Articles | Volume 3, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-3-55-2007
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-3-55-2007
06 Feb 2007
 | 06 Feb 2007

Inferring the zonal distribution of measured changes in the meridional overturning circulation

A. M. de Boer and H. L. Johnson

Abstract. Recently, hydrographic measurements have been used to argue that the meridional overturning circulation at 25° N has decreased by 30% over the last 50 years. Here we show that the most likely interpretation consistent with this approach (i.e., with the dynamic method together with a level-of-no-motion assumption and Ekman dynamics) is that any decrease in strength of the deep western boundary current must have been compensated, not by a basin-wide increase in upper layer southward flow, but by changes in the nonlinear region immediately outside of the Florida Straits.