The Effect of Continental Slope on Buoyancy-Driven Circulation

Abstract

The effect of continental slope on buoyancy-driven circulation has been studied using a two-layer quasigeostrophic model. In the model, buoyancy flux is incorporated as interfacial mass flux, which consists of narrow intense detrainment in the north and broad entrainment in the south. The model explicitly shows that, in the presence of the continental slope, a small amount of buoyancy flux can drive a strong barotropic flow. This flow develops because the beta effect of bottom topography either reduces or deflects the buoyancy-driven deep flow so that it cannot compensate its overlying counterflow, thus generating a net transport. As a result, in a double gyre circulation with a western continental slope, a small amount of detrainment/entrainment water mass can substantially enhance the transport of the western boundary current through southwestern deflection of the deep subpolar circulation. For example, with a reasonable western continental slope, a 10 Sv (Sv ≡ 106 m3 s?1) detrainment mass flux can increase the transport of the western boundary current from 40 Sv of the wind-driven transport to 148 Sv. Relevance to the North Atlantic is then discussed.