HE52B:
Polar Oceans: Similarities, Differences, and Connections with the World Ocean and Climate II


Session ID#: 37599

Session Description:
The Arctic and the Southern oceans are both affected by annular modes of atmospheric variability. Both connect to the atmosphere through intervening sea ice. Both are unbounded zonally and interact with ice-sheets. Common dynamics include a small Rossby radius, freshwater’s effect on stratification, mixing “hot spots”, and strong boundary currents. Most importantly, both Polar Oceans have critical roles in climate change.

The Arctic Ocean circulation, salinity, and temperature have changed, and sea ice has declined in recent decades. Such changes affect global climate by modifying the global radiative heat balance through ice-albedo feedback and by impacting the strength of the global overturning circulation. Ocean-ice sheet interaction is likely important in the accelerated mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet.

The Southern Ocean differs from the Arctic in being open to exchange with lower latitudes rather than constrained to exchange heat, freshwater, and momentum with lower latitudes only through narrow straits. Unlike the Arctic Ocean, recent Southern Ocean sea ice trends have been positive, with differences in stratification, mixed layer processes, and forcing being possible reasons.

This special US CLIVAR session will examine the dynamics in the Polar Oceans and the connections among them, the global ocean, ice sheets, and climate.
Primary Chair:  James Morison, Polar Science Center, Seattle, WA, United States
Co-chairs:  Camille Lique, Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, IUEM, Plouzané, France, Josh K Willis, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States and Andrew M. Hogg, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Moderators:  Camille Lique, Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, IUEM, Plouzané, France and James Morison, Polar Science Center, Seattle, WA, United States
Student Paper Review Liaison:  Josh K Willis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Index Terms:

1621 Cryospheric change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1635 Oceans [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4513 Decadal ocean variability [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4520 Eddies and mesoscale processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Cross-Topics:
  • AI - Air-Sea Interactions
  • PC - Past, Present and Future Climate
  • PL - Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger
  • RS - Regional Studies

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Alexey V Fedorov1, Wei Liu1 and Florian Sevellec2, (1)Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States, (2)University of Southampton, Southampton, SO14, United Kingdom
Tong Lee1, Xiaochun Wang2, Severine Fournier1 and Ron Kwok1, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Ian G Fenty1, Josh K Willis1, Eric J Rignot1 and Oceans Melting Greenland Science Team, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Michael A Alexander, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Denver, CO, United States, Lantao Sun, CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States and Clara Deser, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States
Erica Jamie Rosenblum1, Sarah T Gille1 and Camille Lique2, (1)Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States, (2)Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, IUEM, Plouzané, France
Nikki Brown, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom and Alberto Naveira Garabato, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom
Janin Schaffer, Wilken-Jon von Appen and Torsten Kanzow, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany
Sam Cornish, University of Oxford, Earth Sciences, Oxford, United Kingdom, Helen Johnson, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom and Yavor Kostov, University of Oxford, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Oxford, United Kingdom