Physical oceanography articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • News & Views |

    Global surface warming has slowed since the start of the twenty-first century, while Pacific heat uptake was enhanced. Analyses of ocean heat content suggest that the warm water was transferred to the Indian Ocean, through the Indonesian straits.

    • Jérôme Vialard

  • Letter |

    Methanotrophic bacteria can consume methane emitted from the ocean floor before it reaches the atmosphere. Variations in coastal currents can reduce methane oxidation in the ocean by limiting methanotroph residence time above methane seeps.

    • Lea Steinle
    • , Carolyn A. Graves
    •  & Helge Niemann

  • Perspective |

    El Niño diversity and its genesis are debated. An overview of existing work along with a fuzzy clustering analysis and simulations suggest that the asymmetry, irregularity and extremes of El Niño result from westerly wind bursts.

    • Dake Chen
    • , Tao Lian
    •  & Lei Zhou

  • News & Views |

    Ice shelves in West Antarctica have been shown to melt where warm circumpolar deep water enters a sub-shelf cavity. A bathymetric reconstruction of Totten Glacier in East Antarctica suggests that the same process may be at work there.

    • Peter Fretwell

  • Letter |

    Totten Glacier has the largest thinning rate in East Antarctica. A derivation of the sea floor bathymetry reveals entrances to the ice cavity beneath the glacier that could allow deep warm water to enter and enhance basal melting.

    • J. S. Greenbaum
    • , D. D. Blankenship
    •  & M. J. Siegert

  • News & Views |

    Beneath the fresh and cold surface water in the Arctic Ocean resides more saline and warmer water of Atlantic origin. Pan-Arctic measurements of turbulent mixing suggest that tidal mixing is bringing up substantial amounts of heat in some areas.

    • Camille Lique

  • Letter |

    The exchange of water across the Antarctic continental shelf break brings warm waters towards ice shelves and glacier grounding lines. Ocean glider observations reveal that eddy-induced transport contributes significantly to this exchange.

    • Andrew F. Thompson
    • , Karen J. Heywood
    •  & Andrew L. Stewart

  • News & Views |

    Surface salinity in the Nordic Seas dropped between 1965 and 1995, but the source of fresh water to this region is contentious. Observations and simulations suggest that the low-salinity water was derived from the North Atlantic Ocean.

    • G. Reverdin

  • News & Views |

    Upwelling within the highly productive Benguela current off the Namibian coast began in, and intensified throughout, the Neogene epoch. Model simulations indicate its development was intimately connected to evolving topography and mountain uplift in Africa.

    • Johan Etourneau

  • Letter |

    In the Southern Ocean, deep-water masses of the world ocean upwell to the surface and subsequently sink to intermediate and abyssal depths in two overturning cells. Observational evidence relates changes in abyssal mixing—a key influence on the lower cell—to oceanic eddy variability.

    • K. L. Sheen
    • , A. C. Naveira Garabato
    •  & A. J. Watson

  • News & Views |

    During the early Pliocene epoch, tropical sea surface temperatures were thought to be similar to those of today, even though global mean temperatures were several degrees warmer. Temperature reconstructions now suggest that the Pliocene tropical warm pools were about two degrees warmer than those at present.

    • Mark Pagani

  • Progress Article |

    The Indonesian seas provide the only connection between ocean basins in the tropics. A review of observational data and model results concludes that vertical mixing determines the physical properties of water in the Indonesian throughflow.

    • Janet Sprintall
    • , Arnold L. Gordon
    •  & Susan E. Wijffels

  • Letter |

    The factors that control the submarine melt rate at Greenland’s glaciers are uncertain and largely inferred from brief summer surveys in the fjords where glaciers terminate. Continuous records of water properties and velocity for the months September to May from two large Greenland fjords reveal strong variability on 3- to 10-day timescales as a result of pulses of water that are propagated from the shelf ocean.

    • Rebecca H. Jackson
    • , Fiammetta Straneo
    •  & David A. Sutherland

  • Article |

    Low levels of iron limit primary productivity across much of the Southern Ocean. Measurements of dissolved iron levels combined with hydrographic data suggest that much of the iron in the surface waters of the Southern Ocean is supplied by deep mixing during winter.

    • Alessandro Tagliabue
    • , Jean-Baptiste Sallée
    •  & Philip W. Boyd

  • Article |

    Several periods of massive iceberg discharge into the North Atlantic and widespread cooling marked the last glacial period. Reconstructions of northward flow along the Florida margin suggest that not all cold events were associated with a change in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

    • Jean Lynch-Stieglitz
    • , Matthew W. Schmidt
    •  & Ping Chang

  • Letter |

    Relatively little is known about the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current during the last glacial period. Estimates of current speeds over the past 20,000 years based on sediment grain size suggest that average flow speeds during the last glacial were comparable to modern speeds, but not in the areas with overlying winter sea ice.

    • I. N. McCave
    • , S. J. Crowhurst
    •  & M. P. Meredith

  • News & Views |

    Liquid water may lurk beneath the frozen surfaces of Jupiter's moon Europa and other icy worlds. Extending ocean science beyond Earth, planetary oceanographers are linking Europa's ocean dynamics to its enigmatic surface geology.

    • Jason Goodman

  • Letter |

    On Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, enigmatic chaos terrain—where the icy crust is cut by a jumble of ridges and cracks—occurs most commonly at lower latitudes. Simulations of convection in the ocean underlying Europa’s icy crust suggest that ocean dynamics can control an enhanced flow of heat to Europa’s equatorial surface, and hence geological activity.

