Open‐ocean convection in the Irminger Sea

Bacon, Sheldon; Gould, W.J.; Jia, Yanli

doi:10.1029/2002gl016271

Cited by 80 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Therefore these data are not fit for the study of local formation process of LSW in the Irminger Sea as proposed by Pickart et al (2003), Bacon et al, (2003), and Falina et al (2007), nor for the study of the upper LSW, formed in the Labrador Sea by shallow convection near the boundary currents (Kieke et al 2006;Rhein et al, 2007). Våge et al (2009) and Yashayaev and Loder (2009) have shown that profiling floats make a view of the deep convection process possible that cannot be achieved by the use of our or similar data sets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Apart from the classical view of the formation of LSW in the Labrador Sea, several authors supply evidence for local LSW formation in the Irminger Sea (e.g. Pickart et al, 2003;Bacon et al, 2003;Falina et al, 2007;Våge et al, unpublished manuscript). Centurioni and Gould (2004) convection in the Irminger Sea reaches a factor 1.5-2 less deep than in the Labrador Sea.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decadal and multi-decadal variability of Labrador Sea Water in the north-western North Atlantic Ocean derived from tracer distributions: Heat budget, ventilation, and advection

Aken

Jong

Yashayaev

2011

Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers

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a b s t r a c tTime series of profiles of potential temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and planetary potential vorticity at intermediate depths in the Labrador Sea, the Irminger Sea, and the Iceland Basin have been constructed by combining the hydrographic sections crossing the sub-arctic gyre of the North Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Labrador to Europe, occupied nearly annually since 1990, and historic hydrographic data from the preceding years since 1950. The temperature data of the last 60 years mainly reflect a multi-decadal variability, with a characteristic time scale of about 50 years. With the use of a highly simplified heat budget model it was shown that this long-term temperature variability in the Labrador Sea mainly reflects the long-term variation of the net heat flux to the atmosphere. However, the analysis of the data on dissolved oxygen and planetary potential vorticity show that convective ventilation events, during which successive classes of Labrador Sea Water (LSW) are formed, occurring on decadal or shorter time scales. These convective ventilation events have performed the role of vertical mixing in the heat budget model, homogenising the properties of the intermediate layers (e.g. temperature) for significant periods of time. Both the long-term and the near-decadal temperature signals at a pressure of 1500 dbar are connected with successive deep LSW classes, emphasising the leading role of Labrador Sea convection in running the variability of the intermediate depth layers of the North Atlantic. These signals are advected to the neighbouring Irminger Sea and Iceland Basin. Advection time scales, estimated from the 60 year time series, are slightly shorter or of the same order as most earlier estimates, which were mainly based on the feature tracking of the spreading of the LSW 94 class formed in the period 1989

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decadal and multi-decadal variability of Labrador Sea Water in the north-western North Atlantic Ocean derived from tracer distributions: Heat budget, ventilation, and advection

Aken

Jong

Yashayaev

2011

Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers

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“…Pickart et al, 2003a,b;Bacon et al, 2003;Falina et al, 2007;Våge et al, 2008). This idea is not new.…”

Section: Convection In the Irminger Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Circulation and convection in the Irminger Sea

Våge¹

2010

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“…It wasn't until 1997 onward that the floats were able to measure the seasonal devel-14 opment of the mixed-layer in the western subpolar gyre, but by this time the winters had become more moderate and convection had diminished considerably in the Labrador Sea (Lazier et al, 2002). Nonetheless, the float data were used by Bacon et al (2003) and Centurioni and Gould (2004) to demonstrate that overturning to depths of 400-700 m did occur during this period in the western Irminger Sea. Centurioni and Gould (2004) also used several 1-D mixed-layer models, forced by an idealized representation of the forward tip jet, to show that tip jets were likely responsible for the observed convection.…”

Section: Convection In the Western Irminger Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, this idea was discounted during planning stages of the North Atlantic WOCE experiment. In recent years, however, the notion has been re-kindled in a series of studies (Pickart et al, 2003a,b;Straneo et al, 2003;Bacon et al, 2003;Falina et al, 2007;Våge et al, 2007). In fact it has been argued that during strong positive phases of the 5 NAO, the Irminger Sea may be a significant source of subpolar mode water (Pickart et al, 2003b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convection in the Western North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre: Do Small-Scale Wind Events Matter?

Pickart

Våge

Moore

et al. 2008

Arctic–Subarctic Ocean Fluxes

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This chapter addresses aspects of open-ocean convection in the western North Atlantic, with particular emphasis on the area near southern Greenland and the impact of small-scale atmospheric patterns. Nearly a century ago it was hypothesized that deep convection occurred in the southwest Irminger Sea, and recently convection has been observed in the eastern Labrador Sea. It is argued that the interaction of wintertime low-pressure systems with the high topography of Greenland may lead to the deep mixed-layers in these two areas. Two small-scale atmospheric patterns, forward tip jets and reverse tip jets, result in intense winds on both sides of southern Greenland. The latter pattern is related to the barrier winds along southeast Greenland. In each case the winds blow over areas of closed oceanic circulation where the deep mixing appears to occur. The importance of the forward tip jet in the evolution of the mixed-layer of the southwest Irminger Sea has recently been established, and evidence suggests that during strong winters the overturning can be quite deep. Reverse tip jets may in turn have a similar impact on the eastern Labrador Sea, causing enhanced heat loss and convection. However, to demonstrate this conclusively, further work is necessary to sort out the interaction of the barrier winds and reverse tip jets with the oceanic circulation and pack-ice.

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Open‐ocean convection in the Irminger Sea

Cited by 80 publications

References 13 publications

Decadal and multi-decadal variability of Labrador Sea Water in the north-western North Atlantic Ocean derived from tracer distributions: Heat budget, ventilation, and advection

Decadal and multi-decadal variability of Labrador Sea Water in the north-western North Atlantic Ocean derived from tracer distributions: Heat budget, ventilation, and advection

Circulation and convection in the Irminger Sea

Convection in the Western North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre: Do Small-Scale Wind Events Matter?

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