What Is the Thermohaline Circulation?
- 8 November 2002
- journal article
- perspective
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 298 (5596) , 1179-1181
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1079329
Abstract
The term "thermohaline circulation" is widely used in the context of past and future climate change. In his Perspective, Wunsch argues that there are many different, and inconsistent, definitions for this term. He defines ocean circulation in terms of mass fluxes, which are largely driven by surface forces such as wind and tides, and argues that thermohaline circulation should only refer to the separate transport of heat and salinity in the ocean.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- Oceanic nutrient and oxygen transports and bounds on export production during the World Ocean Circulation ExperimentGlobal Biogeochemical Cycles, 2002
- Horizontal convection is non-turbulentJournal of Fluid Mechanics, 2002
- Abyssal recipes II: energetics of tidal and wind mixingDeep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 1998
- Large-scale circulation with small diapycnal diffusion: The two-thermocline limitJournal of Marine Research, 1997
- Turbulent fountains in a closed chamberJournal of Fluid Mechanics, 1993
- Thermohaline Convection with Two Stable Regimes of FlowTellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, 1961