    • K. M. Soderlund
    • , B. E. Schmidt
    •  & D. D. Blankenship

  • Review Article |

    The Indian Ocean Dipole is a key mode of interannual climate variability influencing much of Asia and Australia. A Review suggests that in response to greenhouse warming, mean conditions of the Indian Ocean will shift toward a positive dipole state, but with no overall shift in the frequency of positive and negative events as defined relative to the mean climate state.

    • Wenju Cai
    • , Xiao-Tong Zheng
    •  & Toshio Yamagata

  • Letter |

    Palaeoclimate records indicate lower El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variance during the middle Holocene compared with today, but the mechanisms leading to this muted variability are not clear. A 175-year oxygen isotope record from a Porites coral microatoll in the NINO3.4 region records persistently reduced ENSO variance about 4,300 years ago, and season-specific analyses of the record suggest that insolation played an important role in this change.

    • H. V. McGregor
    • , M. J. Fischer
    •  & C. D. Woodroffe

  • News & Views |

    Interactions between the ocean and atmosphere are complex. An analysis of satellite data from the Southern Ocean reveals a tight coupling of ocean and atmosphere on horizontal scales of around 100 km that modifies both near-surface winds and ocean circulation.

    • Dudley Chelton

  • News & Views |

    Atmospheric aerosols affect climate by scattering and absorbing sunlight and by modifying clouds. Model simulations suggest that anthropogenic aerosols suppressed tropical storm activity over the Atlantic throughout much of the twentieth century.

    • Johannes Quaas

  • Article |

    The Indo-Pacific warm pool is the largest source of heat and moisture vapour to the atmosphere. Proxy reconstructions and model simulations suggest that during the Last Glacial Maximum, the exposure of the Sunda Shelf of Southeast Asia weakened deep convection over the warm pool.

    • Pedro N. DiNezio
    •  & Jessica E. Tierney

  • Letter |

    The growth of ice on Antarctica about 34 million years ago affected sea level. A combination of modelling and marine sediment analyses shows that sea level near the developing ice sheet first fell and then rose as a result of crustal deformation imposed by the ice growth.

    • Paolo Stocchi
    • , Carlota Escutia
    •  & Masako Yamane

  • Letter |

    In sharp contrast to events in the Arctic region, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has expanded slightly in the past few years. A combination of observations and climate model simulations suggests that cooling of the surface ocean by meltwater from the Antarctic ice shelves has contributed significantly to this sea ice expansion.

    • R. Bintanja
    • , G. J. van Oldenborgh
    •  & C. A. Katsman

  • Letter |

    The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is a key component of the climate system. Data and climate model reconstructions reveal a decline in the strength of the overturning circulation during the Heinrich1 and Younger Dryas cold events of the last glacial period.

    • Stefan P. Ritz
    • , Thomas F. Stocker
    •  & Axel Timmermann

  • Feature |

    Record minima in Arctic summer sea ice have been trumping each other. Marika Holland reflects on the likely fate of the northern sea ice cap.

    • Marika Holland

  • News & Views |

    Sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Atlantic Ocean are subject to year-to-year variations. Reanalysis data and model simulations suggest that advection of warm water from north of the Equator can drive some of the warm events.

    • Joke F. Lübbecke

  • Letter |

    Wind power inputs at the surface ocean are dissipated through smaller-scale processes in the ocean interior and turbulent boundary layer. Simulations suggest that seafloor topography enhances turbulent mixing and energy dissipation in the ocean interior.

    • Maxim Nikurashin
    • , Geoffrey K. Vallis
    •  & Alistair Adcroft

  • Letter |

    Every year, thousands of mesoscale storms (termed polar lows) cross the climatically sensitive subpolar North Atlantic Ocean. High-resolution numerical simulations of the ocean circulation, taking into account the effect of these storms on deep-water formation, suggest that polar lows significantly affect the global ocean circulation.

    • Alan Condron
    •  & Ian A. Renfrew

  • Letter |

    The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is sensitive to ocean warming and contains enough ice to significantly raise sea level. Direct oceanographic measurements in the Amundsen Sea during 2010 show continuous inflow of warm water towards the thinning ice shelves in West Antarctica.

    • L. Arneborg
    • , A. K. Wåhlin
    •  & A. H. Orsi

  • Letter |

    Considerable climatic variability on decadal to millennial timescales has been documented for the Holocene epoch. A reappraisal of estuarine and coastal sediment records reveals five periods of enhanced storminess during the past 6,500 years, at a frequency of approximately every 1,500 years and unrelated to solar irradiance variations.

    • Philippe Sorrel
    • , Maxime Debret
    •  & Bernadette Tessier

  • News & Views |

    Subtropical highs influence climate over extensive regions of the planet. These maritime high-pressure systems are set to intensify in boreal summer over the coming century, as a result of an increase in the land–sea thermal contrast.

    • Hisashi Nakamura

  • Letter |

    During the Last Glacial Maximum, the pattern of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation was different from today. A combination of sediment chemistry and a scavenging model suggests that the glacial circulation was shallower and at least as vigorous as today.

    • Jörg Lippold
    • , Yiming Luo
    •  & Hartmut Schulz

  • Letter |

    The Atlantic Ocean has been suggested as an important driver of variability in European climate on decadal timescales. Analyses of ocean and atmosphere temperature data from observations suggest that the shift in European climate during the 1990s was a result of warming in the North Atlantic Ocean.

    • Rowan T. Sutton
    •  & Buwen Dong

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