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Influence of sea ice on the thermohaline circulation in the Arctic‐North Atlantic Ocean
Author(s) -
Mauritzen Cecilie,
Häkkinen Sirpa
Publication year - 1997
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 - 10.1029/97gl03192
Subject(s) - thermohaline circulation , sea ice , ocean gyre , arctic ice pack , shutdown of thermohaline circulation , arctic sea ice decline , oceanography , climatology , geology , arctic , antarctic sea ice , north atlantic deep water , arctic geoengineering , fishery , biology , subtropics
A fully prognostic coupled ocean‐ice model is used to study the sensitivity of the overturning cell of the Arctic‐North‐Atlantic system to sea ice forcing. The strength of the thermohaline cell will be shown to depend on the amount of sea ice transported from the Arctic to the Greenland Sea and further to the subpolar gyre. The model produces a 2–3 Sv increase of the meridional circulation cell at 25N (at the simulation year 15) corresponding to a decrease of 800 km³ in the sea ice export from the Arctic. Previous modeling studies suggest that interannual and decadal variability in sea ice export of this magnitude is realistic, implying that sea ice induced variability in the overturning cell can reach 5–6 Sv from peak to peak.