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The impact of polar mesoscale storms on northeast Atlantic Ocean circulation

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 34–37 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Atmospheric processes regulate the formation of deep water in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean and hence influence the large-scale ocean circulation1. Every year thousands of mesoscale storms, termed polar lows, cross this climatically sensitive region of the ocean. These storms are often either too small or too short-lived to be captured in meteorological reanalyses or numerical models2,3,4. Here we present simulations with a global, eddy-permitting ocean/sea-ice circulation model, run with and without a parameterization of polar lows. The parameterization reproduces the high wind speeds and heat fluxes observed in polar lows as well as their integrated effects, and leads to increases in the simulated depth, frequency and area of deep convection in the Nordic seas, which in turn leads to a larger northward transport of heat into the region, and southward transport of deep water through Denmark Strait. We conclude that polar lows are important for the large-scale ocean circulation and should be accounted for in short-term climate predictions. Recent studies3,4 predict a decrease in the number of polar lows over the northeast Atlantic in the twenty-first century that would imply a reduction in deep convection and a potential weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

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Figure 1: The annual mean density of polar lows over the northeast Atlantic Ocean.
Figure 2: Power spectra of 10-m wind speed over the Nordic seas.
Figure 3: The impact of polar lows on open-ocean deep convection in the Nordic seas.
Figure 4: The impact of polar lows on monthly volume and heat transports in the North Atlantic.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank G. R. Bigg, B. Harden, D. P. Stevens, G. W. K. Moore and P. E. Isachsen for useful discussion and comments. We acknowledge the ECMWF for providing the ERA-40 fields. The numerical model integrations used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the US DOE Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, Climate System Research Center, 233 Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003-9297, USA

    Alan Condron

  2. School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

    Ian A. Renfrew

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Contributions

A.C. and I.A.R. jointly conceived the study. A.C. adapted the parameterization scheme and carried out the model runs and model output analysis. I.A.R. carried out the spectral analysis of the wind fields. A.C. and I.A.R. jointly interpreted the results and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ian A. Renfrew.

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Condron, A., Renfrew, I. The impact of polar mesoscale storms on northeast Atlantic Ocean circulation. Nature Geosci 6, 34–37 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1661

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