ALBERT

Description: Between 1996 and 1998, a concerted effort was made to study the deep open ocean convection in the Labrador Sea. Both in situ observations and numerical models were employed with close collaboration between the researchers in the fields of physical oceanography, boundary layer meteorology, and climate. A multitude of different methods were used to observe the state of ocean and atmosphere and determine the exchange between them over the experiment's period. The Labrador Sea Deep Convection Experiment data collection aims to assemble the observational data sets in order to facilitate the exchange and collaboration between the various projects and new projects for an overall synthesis. A common file format and a browsable inventory have been used so as to simplify the access to the data.

Description: This paper is an observational study of small-scale coherent eddies in the Labrador Sea, a region of dense water formation thought to be of considerable importance to the North Atlantic overturning circulation. Numerical studies of deep convection emphasize coherent eddies as a mechanism for the lateral transport of heat, yet their small size has hindered observational progress. A large part of this paper is therefore devoted to developing new methods for identifying and describing coherent eddies in two observational platforms, current meter moorings and satellite altimetry. Details of the current and water mass structure of individual eddy events, as they are swept past by an advecting flow, can then be extracted from the mooring data. A transition is seen during mid-1997, with long-lived boundary current eddies dominating the central Labrador Sea year-round after this time, and convectively formed eddies similar to those seen in deep convection modeling studies apparent prior to this time. The TOPEX / Poseidon altimeter covers the Labrador Sea with a loose “net” of observations, through which coherent eddies can seem to appear and disappear. By concentrating on locating and describing anomalous events in individual altimeter tracks, a portrait of the spatial and temporal variability of the underlying eddy field can be constructed. The altimeter results reveal an annual “pulsation” of energy and of coherent eddies originating during the late fall at a particular location in the boundary current, pinpointing the time and place of the boundary current-type eddy formation. The interannual variability seen at the mooring is reproduced, but the mooring site is found to be within a localized region of greatly enhanced eddy activity. Notably lacking in both the annual cycle and interannual variability is a clear relationship between the eddies or eddy energy and the intensity of wintertime cooling. These eddy observations, as well as hydrographic evidence, suggest an active role for boundary current dynamics in shaping the energetics and water mass properties of the interior region.

Description: A 12-month mooring record (May 1994–June 1995), together with accompanying PALACE float data, is used to describe an annual cycle of deep convection and restratification in the Labrador Sea. The mooring is located at 56.75°N, 52.5°W, near the former site of Ocean Weather Station Bravo, in water of 3500 m depth. This is a pilot experiment for climate monitoring, and also for studies of deep-convection dynamics. Mooring measurements include temperature (T), salinity (S), horizontal and vertical velocity, and acoustic measurement of surface winds. The floats made weekly temperature–salinity profiles between their drift level (near 1500 m) and the surface. With moderately strong cooling to the atmosphere (300 W m−2 averaged from November to March), wintertime convection penetrated from the surface to about 1750 m, overcoming the stabilizing effect of upper-ocean low-salinity water. The water column restratifies rapidly after brief vertical homogenization (in potential density, salinity, and potential temperature). Both the rapid restratification and the energetic high-frequency variations of T and S observed at the mooring are suggestive of a convection depth that varies greatly with location. Lateral variations in T and S exist down to very small scales, and these remnants of convection decay (with e-folding time 170 day) after convection ceases. Lateral variability at the scale of 100 km is verified by PALACE profiles. The Eulerian mooring effectively samples the convection in a mesoscale region of ocean as eddies sweep past it; the Lagrangian PALACE floats are complementary in sampling the geography of deep convection more widely. This laterally variable convection leaves the water column with significant vertical gradients most of the year. Convection followed by lateral mixing gives vertical salinity profiles the (misleading) appearance that a one-dimensional diffusive process is fluxing freshwater downward. During spring, summer, and fall the salinity, temperature, and buoyancy rise steadily with time throughout most of the water column. This is likely the result of mixing with the encircling boundary currents, compensating for the escape of Labrador Sea Water from the region. Low-salinity water mixes into the gyre only near the surface. The water-column heat balance is in satisfactory agreement with meteorological assimilation models. Directly observed subsurface calorimetry may be the more reliable indication of the annual-mean air–sea heat flux. Acoustic instrumentation on the mooring gave a surprisingly good time series of the vector surface wind. The three-dimensional velocity field consists of convective plumes of width 200 to 1000 m, vertical velocities of 2 to 8 cm s−1, and Rossby numbers of order unity, embedded in stronger (20 cm s−1) lateral currents associated with mesoscale eddies. Horizontal currents with timescales of several days to several months are strongly barotropic. They are suddenly energized as convection reaches great depth in early March, and develop toward a barotropic state, as also seen in models of convectively driven geostrophic turbulence in a weakly stratified, high-latitude ocean. Currents decay through the summer and autumn, apart from some persistent isolated eddies. These coherent, isolated, cold anticyclones carry cores of pure convected water long after the end of winter. Boundary currents nearby interact with the Labrador Sea gyre and provide an additional source of eddies in the interior Labrador Sea. An earlier study of the pulsation of the boundary currents is supported by observations of sudden ejection of floats from the central gyre into the boundary currents (and sudden ingestion of boundary current floats into the gyre interior), in what may be a mechanism for exchange between Labrador Sea Water and the World Ocean.

Description: In the autumn of 1996 the field component of an experiment designed to observe water mass transformation began in the Labrador Sea. Intense observations of ocean convection were taken in the following two winters. The purpose of the experiment was, by a combination of meteorological and oceanographic field observations, laboratory studies, theory, and modeling, to improve understanding of the convective process in the ocean and its representation in models. The dataset that has been gathered far exceeds previous efforts to observe the convective process anywhere in the ocean, both in its scope and range of techniques deployed. Combined with a comprehensive set of meteorological and air-sea flux measurements, it is giving unprecedented insights into the dynamics and thermodynamics of a closely coupled, semienclosed system known to have direct influence on the processes that control global climate.

Description: The Labrador Sea is one of the few regions of the World Ocean where deep convection takes place. Several moorings across the Labrador continental slope just north of Hamilton Bank show that convection does take place within the Labrador Current. Mixing above the lower Labrador slope is facilitated by the onshore along-isopycnal intrusions of low-potential-vorticity eddies that weaken the stratification, combined with baroclinic instability that sustains slanted mixing while restratifying the water column through horizontal fluxes. Above the shelf break, the Irminger seawater core is displaced onshore while the stratification weakens with the increase in isopycnal slope. The change in stratification is partially due to the onshore shift of the “classical” Labrador Current, baroclinic instability, and possibly slantwise convection.