Wind-driven Variability in Heat Storage and the Meridional Overturning Circulation

观测和气候模式表明，风是海洋热含量和纬向翻转环流（MOC）的季节至年际变化的主要原因。这项研究的重点是更好地了解海洋如何适应变化的风，特别关注气候重要的量，如海洋热含量和MOC强度和路径。将建立一个理论框架，以更好地了解这些量如何取决于控制参数，包括平均分层;风变率的区域、结构和频率;海底地形;以及平均状态（包括风驱动的环流和平均翻转环流）。所采用的理想化方法将使人们能够对控制性物理现象有一个一般性的了解，包括它们在世界各地不同海洋中的变化，以及在平均状态和强迫变率可能与目前不同的未来气候中的变化。这项研究的结果将被纳入研究生水平的课程和讲座在伍兹霍尔海洋研究所（WHOI）地球物理流体动力学暑期学校，并参与将寻求通过WHOI暑期学生研究员计划从本科生。这将提供数值方法、应用数学、气候和数据分析方面的培训。这项工作的结果将通过同行审查的文献、国家和国际会议以及网页内容提供。尽管它对气候的重要性是众所周知的，但目前还没有分析理论来解释风强迫的瞬变如何通过翻转环流改变海洋热储存和运输。这项工作将结合联合收割机已知的大规模，低频海洋环流，如地转，波瞬变，涡通量，在一个简单而紧凑的方式来代表气候重要的综合量，如海洋热含量和质量输送。拟议工作的主要智力价值在于开发一个理论框架，将可变风应力区域与远程洋流联系起来。这不可避免地涉及到了解热量是如何在海洋环流和全球尺度上储存和传输的。出发点是一个线性理论的基础上等密度质量预算在内部的Sverdrup动力学和Rossby和边界波瞬变。从理论上的预测，以及这种非线性过程的重要性，如露头，涡通量，封闭的位涡等值线，和惯性西边界流，将评估与使用理想化的数值模式和公布的海洋状态估计从ECCO（估计的环流和气候的海洋）财团。从这些更完整的模型诊断也将被用来指导修订的线性理论。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

Observations and climate models show that winds are responsible for much of the seasonal to interannual variability in ocean heat content and the meridional overturning circulation (MOC). This study is focused on gaining a better understanding of how the ocean adjusts to variable winds, with particular focus on climatically important quantities such as ocean heat content and the MOC strength and pathways. A theoretical framework will be developed to better understand how these quantities depend on the controlling parameters, including mean stratification; region, structure, and frequency of wind variability; bottom topography; and mean state (including wind-driven gyres and a mean overturning circulation). The idealized approach adopted will allow for a general understanding of the controlling physics, including how they will vary in different oceans around the world, and in a future climate where the mean state and forcing variability might be different than at present. The results of this study will be incorporated into graduate level classes and lectures at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Summer School, and participation will be sought from undergraduate students through the WHOI Summer Student Fellow Program. This will provide training in numerical methods, applied mathematics, climate, and data analysis. Results from this work will be made available through the peer-reviewed literature, national and international meetings, and web page content. Despite its known importance for climate, there is currently no analytic theory for how transients in wind-forcing modify ocean heat storage and transport by the overturning circulation. This work will combine known features of the large-scale, low frequency ocean circulation, such as geostrophy, wave transients, and eddy fluxes, in a simple and compact way to represent climatically important integrated quantities such as ocean heat content and mass transports. The primary intellectual merit of the proposed work lies in developing a theoretical framework to connect regions of variable wind stress to remote ocean currents. This inevitably involves understanding how heat is stored and transported on both gyre- and global-scales in the ocean. The starting point is a linear theory based on isopycnal mass budgets in the interior subject to Sverdrup dynamics and Rossby and boundary wave transients. The predictions from the theory, and the importance of such nonlinear processes as outcropping, eddy fluxes, closed potential vorticity contours, and inertial western boundary currents, will be assessed with the use of idealized numerical models and published ocean state estimates from the ECCO (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean) consortium. Diagnostics from these more complete models will also be used to guide revisions to the linear theory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.