The response of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) to wind stress forcing is investigated from an observational standpoint, using four time series of overturning transports below and relative to 1000m, overlapping by 3.6 yr. These time series are derived from four mooring arrays located on the western boundary of the North Atlantic: the RAPIDWestern Atlantic Variability...

Understanding howmoose (Alces alces (L., 1758)) are affected by temperature is critical for determiningwhy populations have recently declined at the southern extent of their North American range.Warm-season heat-stress thresholds of 14 and 20 °C are commonly used to study moose, but the variable response of free-ranging moose to temperatures above these thresholds suggests thatmoosemay bemore t...

The surface stress is computed by the method of geostrophic departures using 23 days of double theodolite wind observations at Shilo, Manitoba. The main results are as follows. Relations between the stress and the geostrophic wind fit these data better than do similar expressions using the surface wind. The stress varies linearly, rather than quadratically, with wind speed. For a given surface ...

The aim of this study is to compare the ERA wind stress with observations during the TOGA COARE experiment, and with an ocean model adjusted wind stress. The latter is determined by an inverse ocean modelling technique.

Professor Mark Bourassa Florida State University 200 R.M. Johnson Building, 2035 E. Paul Dirac Drive, PO Box 3062840 Tallahassee, FL 323062840 USA [email protected] Barry Vanhoff (Oregon State University) David E. Weissman (Hofstra University) Contributed Talk Calibration/Validation and definitions Scatterometers have long been considered to respond to surface turbulent stress. They have b...

Global seasonal cycles of the wind and wind stress fields estimated from the 8-yr record (September 1999–August 2007) of wind measurements by the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) are presented. While this atlas, referred to here as the Scatterometer Climatology of Ocean Winds (SCOW), consists of 12 variables, the focus here is on the wind stress and wind stress derivative (curl and divergenc...

Zonal wind stress over the Southern Ocean may be responsible for a significant fraction of the meridional overturning associated with North Atlantic Deep Water. Numerical experiments by Tsujino and Suginohara imply that the zonal periodicity of the Southern Ocean is not necessary for midlatitude westerly winds to drive strong remote meridional overturning. Here, idealized numerical experiments ...

[1] The wind stress forcing of the Oregon coastal ocean during June–August 1999 is estimated from a regional mesoscale atmospheric model and from satellite scatterometer observations, supplemented by moored and coastal surface data and by a land-based wind profiler. Both the mean and variable components of model alongshore wind stress increase by factors of 3–4 from north to south along the Ore...

The early-to-mid Pliocene (3–5.3 Ma) is the most recent geologic period of significant global warmth. Proxy records of Pliocene sea surface temperature (SST) indicate significant and still unexplained warm anomalies of 3∘C–9∘C in midlatitude eastern boundary currents, where present-day cool temperatures are maintained by wind-driven upwelling. Here we quantify the effect of large-scale Pliocene...

A global, flux-corrected climate model is employed to predict the surface wind stress and associated wind-driven oceanic circulation for climate states corresponding to a doubling and quadrupling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration in a simple 1% per year CO2 increase scenario. The model indicates that in response to CO2 increase, the position of zero wind stress curl in the mid-latitudes of t...