmosphere and ocean. It describes the fundamental physics and dynamics governing the behaviour of the ocean, and provides numerous end-of-chapter questions and access to online data sets.