Posted by Deirdre Byrne on May 14, 2001 at 12:06:52:
Review of Upper Branch Routes of the Thermohaline Conveyor Belt
CONTENT: The locations of the sections that were selected to
highlight the model results were well-chosen and easy to grasp
intuitively. I found the results and discussion of the three
pathways for conveyor belt (CB) fluxes intriguing, particularly
the Tasmanian route.
I was also very interested to see the deconstruction of
fluxes through geographic sections by the origin, i.e.,
some of the water that in a geographic sense is flowing
from the Indian into the South Atlantic actually originates
in the Drake Passage. However, if such water flows into
the Indian, and as the authors seem to show, is significantly
modified along its path, (from Cold to Tepid or even Cold
to Warm) -- to what extent should it still be considered
part of the Cold Water route?
I would have likes to see some discussion of how long it took for
water to circulate around the different pathways, and it seems like
there could be some very large differences.
It would also have been nice to see some temperature/salinity
information. If the density of a given parcel of water is
being significantly modified, in what way? Saltier or colder?
Warmer or fresher? Some "progressive" T/S diagrams would have
been helpful.
Many of my other questions were along the lines of Steve Rintoul's --
how the necessary neglect of subgrid (eddy-scale) processes has
affected the results. In some cases, I can imagine the parameterization
of eddy processes would produce a more direct connection between oceans
than would actually obtain in the ocean. In others, I think it
might reduce the amplitude of the conveyor belt for sections in
which eddy-scale processes form a significant portion of the
flow, as in the Agulhas Retroflection region.
FORM: The thumbnail gifs were difficult to look at and it took
me a little while to figure out that I could click on them and
get a larger picture. However, getting the larger picture
meant I couldn't see the commentary any more, which was awkward.
I ended up opening a lot of windows and lining them up so that
I could see the larger-sized figure and the commentary at once.
Some of the language was unclear, .e.g, "Waters flowing to EAQTL that
warm at the initial sections abound essentially at ITFL". What
does "abound essentially" mean?