Southern Ocean isopycnal mixing and ventilation changes driven by winds

Abstract

AbstractObserved and predicted changes in the strength of the westerly winds blowing over the Southern Ocean have motivated a number of studies on the response of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation (MOC) to wind perturbations and led to the hypothesis of the “eddy compensation” regime, wherein the MOC becomes insensitive to wind changes. In addition to the MOC, tracer transport also depends on mixing processes. Here we show, in a high‐resolution process model, that isopycnal mixing by mesoscale eddies is strongly dependent on the wind strength. This dependence can be explained by mixing length theory and is driven by increases in eddy kinetic energy; the mixing length does not change strongly in our simulation. Simulation of a passive ventilation tracer (analogous to CFCs or anthropogenic CO2) demonstrates that variations in tracer uptake across experiments are dominated by changes in isopycnal mixing, rather than changes in the MOC. We argue that to properly understand tracer uptake under different wind‐forcing scenarios, the sensitivity of isopycnal mixing to winds must be accounted for.