Ocean color and Arctic seasonal cycling

Anand Gnanadesikan, Johns Hopkins University, gnanades@jhu.edu (Presenter)

It would be expected that reducing shortwave penetration into the ocean should warm the surface during the summer, but that the resulting heat should not be available in the winter. As a result, the expectation would be that ocean color should act to increase the seasonal cycle of water temperature. However, a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere-land-sea ice climate model shows the opposite behavior in the Arctic. We examine how changing shortwave penetration changes the storage of heat within the ocean, and how this in turn alters the formation of ice during the fall, its meltback during the spring and resultant feedbacks on solar absorption by the water. This work has implications for how changes in Arctic Ocean color associated with permafrost melting feed back on climate change, suggesting a negative rather than a positive feedback.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Coupled Processes at Land-Atmosphere-Ocean Interfaces   (Mon 4:00 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Gnanadesikan, Anand: Ocean color, carbon and circulation: Studies with an Earth System Model ...details

Poster Location ID: 28