Dynamics of the thermohaline circulation under wind forcing

DOI10.3934/DCDSB.2002.2.205MaRDI QIDQ1599863zbMATHOpenAlexFDO

Authors Hongjun Gao, Jinqiao Duan

Publication date 8 February 2003

Published in Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems. Series B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0108085

zbMATH Keywords

exponential decayaveraging principlewind forcinggeophysical flow

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Stochastic partial differential equations (aspects of stochastic analysis) (60H15) Initial-boundary value problems for higher-order parabolic equations (35K35) General theory of rotating fluids (76U05) Hydrology, hydrography, oceanography (86A05) Stability of manifolds of solutions to ordinary differential equations (34D35)

Abstract: The ocean thermohaline circulation, also called meridional overturning circulation, is caused by water density contrasts. This circulation has large capacity of carrying heat around the globe and it thus affects the energy budget and further affects the climate. We consider a thermohaline circulation model in the meridional plane under external wind forcing. We show that, when there is no wind forcing, the stream function and the density fluctuation (under appropriate metrics) tend to zero exponentially fast as time goes to infinity. With rapidly oscillating wind forcing, we obtain an averaging principle for the thermohaline circulation model. This averaging principle provides convergence results and comparison estimates between the original thermohaline circulation and the averaged thermohaline circulation, where the wind forcing is replaced by its time average. This establishes the validity for using the averaged thermohaline circulation model for numerical simulations at long time scales.

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