Scientists have developed a new computer model that uses the phenomenon of ocean mixing to provide new insights into the global climate.
The model incorporated processes that drive ocean mixing in the eddies that move across hundreds of miles of open ocean, Los Alamos National Laboratory reported.
"The model enables us to study the important processes of ocean storms, which move heat and carbon from the atmosphere into the deep ocean," said Todd Ringler, who leads the Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) ocean science team at Los Alamos. "This happens very slowly, but over the next 1,000 years, much of the fossil fuel carbon emissions will end up in the deep ocean; ocean eddies make that happen."
To make their findings, a team of researchers used the Lagrangian In-situ, Global, High-performance particle Tracking (LIGHT) model. This type of simulation could help predict the largest ocean eddies, dubbed mesoscale eddies, which are considered to be the "weather" of the ocean. Information on these features could improve global climate simulation accuracy by correcting data on heat fluxes and carbon in the ocean.
Eddies works to move heat and carbon from the ocean surface to deep below, contributing to global carbon storage. In the recent simulations, the researchers looked at massive number of particles spread evenly throughout the ocean that each carried an ocean current.
"Not only does each particle tell us about the ocean currents, but groups of particles tell us how turbulence in the ocean mixes temperature and carbon dioxide throughout the ocean" said Phillip Wolfram, a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory and a member of the ACME science team.
The results highlight the capability of LIGHT to reveal secrets of the ocean's inner workings.
"This project quantifies the key fundamental processes of the ocean and points the way to improved techniques to better simulate climate change over a range of spatial and temporal scales," Wolfram said.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the Journal of Physical Oceanography.
