Description: The existence in the ocean of deep western boundary currents, which connect the high-latitude regions where deep water is formed with upwelling regions as part of the global ocean circulation, was postulated more than 40 years ago1. These ocean currents have been found adjacent to the continental slopes of all ocean basins, and have core depths between 1,500 and 4,000 m. In the Atlantic Ocean, the deep western boundary current is estimated to carry (10–40) times 106 m3 s-1 of water2, 3, 4, 5, transporting North Atlantic Deep Water—from the overflow regions between Greenland and Scotland and from the Labrador Sea—into the South Atlantic and the Antarctic circumpolar current. Here we present direct velocity and water mass observations obtained in the period 2000 to 2003, as well as results from a numerical ocean circulation model, showing that the Atlantic deep western boundary current breaks up at 8° S. Southward of this latitude, the transport of North Atlantic Deep Water into the South Atlantic Ocean is accomplished by migrating eddies, rather than by a continuous flow. Our model simulation indicates that the deep western boundary current breaks up into eddies at the present intensity of meridional overturning circulation. For weaker overturning, continuation as a stable, laminar boundary flow seems possible.

Description: The Galápagos Islands provide a topographic barrier for the Southern Equatorial Current (SEC) and the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). An island wake effect can be diagnosed from the difference of an ocean general circulation model simulation which includes the Galápagos Islands and one which ignores their presence. Cold thermocline water upwells on the western side of the islands, and only during boreal winter season these cold waters can linger around the Islands at a depth of about 80 m and affect the far eastern equatorial Pacific surface waters. This effect is partly offset by the westward transport of cold surface waters by the SEC which creates a wake on the western side of the Islands. It is furthermore shown that changes in horizontal current shear, induced by the presence of the Galápagos Islands modify the generation of tropical instability waves and lead to a basin scale SST anomaly pattern.

Description: This study focuses on an important aspect of air–sea interaction in models, namely, large-scale, spurious heat fluxes due to false pathways of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current (NAC) in the “storm formation region” south and east of Newfoundland. Although high-resolution eddy-resolving models show some improvement in this respect, results are sensitive to poorly understood, subgrid-scale processes for which there is currently no complete, physically based parameterization. A simple method to correct an ocean general circulation model (OGCM), acting as a practical substitute for a physically based parameterization, is explored: the recently proposed “semiprognostic method,” a technique for adiabatically adjusting flow properties of a hydrostatic OGCM. The authors show that application of the method to an eddy-permitting model of the North Atlantic Ocean yields more realistic flow patterns and watermass characteristics in the Gulf Stream and NAC regions; in particular, spurious surface heat fluxes are reduced. Four simple modifications to the method are proposed, and their benefits are demonstrated. The modifications successfully account for three drawbacks of the original method: reduced geostrophic wave speeds, damped mesoscale eddy activity, and spurious interaction with topography. It is argued that use of a corrected (eddy permitting) OGCM in a coupled modeling system for simulating present climate (as now becomes possible because of increasing computer power) should lead to a more realistic simulation in regions of strong air–sea interaction as compared with that obtained with an uncorrected model. The method is also well suited for the simulation of the uptake and transport of passive tracers, such as anthropogenic carbon dioxide or components of ecosystem models.

Description: A model of the North Atlantic Ocean is used to simulate the spreading of CFC‐12 from the Labrador Sea deep convection site. The standard version of the model fails to capture the local maximum in CFC‐12 concentration that is observed along the continental slope of the western boundary. Hydrographic data are used to apply a simple correction to the model's horizontal momentum equations. The corrected model is much more successful at capturing the nearslope maximum in CFC‐12 concentration than the uncorrected model and also exhibits a 50% increase of the deep southward export of CFC‐12 at 24°N. The difference between the two model runs is shown to be a consequence of the different paths taken by the Deep Western Boundary Current in the two model versions.