International audienceWe develop, calibrate and test a dataset intended to drive global ocean hindcasts simulations of the last five decades. This dataset provides surface meteorological variables needed to estimate air-sea fluxes and is built from 6-hourly surface atmospheric state variables of ERA40. We first compare the raw fields of ERA40 to the CORE.v1 dataset of Large and Yeager (2004), used here as a reference, and discuss our choice to use daily radiative fluxes and monthly precipitation products extracted from satellite data rather than their ERA40 counterparts. Both datasets lead to excessively high global imbalances of heat and freshwater fluxes when tested with a prescribed climatological sea surface temperature. After identifying unrealistic time discontinuities (induced by changes in the nature of assimilated observations) and obvious global and regional biases in ERA40 fields (by comparison to high quality observations), we propose a set of corrections. Tropical surface air humidity is decreased from 1979 onward, representation of Arctic surface air temperature is improved using recent observations and the wind is globally increased. These corrections lead to a significant decrease of the excessive positive global imbalance of heat. Radiation and precipitation fields are then submitted to a small adjustment (in zonal mean) that yields a near-zero global imbalance of heat and freshwater. A set of 47-year-long simulations is carried out with the coarse-resolution (2° × 2°) version of the NEMO OGCM to assess the sensitivity of the model to the proposed corrections. Model results show that each of the proposed correction contributes to improve the representation of central features of the global ocean circulation

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) represents the zonally integrated stream function of meridional volume transport in the Atlantic Basin. The AMOC plays an important role in transporting heat meridionally in the climate system. Observations suggest a heat transport by the AMOC of 1.3 PW at 26°N—a latitude which is close to where the Atlantic northward heat transport is thought to reach its maximum. This shapes the climate of the North Atlantic region as we know it today. In recent years there has been significant progress both in our ability to observe the AMOC in nature and to simulate it in numerical models. Most previous modeling investigations of the AMOC and its impact on climate have relied on models with horizontal resolution that does not resolve ocean mesoscale eddies and the dynamics of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current system. As a result of recent increases in computing power, models are now being run that are able to represent mesoscale ocean dynamics and the circulation features that rely on them. The aim of this review is to describe new insights into the AMOC provided by high‐resolution models. Furthermore, we will describe how high‐resolution model simulations can help resolve outstanding challenges in our understanding of the AMOC.

This paper evaluates in a realistic context the local contributions of direct atmospheric forcing and intrinsic oceanic processes on interannual sea level anomalies (SLAs). A ¼° global ocean–sea ice general circulation model, driven over 47 yr by the full range of atmospheric time scales, is quantitatively assessed against altimetry and shown to reproduce most observed features of the interannual SLA variability from 1993 to 2004. Comparing this simulation with a second driven only by the climatological annual cycle reveals that the intrinsic part of the total interannual SLA variance exceeds 40% over half of the open-ocean area and exceeds 80% over one-fifth of it. This intrinsic contribution is particularly strong in eddy-active regions (more than 70%–80% in the Southern Ocean and western boundary current extensions) as predicted by idealized studies, as well as within the 20°–35° latitude bands. The atmosphere directly forces most of the interannual SLA variance at low latitudes and in most midlatitude eastern basins, in particular north of about 40°N in the Pacific. The interannual SLA variance is almost entirely due to intrinsic processes south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the Indian Ocean sector, while half of this variance is forced by the atmosphere north of it. The same simulations were performed and analyzed at 2° resolution as well: switching to this laminar regime yields a comparable forced variability (large-scale distribution and magnitude) but almost suppresses the intrinsic variability. This likely explains why laminar ocean models largely underestimate the interannual SLA variance.

In high-resolution ocean general circulation models (OGCMs), as in process-oriented models, a substantial amount of interannual to decadal variability is generated spontaneously by oceanic nonlinearities: that is, without any variability in the atmospheric forcing at these time scales. The authors investigate the temporal and spatial scales at which this intrinsic oceanic variability has the strongest imprints on sea level anomalies (SLAs) using a ° global OGCM, by comparing a “hindcast” driven by the full range of atmospheric time scales with its counterpart forced by a repeated climatological atmospheric seasonal cycle. Outputs from both simulations are compared within distinct frequency–wavenumber bins. The fully forced hindcast is shown to reproduce the observed distribution and magnitude of low-frequency SLA variability very accurately. The small-scale ( L < 6°) SLA variance is, at all time scales, barely sensitive to atmospheric variability and is almost entirely of intrinsic origin. The high-frequency (mesoscale) part and the low-frequency part of this small-scale variability have almost identical geographical distributions, supporting the hypothesis of a nonlinear temporal inverse cascade spontaneously transferring kinetic energy from high to low frequencies. The large-scale ( L > 12°) low-frequency variability is mostly related to the atmospheric variability over most of the global ocean, but it is shown to remain largely intrinsic in three eddy-active regions: the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Compared to its ¼° predecessor, the authors’ ° OGCM is shown to yield a stronger intrinsic SLA variability, at both mesoscale and low frequencies.

The authors present the first quantitative comparison between new velocity datasets and high-resolution models in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre [1/10° Parallel Ocean Program model (POPNA10), Miami Isopycnic Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM), ⅙° Atlantic model (ATL6), and Family of Linked Atlantic Ocean Model Experiments (FLAME)]. At the surface, the model velocities agree generally well with World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) drifter data. Two noticeable exceptions are the weakness of the East Greenland coastal current in models and the presence in the surface layers of a strong southwestward East Reykjanes Ridge Current. At depths, the most prominent feature of the circulation is the boundary current following the continental slope. In this narrow flow, it is found that gridded float datasets cannot be used for a quantitative comparison with models. The models have very different patterns of deep convection, and it is suggested that this could be related to the differences in their barotropic transport at Cape Farewell. Models show a large drift in watermass properties with a salinization of the Labrador Sea Water. The authors believe that the main cause is related to horizontal transports of salt because models with different forcing and vertical mixing share the same salinization problem. A remarkable feature of the model solutions is the large westward transport over Reykjanes Ridge [10 Sv (Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) or more].