The densest watermass of the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) is formed around Antarctica and exported northwards through the Southern Ocean. This watermass subsequently fills the bottom layers of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. The plunging watermass transports significant quantities of CO2 into the ocean interior, hence aiding in temporarily and partially buffering the atmosphere from the rise in CO2 levels and associated climate change. However, the deep MOC cell is very sparsely observed, due to the remoteness of the Southern Ocean and the great logistical difficulties involved in maintaining continuous instrumentation in this vast and turbulent region.

A unique feature of the southern ocean is that the (surface-intensified) Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) interacts significantly with seabed topography along its route, as momentum input by the wind is balanced by topographic form stress. Hence, the ACC can more strongly interact with the exported AABW near bathymetric features, where both circulations have deep expressions. Such interaction would leave some signatures on sea surface height and bottom pressure (due to geostrophy), and hence may in principle be detectable in the satellite products which measure these properties. Previous work has examined such signatures in idealized circumstances, and also in complex numerical models, albeit in limited circumstances.

In this project we aim to analyze state of the art ocean general circulation models to improve our understanding of topography-mediated AABW-ACC interaction. 

The first part of this project has been submitted for publication (see publications page), and I will soon update the findings here.