Changing wind stress in North Pacific only

[dhruvbhagtani]

The idea is to switch off (or modify) winds in particular basin(s). For eg: The ocean circulation in North Atlantic is a lot more dependent on the global ocean circulation than the North Pacific, as can be seen in all the experiments we have done so far (see here). By switching off winds in the North Pacific, we expect the basin to not affect (or be affected) by global circulation.

However, the meridional transport of heat flux will be reduced in the North Pacific, and it will be interesting to see whether in equilibrium, the total heat flux into the ocean reduces or whether the Atlantic ocean transfers more heat to high latitudes than in the control run.

[navidcy]

Why does this issue fall under project Model Improvements? There is no model improvement needed in order to do this experiment.

[dhruvbhagtani]

Here are the outputs of some diagnostics for a case where winds are switched off to zero in the North Pacific: https://github.com/dhruvbhagtani/varying-surface-forcing/blob/main/Pacific_ocean_winds/Diagnostics.ipynb

PS: I know understand the gravity of the sentence: "The overturning and gyre circulation are very much linked."

[dhruvbhagtani]

These experiments do not say anything new: In the North Pacific, the gyres have significantly weakened, and so have the surface heat fluxes.