Influence of midlatitude winds on the stratification of the equatorial thermocline

Abstract

The stratification of the equatorial thermocline is a key variable for tropical climate dynamics, through its influence on the temperature of the water that upwells in the eastern equatorial ocean. In this study, two types of ocean models are used, an ocean general circulation model (GCM) and a 1 1/2-layer model, to investigate processes by which changes in the midlatitude winds affect the equatorial stratification. Specifically, the influences of anomalous mode-water formation, Ekman pumping, and entrainment in the subpolar ocean are examined. The effects of a "sponge layer" adjacent to the northern boundary of the basin are also assessed. Solutions are forced by idealized zonal winds with strong or weak midlatitude westerlies, and they are found in rectangular basins that extend from the equator to 36°N (small basin) or to 60°N (large basin). In the GCM solutions, a prominent response to reduced winds is the thinning of the mixed layer in the northwestern region of the subtropical gyre, leading to less subduction of low-potential-vorticity mode water and hence thinning of the upper thermocline in the central-to-eastern subtropics. Almost all of this thinning signal, however, recirculates within the subtropics, and does not extend to the equator. Another midlatitude response is shallowing (deepening) of the thermocline in the subtropical (subpolar) ocean in response to Ekman pumping. This, primarily, first-baroclinic-mode (n = 1) response has the most influence on the equatorial thermocline. First-baroclinic-mode Rossby waves propagate to the western boundary of the basin where they reflect as packets of coastal Kelvin and short-wavelength Rossby waves that carry the midlatitude signal to the equator. Subsequently, equatorial Kelvin waves spread it along the equator, leading to a shoaling and thinning of the equatorial thermocline. The layer-thickness field h in the 1 1/2-layer model corresponds to thermocline depth in the GCM. Both the sponge layer and subpolar Ekman suction are important factors for the 1 1/2-layer model solutions, requiring water upwelled in the interior ocean to be transported into the sponge layer via the western boundary layer. In the small basin, equatorial h thins in response to weakened westerlies when there is a sponge layer, but it thickens when there is not. In the large basin, equatorial h is unaffected by weakened westerlies when there is a sponge layer, but it thins when water is allowed to entrain into the layer in the subpolar gyre. It is concluded that the thinning of the equatorial thermocline in the GCM solutions is caused by the sponge layer in the small basin and by entrainment in the subpolar ocean in the large one. © 2006 American Meteorological Society.