Interannual Variability of the Ice-Ocean System Around Antarctica

Aike Beckmann 2004

The scientific aspects of climate variability and change have been the focus of international earth system research for several years now. The ocean-ice system in high latitudes is one of the foci of programmes like CLIVAR, which form the framework for detailed studies in critical parts of the world ocean. Efforts to increase our understanding of the interannual fluctuations in the Southern Ocean are motivated by the prominent role of the Antarctic Marginal Seas as source regions for the deep water masses that participate in the global thermohaline ocean circulation. In addition, Antarctica is considered the least disturbed part of the globe, where natural (non-anthropogenic) climate variability can be studied. In my presentation, I report about recent modeling results that have shed light on both small-scale processes and their large-scale consequences. Progress has been made in our attempts to determine the role of individual components of the climate system (ocean, sea ice, ice shelves) in that area, to extract typical variability patterns of water mass distribution and ocean circulation, to investigate the mechanism of interannual fluctuations, and to assess the predictability of interannual changes around Antarctica.