Premium
Weddell Sea anomalies: Excitation, propagation, and possible consequences
Author(s) -
Hellmer H. H.,
Kauker F.,
Timmermann R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2009gl038407
Subject(s) - hydrography , geology , oceanography , weddell sea bottom water , continental shelf , sea ice , current (fluid) , climatology , boundary current , ice shelf , ocean current , cryosphere
Antarctic marginal seas are susceptible to significant decadal variability as revealed by the analysis of a 200‐year integration of a regional ice‐ocean model forced with the atmospheric output of the IPCC climate model ECHAM5‐MPIOM. The strongest signal occurs on the southern and western Weddell Sea continental shelf where changes in bottom salinity are initiated by a variable sea ice cover and modification of surface waters near the Greenwich meridian. Related zonal shifts of the western rim current guide deep waters with different temperature out of the Weddell Sea. With a deep boundary current the temperature signal propagates westward through southern Drake Passage and along the upper continental rise in the southeast Pacific thereby influencing the hydrographic conditions on the continental shelf of Bellingshausen, Amundsen, and Ross Seas.