Geophysical Research Letters: Vol. 26, No. 9, pp.1329-1332.
Pacific thermocline bridge revisited
Niklas Schneider, Arthur J. Miller, David W. Pierce, and Tim P. Barnett
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Stephan Venzke and Mojib Latif
Max-Planck-Institut fur Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany
Clara Deser
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
The coupling on decadal time scales of the mid-latitude and tropical Pacific via an oceanic 'bridge' in the
thermocline is investigated using ocean general circulation model hindcasts and a coupled ocean atmosphere
model. Results indicate that in the tropics decadal anomalies of isopycnal depth are forced by Ekman pumping
and are largely independent of the arrival of subducted anomalies in the thermocline that originate in the
mid-latitudes of either hemisphere. In the coupled model, temperature anomalies on isopycnals show little
coupling from the tropics to the northern hemisphere, but are lag correlated between southern hemisphere
mid- and low-latitudes. However, anomaly magnitudes on the equator are small. These resulsts suggest that
the oceanic 'bridge' to the northern hemisphere explains only a small part of the observed decadal variance
in the equatorial Pacific. Coupling to the southern mid-latitudes via temperature anomalies on isopycnals
remains an intriguing possibility.
Note:This abstract is courtesy of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), who owns sole rights to it. The
abstract is subject to AGU copyright laws and statutes. For more information, please visit the AGU website
at http://www.agu.org.
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Hongjun Zhang:
zhangho@ucar.edu