RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 9, ES3003, doi:10.2205/2007ES000283, 2007

1. Introduction

[2]  The Southern Ocean plays a key role in the climatic system on the Earth. According to recent investigations sea level atmospheric pressure, simulated from NCEP-NCAR reanalysis, has the following climatic tendency at 65oS -0.166pm0.039 hPa yr-1 for the period 1957-1998 and -0.177pm0.062 hPa yr-1 weakens with time to -0.123pm0.221 hPa yr-1 for 1979-1993 [Hines et al., 2000]. The trend of maximum ice values for each year in the Southern Hemisphere is of -0.3pm0.5% per decade for ice thickness and -1.2 pm0.6% per decade for ice area for 1979-2003 [Comiso, 2004]. The surface air temperature from infrared satellite data from 1979 to 1998 have the trend of -0.042pm0.067 oC yr-1 [Comiso, 2000].

[3]  It means that some of basic climatic parameters have different trends. This shows that Earth's climatic system changes very largely.

[4]  These climatic variations have an effect on the position of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts [Kostianoy et al., 2003, 2004; Lebedev and Sirota, 2004, 2007; Moore et al., 1999; Sirota et al., 2004; etc.] and consequently on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and its intensity [Fu and Chelton, 1984]. In the Drake Passage and near the Kerguelen Plateau, position of the ACC axis shifts to the south with a rate of about 0.016 deg yr-1 or 1.8 km yr-1 [Lebedev, 2006].

[5]  The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays a key role in the Earth's climate system. Water mass transformations in the Southern Ocean "close'' the overturning circulation by converting deep water. The ACC connects the ocean basins, allowing a global overturning circulation to exist, and allowing anomalies to propagate between basins. Observations have been sufficient to establish the influence of the Southern Ocean on the mean state of the World Ocean and Earth's climate.

[6]  All changes in the ACC can be seen in sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level anomaly (SLA) interannual trends based on remote sensing data (IR-radiometry and satellite altimetry).


RJES

Citation: Lebedev, S. A. (2007), Interannual trends in the Southern Ocean sea surface temperature and sea level from remote sensing data, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 9, ES3003, doi:10.2205/2007ES000283.

Copyright 2007 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences

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