| Winter-to-Winter Recurrence of Sea Surface Temperature, Salinity and Mixed Layer Depth Anomalies (2000) | |||||||||||||||
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| The mean seasonal cycle of mixed layer depth (MLD) in the extratropical oceans has the potential to influence temperature, salinity and mixed layer depth anomalies from one winter to the next. Temperature and salinity anomalies that form at the surface and spread throughout the deep winter mixed layer are sequestered beneath the mixed layer when it shoals in spring and are then re-entrained into the surface layer in the subsequent fall and winter. Here we document this "reemergence mechanism" in the North Pacific Ocean using observed SSTs, subsurface temperature fields from a data assimilation system, and coupled atmosphere-ocean model simulations. Observations indicate that the dominant large-scale SST anomaly pattern that forms in the North Pacific during winter recurs in the following winter. The model simulation with mixed layer ocean physics reproduced the winter-to-winter recurrence, while model simulations with observed SSTs specified in the tropical Pacific and a 50 m slab in t... | |||||||||||||||
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