Reshaping the Antarctic Circumpolar Current via Antarctic Bottom Water Export

Westerly wind forcing of Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is balanced at large-scale topographic obstructions by form drag; the formation of standing meanders produces a net westward pressure gradient associated with the geostrophically balanced meridional flow. These topographic obstructions also support the northward geostrophic flow of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW), which piles up dense water on the eastern side of the topography and thereby acts to reduce the form drag. We therefore hypothesize that variations in the density of AABW and its export rate must be accommodated by reshaping the ACC’s standing meanders in order to preserve the zonal force balance.

We test this hypothesis using an idealized, eddy-resolving sector model of the ACC. We find that response of the ACC to switching off AABW production depends on whether the topography is high enough to block barotropic potential vorticity (PV) contours. If re-entrant PV contours exist then the ACC responds similarly to switching off AABW production or halving the westerly wind strength: for example the ACC transport drops by 10-20% and the surface speed in the meander decreases by around 25%. If PV contours are blocked then the ACC transport becomes insensitive to the westerlies, but switching off AABW production still leads to a reduced ACC transport through a wider, slower meander. These results suggest that the warming and freshening of AABW observed in recent decades may have a detectable impact on the surface circulation of the ACC.