[PAOCQ] Fabien Roquet (University of Gothenburg)

“Controls of the Global Overturning Circulation”

The Global Overturning Circulation (GOC) is the largest component of the ocean circulation, playing a crucial role in redistributing key tracers like heat and carbon on a global scale. Understanding the GOC is essential as it generates much of the long-term climate variability and may be associated with tipping points leading to irreversible climate changes.  Processes such as wind pumping, convection, eddy activity and interior mixing are known to influence the structure and variability of the overturning circulation, but their relative importance remains debated. Numerical models at increasingly high resolution help to fill the gap, replacing the over-simplistic “conveyor belt” picture with one full of eddies and complex circulation patterns. In this seminar we will provide a brief overview of the different controls of the GOC, and we will discuss how energy budgets can (and cannot) be used to quantify their importance.

[PAOCQ] PAOC Colloquium 

Interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC (Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate) community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, as well as talks about societal impacts of climatic processes.  

Contact: paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu