Hydrography

Abstract: Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic's "1500-year" cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the solar signals and transmitting them globally.

Abstract: To study the Earth system and to better understand the implications of global environmental change, there is a growing need for large-scale hydrographic data sets that serve as prerequisites in a variety of analyses and applications, ranging from regional watershed and freshwater conservation planning to global hydrological, climate, biogeochemical, and land surface modeling. Yet while countless hydrographic maps exist for well-known river basins and individual nations, there is a lack of seamless high-quality data on large scales such as continents or the entire globe. Data for many large international basins are patchy, and remote areas are often poorly mapped. In response to these limitations, a team of scientists has developed data and created maps of the world's rivers that provide the research community with more reliable information about where streams and watersheds occur on the Earth's surface and how water drains the landscape. The new product, known as HydroSHEDS (Hydrological Data and Maps Based on Shuttle Elevation Derivatives at Multiple Scales), provides this information at a resolution and quality unachieved by previous global data sets, such as HYDRO1k [U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 2000].

Abstract: Through its ability to transport large amounts of heat, fresh water and nutrients, the ocean is an essential regulator of climate. The pathways and mechanisms of this transport and its stability are critical issues in understanding the present state of climate and the possibilities of future changes. Recently, global high-quality hydrographic data have been gathered in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), to obtain an accurate picture of the present circulation. Here we combine the new data from high-resolution trans-oceanic sections and current meters with climatological wind fields, biogeochemical balances and improved a priori error estimates in an inverse model, to improve estimates of the global circulation and heat fluxes. Our solution resolves globally vertical mixing across surfaces of equal density, with coefficients in the range (3-12) x 10(-4) m2 s(-1). Net deep-water production rates amount to (15 +/- 12) x 10(6) m3 s(-1) in the North Atlantic Ocean and (21 +/- 6) x 10(6) m3 s(-1) in the Southern Ocean. Our estimates provide a new reference state for future climate studies with rigorous estimates of the uncertainties.

Abstract: A new gridded ocean climatology, the Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology (PHC), has been created that merges the 1998 version of the World Ocean Atlas with the new regional Arctic Ocean Atlas. The result is a global climatology for temperature and salinity that contains a good description of the Arctic Ocean and its environs. Monthly, seasonal, and annual average products have been generated. How the original datasets were prepared for merging, how the optimal interpolation procedure was performed, and characteristics of the resulting dataset are discussed, followed by a summary and discussion of future plans.