SEMINAR: Abstract of MPO sem tomorrow

[Brian Mapes <bmapes@rsmas.miami.edu>]

Here is the abstract: 

Agulhas leakage, the water that flows from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, can be related to the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. In such, it might play a crucial role in the timing of glacial periods, which it leads on time scales of years. Thus, a sustained monitoring of the magnitude of Agulhas leakage could be used to identify global climate change signals. However, estimating the magnitude of this Agulhas leakage is not easy. Agulhas leakage is a minor and intermittent flux in the region South of Africa and due to the vigorous mixing the signal is quickly diluted in the Atlantic Ocean.

Agulhas leakage can best be assessed using the trajectories of floats that start in the Agulhas Current and end in the Atlantic Ocean. In the real ocean, however, the amount of floats which can be released is too low for any statistical properties to be attributed to the leakage. Agulhas leakage can therefore only be assessed in an indirect way, using proxies of quantities which could be retrieved in the real ocean. To design these proxies, the feasibility and skill of different strategies for assessing Agulhas leakage are tested in a numerical ocean model. For this, the information of millions of numerical float trajectories is related to time series of quantities that can in principle be observed in the real ocean. These results might be used in the design of a future in-situ monitoring program.

MPO SEMINARS

Spring SEMESTER 2010 

Dr. Erik van Sebille, RSMAS / MPO
“Assessing Agulhas leakage, the flux of warm water into the Atlantic”

Wednesday, Jan 20, 2009 - 3:00pm
SLAB Seminar Room, S/A 103