Description: In this paper we present a literature survey of the South Atlantic's climate and its oceanic upper-layer circulation and meridional heat transport. The opening section deals with climate and is focused upon those elements having greatest oceanic relevance, i.e., distributions of atmospheric sea level pressure, the wind fields they produce, and the net surface energy fluxes. The various geostrophic currents comprising the upper-level general circulation are then reviewed in a manner organized around the subtropical gyre, beginning off southern Africa with the Agulhas Current Retroflection and then progressing to the Benguela Current, the equatorial current system and circulation in the Angola Basin, the large-scale variability and interannual warmings at low latitudes, the Brazil Current, the South Atlantic Current, and finally to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current system in which the Falkland (Malvinas) Current is included. A summary of estimates of the meridional heat transport at various latitudes in the South Atlantic ends of the survey

Description: In the tropical eastern South Pacific the Stratus Ocean Reference Station (ORS) (∼20°S, 85.5°W) is located in the transition zone between the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) and the well-oxygenated subtropical gyre. In February/March 2012, extremely anomalous water mass properties were observed in the thermocline at the Stratus ORS. The available eddy oxygen anomaly was −10.5 × 1016 µmol. This anomalous water was contained in an anticyclonic mode-water eddy crossing the mooring site. This eddy was absorbed at that time by an anticyclonic feature located south of the Stratus mooring. This was the largest water property anomaly observed at the mooring during the 13.5 month deployment period. The sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) of the strong mode-water eddy in February/March 2012 was weak, and while the lowest and highest SSHA were related to weak eddies, SSHA is found not to be sufficient to specify the eddy strength for subsurface-intensified eddies. Still, the anticyclonic eddy, and its related water mass characteristics, could be tracked backward in time in SSHA satellite data to a formation region in April 2011 off the Chilean coast. The resulting mean westward propagation velocity was 5.5 cm s−1. This extremely long-lived eddy carried the water characteristics from the near-coastal Chilean water to the open ocean. The water mass stayed isolated during the 11 month travel time due to high rotational speed of about 20 cm s−1 leading to almost zero oxygen in the subsurface layer of the anticyclonic mode-water eddy with indications of high primary production just below the mixed layer.

Description: A deliberate tracer release experiment in 2008–2010 was used to study diapycnal mixing in the tropical northeastern Atlantic. The tracer (CF3SF5) was injected on the isopycnal surface σΘ = 26.88 kg m−3, which corresponds to about 330 m depth. Three surveys, performed 7, 20, and 30 months after the release, sampled the vertically and laterally expanding tracer patch. The mean diapycnal mixing estimate over the entire region occupied by the tracer and the period of 30 months was found to be (1.19 ± 0.18) × 10−5 m2 s−1, or, alternatively, (3.07 ± 0.58) × 10−11 (kg m−3)2 s−1 as computed from the advection-diffusion equation in isopycnal coordinates with the thickness-weighted averaging. The latter method is preferable in the regions of different stratification for it yields local diapycnal mixing estimates varying less with stratification than their Cartesian coordinate counterparts. Results of this study are comparable to the results of the North Atlantic tracer release experiment (NATRE). However, the internal wave-wave interaction models predict reduced mixing from the breaking of internal waves at low latitudes. Thus, the diapycnal diffusivity found in this study is higher than parameterized by the low latitude of the site (4°N–12°N).

Description: The eastern part of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre is found in the region between the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. A study of the gyre structure in the area east of 35°W between 8°N and 41°N is presented. The geostrophic flow field determined from historical temperature-salinity data sets by objective analysis indicates seasonal variations in shape but no significant changes in the magnitude of volume transports. The eastern part of the gyre has a larger east-west and smaller north-south extension in summer compared with the winter season. The center shifts by about 2° latitude to the south from winter to summer. Long-term temperature time series (6.5 years) from a mooring near the Azores are consistent with these results, showing always a consistent temperature increase at the beginning of the year which is apparently due to the displacement of the northeastern part of the gyre. A comparison between the mean flow fields and fields obtained from individual zonal sections indicates large deviations north and south of the gyre but small deviations within the gyre.

Description: Observations indicate increasingly large and strong oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) in the tropical Pacific over recent decades. Here we report on oxygen decreases and variability within the eastern equatorial Pacific OMZ. We construct time series from historical and profiling float oxygen data and analyze data from repeat hydrographic sections at 110°W and 85°50′W. Historical data are quite sparse for constructing oxygen time series, but floats with oxygen sensors prove to be good tools to fill measurement gaps in later parts of these time series. In the region just south of the equator a time series over the last 34 years reveals that oxygen decreases from 200 to 700 m at a rate between 0.50 and 0.83 μmol kg−1 yr−1. This strong decrease seems to be related to changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Oscillations on shorter time scales (e.g., an El Niño signal in the upper 350 m) are superimposed upon this trend. In the section data, a general trend of decreasing oxygen is present below the surface layer. While velocity differences appear related to oxygen differences in the equatorial channel, there is less correlation elsewhere. Contrasting with long-term trend computations, the trends derived from two repeat sections are obscured by the influence of seasonal and longer-term variability. Multidecadal variability (e.g., PDO) has the strongest influence on long-term trends, while El Niño, isopycnal heave, current variability, seasonal cycles, and temperature changes are less important. Key points: - Oxygen decrease in the Pacific OMZ over the last 34 years in 200-700 m depth - Trends in oxygen and their relation to variability on different timescales - Relation between oxygen and velocity changes in the equatorial channel

Description: The supply of oxygen-rich water to the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) of the eastern North and South Pacific via zonal tropical currents is investigated using shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler and hydrographic section data. Near the equator, the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), Northern and Southern Subsurface Countercurrents (SCCs), and the Northern and Southern Intermediate Countercurrents (ICCs) all carry water that is oxygen richer than adjacent westward flows, thereby providing a net oxygen supply to the eastern Pacific OMZs. The synoptic velocity-weighted oxygen concentration difference between eastward and westward flows is typically 10–50 μmol kg−1. Subthermocline zonal oxygen fluxes reflect decreasing oxygen concentrations of the EUC, the SCCs, and the ICCs as they flow eastward. Approximately 30 year time series in well-sampled regions of the equatorial Pacific show oxygen content decreasing as rapidly as −0.55 μmol kg−1 yr−1 in the major oxygen supply paths of the OMZs for a 200–700 m layer and similar trends for a density layer spanning roughly these depths. This finding is in gross agreement with climate models, which generally predict expanding OMZs.

Description: We present the first systematic study of the silicon isotope composition in the water column (δ30SiSi(OH)4) and in diatoms (δ30Sidiatom) from the underlying surface sediments in a coastal upwelling region. The surface waters upwelling on the shelf off Peru are mainly fed by southward flowing subsurface waters along the coast, which show a mean δ30SiSi(OH)4 of +1.5‰. The concentration of dissolved silicic acid (Si(OH)4) increases towards the south in these waters and with increasing water depth, suggesting lateral mixing with water masses from the south and intense remineralisation of particulate biogenic silica (bSiO2) in the water column and in the surface sediments. Surface waters in the realm of the most intense upwelling between 5°S and 15°S have only marginally elevated δ30SiSi(OH)4 values (δ30SiSi(OH)4 = +1.7‰) with respect to the source Si isotope composition, whereas further north and south, where upwelling is less pronounced, surface waters are more strongly fractionated (δ30SiSi(OH)4 up to +2.8‰) due to the stronger utilisation of the smaller amounts of available Si(OH)4. The degree of Si(OH)4 utilisation in the surface waters along the shelf estimated from the Si(OH)4 concentration data ranges from 51% to 93%. The δ30Sidiatom values of hand-picked diatoms in the underlying surface sediments vary from +0.6‰ to +2.0‰, which is within the range of the expected fractionation between surface waters and diatoms. The fractionation signal in the surface waters produced during formation of the diatoms is reflected by the δ30Sidiatom values in the underlying sediments, with the lowest δ30Sidiatom values in the main upwelling region. The silicon isotope compositions of bSiO2 (δ30SibSiO2) from the same surface sediment samples are generally much lower than the δ30Sidiatom signatures indicating a significant contamination of the bSiO2 with biogenic siliceous material other than diatoms, such as sponge spicules. This shift towards lighter δ30SibSiO2 values by up to −1.3‰ compared to δ30Sidiatom signatures for the same surface sediment samples potentially biases the interpretation of δ30Si paleorecords from sediments with low bSiO2 concentrations, and thus the reconstruction of past Si(OH)4 utilisation in surface waters.