Acute sensitivity of global ocean circulation and heat content to eddy energy dissipation time-scale

TL;DR

This study shows that the global ocean circulation and heat content are highly sensitive to the mesoscale eddy energy dissipation time-scale, affecting climate-related metrics over long time-scales.

Contribution

It demonstrates the critical impact of eddy energy dissipation time-scale variations on ocean circulation and climate metrics within a global model.

Findings

Eddy dissipation time-scale significantly affects Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport.

Variations in eddy dissipation influence Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation strength.

Global ocean heat content is sensitive to changes in eddy energy dissipation.

Abstract

The global ocean overturning circulation, critically dependent on the global density stratification, plays a central role in regulating climate evolution. While it is well-known that the global stratification profile exhibits a strong dependence to Southern Ocean dynamics and in particular to wind and buoyancy forcing, we demonstrate here that the stratification is also acutely sensitive to the mesoscale eddy energy dissipation time-scale. Within the context of a global ocean circulation model with an energy constrained mesoscale eddy parameterization, it is shown that modest variations in the eddy energy dissipation time-scale lead to significant variations in key metrics relating to ocean circulation, namely the Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation strength, and global ocean heat content, over long time-scales. The results highlight a need to constrain uncertainties associated with eddy energy dissipation for climate model projections over centennial time-scales, but also for paleoclimate simulations over millennial time-scales.