Description: Large volumes of seawater are used in different industrial sectors such as power plants and ships. Chemical disinfection of this seawater prevents bio-fouling, but also produces halogenated disinfection by-products (DBPs). One major DBP is bromoform whose anthropogenic input to the environment is highly uncertain. Halocarbons such as bromoform impact the oxidation of trace gases and ozone chemistry in the atmosphere. We quantify the contribution of DBPs from industrial waste water to oceanic halocarbon concentrations and their impact on atmospheric chemistry. Based on industrial water discharge and DBP estimates, we simulate oceanic pathways of halocarbons along NEMO-ORCA12 driven Lagrangian trajectories. Anthropogenic halocarbon concentration are strongly enhanced along the coasts in Southeast Asia, but also allow for transport into the open ocean. We highlight bromoform showing that its anthropogenic sources can explain much of observed shelf water concentrations. We show how anthropogenic marine bromine impacts tropospheric and stratospheric ozone chemistry compared to natural background emissions.

Description: To model tracer spreading in the ocean, Lagrangian simulations in an offline framework are a practical and efficient alternative to solving the advective–diffusive tracer equations online. Differences in both approaches raise the question of whether both methods are comparable. Lagrangian simulations usually use model output averaged in time, and trajectories are not subject to parameterized subgrid diffusion, which is included in the advection–diffusion equations of ocean models. Previous studies focused on diffusivity estimates in idealized models but could show that both methods yield similar results as long as the deformations-scale dynamics are resolved and a sufficient amount of Lagrangian particles is used. This study compares spreading of an Eulerian tracer simulated online and a cloud of Lagrangian particles simulated offline with velocities from the same ocean model. We use a global, eddy-resolving ocean model featuring 1/20° horizontal resolution in the Agulhas region around South Africa. Tracer and particles were released at one time step in the Cape Basin and below the mixed layer and integrated for 3 years. Large-scale diagnostics, like mean pathways of floats and tracer, are almost identical and 1D horizontal distributions show no significant differences. Differences in vertical distributions, seen in a reduced vertical spreading and downward displacement of particles, are due to the combined effect of unresolved subdaily variability of the vertical velocities and the spatial variation of vertical diffusivity. This, in turn, has a small impact on the horizontal spreading behavior. The estimates of eddy diffusivity from particles and tracer yield comparable results of about 4000 m2 s−1 in the Cape Basin.

Description: The westerlies and trade winds over the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean are important drivers of the regional oceanography around southern Africa, including features such as the Agulhas Current, the Agulhas leakage, and the Benguela upwelling. Agulhas leakage constitutes a fraction of warm and saline water transport from the Indian Ocean into the South Atlantic. The leakage is stronger during intensified westerlies. Here, we analyze the wind stress of different observational and modeled atmospheric data sets (covering the last 2 millennia, the recent decades, and the 21st century) with regard to the intensity and position of the southeasterly trades and the westerlies. The analysis reveals that variations of both wind systems go hand in hand and that a poleward shift of the westerlies and trades and an intensification of westerlies took place during the recent decades. Furthermore, upwelling in South Benguela is slightly intensified when trades are shifted poleward. Projections for strength and position of the westerlies in the 21st century depend on assumed CO2 emissions and on their effect relative to the ozone forcing. In the strongest emission scenario (RCP8.5) the simulations show a further southward displacement, whereas in the weakest emission scenario (RCP2.6) a northward shift is modeled, possibly due to the effect of ozone recovery dominating the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. We conclude that the Agulhas leakage has intensified during the last decades and is projected to increase if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. This will have a small impact on Benguela upwelling strength and may also have consequences for water mass characteristics in the upwelling region. An increased contribution of Agulhas water to the upwelling water masses will import more preformed nutrients and oxygen into the upwelling region.

Description: Mesoscale dynamics of the Agulhas Current system determine the exchange between the Indian and Atlantic oceans, thereby influencing the global overturning circulation. Using a series of ocean model experiments compared to observations, we show that the representation of mesoscale eddies in the Agulhas ring path improves with increasing resolution of submesoscale flows. Simulated submesoscale dynamics are validated with time‐mean horizontal‐wavenumber spectra from satellite sea surface temperature measurements and mesoscale dynamics with spectra from sea surface height. While the Agulhas ring path in a nonsubmesoscale‐resolving (1/20)° configuration is associated with too less power spectral densities on all scales and too steep spectral slopes, the representation of the mesoscale dynamics improves when the diffusion and the dissipation of the model are reduced and some small‐scale features are resolved. Realistic power spectral densities over all scales are achieved when additionally the horizontal resolution is increased to (1/60)° and a larger portion of the submesoscale spectrum is resolved. Results of an eddy detection algorithm applied to the model outputs as well as to a gridded sea surface height satellite product show that in particular strong cyclones are much better represented when submesoscale flows are resolved by the model. The validation of the submesoscale dynamics with sea surface temperature spectra provides guidance for the choice of advection schemes and explicit diffusion and dissipation as well as for further subgrid‐scale parameterizations. For the Agulhas ring path, the use of upstream biased advection schemes without explicit diffusion and dissipation is found to be associated with realistically simulated submesoscales.

