Ocean - sea ice - atmosphere oscillations in the Southern Ocean as simulated by the SINTEX coupled model

CARRIL A. F., A. NAVARRA AND S. MASINA

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS

AGU

Año: 2004 vol. 31 p. 1 - 4

0094-8276

This study evaluates the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave(ACW) as simulated by the SINTEX coupled model. Wefound evidence that sea-ice treatment plays a crucial roleon simulating the ACW. In particular, SST anomalies atinterannual time scales describe a propagating ACW-likepattern when a dynamic thermodynamic sea-ice modelis coupled with the ocean, but when sea-ice is relaxedto climatology, anomalies occur as zonally symmetricpatterns that do not propagate in longitude. Moreover,from the experiment with an active sea-ice componentwe saw that ACW-like oscillations are strongly modulatedby low frequency variability. Our result adds someextra confidence to previous studies based on relativelyshort series of observed data.