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Glacial ocean overturning intensified by tidal mixing in a global circulation model

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  • Due to lower sea levels during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), tidal energy dissipation was shifted from the shallow margins into the deep ocean. Here using a high-resolution tide model, we estimate that global energy fluxes below 200 m depth were almost quadrupled during the LGM. Applying the energy fluxes to a consistent tidal mixing parameterization of a global climate model results in a large intensification of mixing. Global mean vertical diffusivity increases by more than a factor of 3, and consequently, the simulated meridional overturning circulation accelerates by ~21–46%. In the model, these effects are at least as important as those from changes in surface boundary conditions. Our findings contrast with the prevailing view that the abyssal LGM circulation was more sluggish. We conclude that changes in tidal mixing are an important mechanism that may have strongly increased the glacial deep ocean circulation and should no longer be neglected in paleoclimate simulations.
  • KEYWORDS: tidal mixing, ocean circulation, Last Glacial Maximum
  • This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is copyrighted by American Geophysical Union and published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. It can be found at: http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/agu/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291944-8007/
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  • Schmittner, A., Green, J. A. M., & Wilmes, S. B. (2015). Glacial ocean over-turning intensified by tidal mixing in a global circulation model. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(10), 4014-4022. doi:10.1002/2015GL063561
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  • 42
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  • 10
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  • A.S. has been supported by the National Science Foundation's Marine Geology and Geophysics program grant OCE-1131834 and Physical Oceanography program grant OCE-1260680. J.A.M.G. acknowledges funding from the Climate Change Consortium for Wales and from the Natural Environmental Research Council (Advanced Fellowship NE/F014821/1). S.B.W. has a PhD studentship from Fujitsu Europe through HPC Wales, who also provided computer access for the tidal model simulations. Data will be made freely available on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center.
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