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Southern Ocean-Antarctic Circumpolar Current 1

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Southern Ocean-Antarctic Circumpolar Current 1 SOUTHERN OCEAN-ANTARCTIC CIRCUMPOLAR CURRENT 1 SOUTHERN OCEAN-ANTARCTIC CIRCUMPOLAR CURRENT characteristics of the water, not land boundaries. John Klinck, Old Dominion University, Center for The northern edge of the Southern Ocean is marked Coastal Physical Oceanography, Crittenton Hall, by the Subtropical Front (Figure 1), where water Norfolk, VA 23529, USA near the surface changes from warm and salty W. D. Nowlin Jr., Department of Oceanography, (123C, 35.0; characteristic of lower latitudes) to Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA cold and fresh (103C, 34.6; characteristic of polar Copyright ^ 2001 Academic Press latitudes). The southern edge of the Southern Ocean is marked by Antarctica. doi:10.1006/rwos.2001.0370 Within the Southern Ocean is a large eastward 0004 Sowing current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current 0001 The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) Sows (ACC), which Sows unbroken around the globe. eastward around the globe in the Southern Ocean, S driven by the strong eastward winds characteristic The narrowest constriction to this ow is Drake of southern polar latitudes. Direct and indirect Passage (about 700 km across) at the southern tip of South America. By convention, any Sow through measurements of the total transport of this current S are consistent with the idea that average winds drive this passage is part of the ACC. The eastward ow the average Sow. However, abrupt changes in trans- associated with the Subantarctic Front marks the port do not correspond to changes in local winds, northern boundary of the ACC. The southern nor do changes occur consistently around the globe. boundary of the ACC is less dramatic, being re- cently deRned (middle 1990s) based on water prop- The path of the ACC is controlled by ocean depth R through the tendency for large-scale ocean Sow to erties (speci cally, the surfacing of water originating in the north Atlantic). South of the southern bound- be along lines of constant planetary vorticity (Co- R riolis parameter divided by depth). Drake Passage is ary of the ACC are polar gyres lling the Weddell the narrowest constriction to this Sow (about and Ross seas, which are not part of the ACC. 700 km in width). Strong current extends through- Drake Passage opened about 30 million years ago 0005 out the water column related to an upward tilt of as South America and Antarctica separated allowing the ACC to form. This current formation is thought the constant density, temperature, and salinity surfa- S ces to the south. The strongly tilted property surfa- to have a profound in uence on Antarctica and ces in the ACC allow deep (3}4 km deep) water, global climate as there was a simultaneous accumu- originating in the polar North Atlantic, to reach the lation of ice over Antarctica and a global decline in surface where it is driven northward by the winds, sea level. The ACC also isolated Antarctica biolo- thus completing the circuit. The ACC is composed gically allowing a unique marine ecosystem to of three circumpolar, frontal jets, each having about evolve. three times the speed of the Sow between the fronts. An early numerical model study of the dynamical 0006 Dynamic instability of these jets creates eddies effect of Drake Passage found that as the Passage (about 150 km in diameter) which redistribute mo- deepened export of dense Antarctic water declined mentum and water properties. and the speed of the ACC increased. A more recent study using a more realistic global ocean model conRrmed these inSuences of an open passage, and S Introduction showed that reduced out ow of Antarctic dense water increased deep-water formation in the North 0002 The Southern Ocean, that part of the global ocean Atlantic. covering the higher latitudes of the southern hemi- The ACC was discovered by European mariners 0007 sphere, is unique in being continuous around the in the late seventeenth century with the Rrst re- globe. This allows exchange of mass, heat, fresh ported crossing by Edmond Halley on the HMS water, carbon, and other properties, including living Paramore (1699}1700). After this time, a number of material, among the three major oceans: Atlantic, mariners explored this region for the purposes of Indian, and PaciRc. commerce and science. Notable explorers were 0003 The speciRc boundary between the Southern James Cook (1772}1775), Thaddeus Bellingshausen Ocean and the rest of the global ocean depends on (1819}1821), and James Clark Ross (1839}1843). RWOS 0370 Editor: Indira Operator: Indira Scan: Ramakrishna 2 SOUTHERN OCEAN-ANTARCTIC CIRCUMPOLAR CURRENT Many unnamed sailors came looking for seals and and form drag (pressure acting on bottom depth whales and so kept their knowledge secret. The late variations) retards the deep Sow. Alternative force nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw an ex- balances that balance the wind with friction (either plosion of oceanographic research by various coun- bottom friction or horizontal friction against the tries which constituted the Rrst large-scale survey of continental margins) are not plausible due to the the Southern Ocean, providing measurements of enormous level of turbulence that would be required water properties and current speeds in the ACC. to provide the retarding force. Such turbulence would not allow the observed water properties to Large-Scale Structure exist. The force balance in the ACC is different from 0012 0008 The ACC is 23 000 km long (at 553S) and up to that in the rest of the ocean, which is also driven 2000 km wide (about 203 of latitude) in some re- largely by surface wind stress. In most of the ocean, gions away from Drake Passage (Figure 1). The large-scale pressure gradients, due to land bound- general eastward Sow of the ACC is strongest near aries, balance the effect of the wind stress. In the the surface with speeds between 0.25 and 0.4m s\1. Southern Ocean, however, Drake Passage is a wide Unlike lower latitude currents, such as the Gulf region that is not blocked by land, so no large-scale, Stream, ACC currents extend throughout the water east}west, sea surface tilt can develop. However, the column, declining monotonically with depth to wide continental shelves of Drake Passage and the a few centimeters per second near the bottom submarine ridges east of the Passage close off essen- (2.5 km or greater). Transport of water by the ACC tially all of the pathways beneath 1 km along each is 100}150 ;106 m3 s\1, several times larger than latitude. Therefore, only the near-surface Sow is other strong currents in the ocean (such as the Gulf unblocked and deep pressure gradients may develop. Stream or Kuroshio). In spite of this early explanation, dynamicists dis- 0013 0009 Distributions of potential temperature, salinity, agree about the details. One issue is the mechanism and density across the ACC (Figure 2) reveal the by which the momentum added by the wind near characteristic southward upward tilt of surfaces on the surface is transferred to the deep ACC where it which property values are nearly uniform. The tilt is can be removed by the ocean bottom. Transient so strong that the salinity maximum and the 23C mesoscale eddies (about 150 km in diameter) and isotherm found 3 km deep on the north side of the Rxed pressure distributions (standing eddies) each ACC are within a few hundred meters of the surface transfer momentum towards the bottom. A second on the south side. This tilt is a consequence of the issue involves the importance of structure of the Sow dynamics and is a reason for the importance of wind (the wind stress curl) which differentially the ACC in global transport of heat and other prop- transfers near-surface water equatorward and pro- erties. Tilting density surfaces create horizontal duces part of the vertical overturning in the South- pressure changes which, coupled with the Coriolis ern Ocean. It is argued that, similar to other ocean force, drive the eastward Sow in the ACC. More basins, the wind curl drives the ocean (called the speciRcally, the north to south increase in density at Sverdrup Balance) and leads to good estimates of every depth (Figure 2C) produces a vertical change ACC location and total transport. Bottom topogra- in the Sow, which is slower with depth, that is phy in this view allows deep circulation across the responsible for the monotonic decline in the speed ACC. However, another argument is that this view of the ACC with depth (Figure 2D). misses the momentum balance and ignores the effect 0010 ACC Sow obtained from density changes by geos- of water pressure pushing on the solid earth thereby trophic estimates, with the choice of no Sow near retarding the ocean Sow. the bottom, compare well to direct current measure- In either view, the circulation in the Southern 0014 ments in Drake Passage as well as to surface Sow Ocean responds strongly to variations in bottom speed measured by surface drifters. This good com- depth, unlike lower latitude oceanic regions. The parison validates the estimates of the slope of the near surface Sow (Figure 3) is along submarine ocean surface (Figure 3) based on all density obser- ridges and tends to cross ridges at gaps (for vations. From these estimates, as well as Sow esti- example, in the south-western PaciRc between mates from surface drifters and the surface slope 1403W and 1603E). Because of the rotation of the measured from satellites, it is clear that the ACC earth, a column of water that stretches will spin Sows continuously around the Southern Ocean. faster in the direction of the Earth's spin (counter- 0011 The basic force balance for the ACC was Rrst clockwise looking down on the ocean in the south- identiRed in the middle of the twentieth century.
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