Description: Key Points: • A regional ocean model is used to examine multidecadal shelf temperature changes on the Agulhas Bank • There are distinct shelf temperature regime changes in 1966 and 1996 • These regime shifts are caused by changes in coastal upwelling linked to large-scale wind variability The Agulhas Bank is an important area for the spawning of small pelagic fish and other species. Here, within a NEMO ocean model, we investigate changes in temperature over the Bank on multidecadal time scales. In agreement with previous observational studies, a shift to colder temperatures is found in 1997. The model also simulates an earlier shift from colder to warmer temperatures in 1966. These shifts are coastally confined and shown, using a climatologically forced model run as a control, to be driven by a north‐south migration in the large‐scale wind belts, rather than by changes in downward heat fluxes or changes in the Agulhas Current itself. The zonal wind changes on the Agulhas Bank show a significant relationship with the Southern Annular Mode, showing some promise for future predictability of cold and warm regimes on the Agulhas Bank. Thus, while the Agulhas Current has been shown in previous work to have a large impact on intra‐annual and interannual temperature variability, this work shows that multidecadal variability in temperature on the shelf is likely to be wind forced.

Description: Satellite observations and output from a high-resolution ocean model are used to investigate how the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico affects the Gulf Stream transport through the Florida Straits. We find that the expansion (contraction) of the Loop Current leads to lower (higher) transports through the Straits of Florida. The associated surface velocity anomalies are coherent from the southwestern tip of Florida to Cape Hatteras. A simple continuity-based argument can be used to explain the link between the Loop Current and the downstream Gulf Stream transport: as the Loop Current lengthens (shortens) its path in the Gulf of Mexico, the flow out of the Gulf decreases (increases). Anomalies in the surface velocity field are first seen to the southwest of Florida and within 4 weeks propagate through the Florida Straits up to Cape Hatteras and into the Gulf Stream Extension. In both the observations and the model this propagation can be seen as pulses in the surface velocities. We estimate that the Loop Current variability can be linked to a variability of several Sverdrups (1Sv = 10(6) m(3) s(-1)) through the Florida Straits. The exact timing of the Loop Current variability is largely unpredictable beyond a few weeks and its variability is therefore likely a major contributor to the chaotic/intrinsic variability of the Gulf Stream. However, the time lag between the Loop Current and the flow downstream of the Gulf of Mexico means that if a lengthening/shortening of the Loop Current is observed this introduces some predictability in the downstream flow for a few weeks.

Description: The northward flow of the upper limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is fed by waters entering the South Atlantic from the Indian Ocean mainly via the Agulhas Current (AC) system and by waters entering from the Pacific through Drake Passage (DP), commonly referred to as the “warm” and “cold” water routes, respectively. However, there is no final consensus on the relative importance of these two routes for the upper limb's volume transport and thermohaline properties. In this study we revisited the AC and DP contributions by performing Lagrangian analyses between the two source regions and the North Brazil Current (NBC) at 6∘ S in a realistically forced high-resolution (1∕20∘) ocean model. Our results agree with the prevailing conception that the AC contribution is the major source for the upper limb transport of the AMOC in the tropical South Atlantic. However, they also suggest a non-negligible DP contribution of around 40 %, which is substantially higher than estimates from previous Lagrangian studies with coarser-resolution models but now better matches estimates from Lagrangian observations. Moreover, idealized analyses of decadal changes in the DP and AC contributions indicate that the ongoing increase in Agulhas leakage indeed may have induced an increase in the AC contribution to the upper limb of the AMOC in the tropics, while the DP contribution decreased. In terms of thermohaline properties, our study highlights the fact that the AC and DP contributions cannot be unambiguously distinguished by their temperature, as the commonly adopted terminology may imply, but rather by their salinity when entering the South Atlantic. During their transit towards the NBC the bulk of DP waters experiences a net density loss through a net warming, whereas the bulk of AC waters experiences a slight net density gain through a net increase in salinity. Notably, these density changes are nearly completely captured by Lagrangian particle trajectories that reach the surface mixed layer at least once during their transit, which amount to 66 % and 49 % for DP and AC waters, respectively. This implies that more than half of the water masses supplying the upper limb of the AMOC are actually formed within the South Atlantic and do not get their characteristic properties in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.