Definition
Formally defining thermohaline circulation is difficult and numerous definitions exist within the literature. Historically, thermohaline circulation has been defined as the component of oceanic circulation driven by fluxes of heat and freshwater (sometimes combined into a buoyancy flux) through the ocean’s surface. This particular definition of thermohaline circulation is prevalent among ocean modelers, wherein ocean models driven exclusively by boundary conditions on heat and freshwater, with wind forcing set to zero, lead to a global-scale meridional overturning.
However, in many cases, anomalies of the surface buoyancy flux, and particularly its thermal component, strongly depend on the thermohaline circulation itself. For example, an intensified meridional overturning cell would lead to stronger poleward heat transport in the ocean. At steady state, this heat transport anomaly must be balanced by more heat loss to the atmosphere over the regions towards which the heat is...
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Weaver, A.J., Saenko, O.A. (2009). Thermohaline Circulation. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_220
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