Tracking Lagrangian Particles from the Indonesian Throughflow to the South Atlantic

Abstract

The global Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) carries out an important role on the Earth's climate system and on the heat distribution all over the world. In its superficial branch, warm waters are exchanged throughout the world's ocean basins. The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) and the Agulhas leakage are the main processes responsible, respectively, for importing Pacific waters into the Indian Ocean, and for exporting Indian waters into the Atlantic Ocean. Recently, changes in both systems have been reported and can be related to global warming consequences, processes of air-sea interactions and variabilities of the ocean circulation and wind patterns. The present work aims at studying correlations of the ITF, the Agulhas leakage, and the South Atlantic (SA) circulation by tracking virtual Lagrangian particles from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Output data of a global eddy-resolving resolution implementation of the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) will be used to numerically simulate the particles' motion. At least, the results will be compared with available data of a run of the Community Earth System Model v.1 (CESM1) for the XX century to understand possible influences on air-sea processes and variabilities involving ITF, Agulhas system and the South America climate. This work will be done as a research internship in the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) of the University of Miami (UM).