Transport, removal, and accummulation of sediments numerically simulated for paleo-oceans and reconstructed from cores of the eirik drift (TRANSPORTED)
2018
The Eirik Drift south of Greenland records the changes
in sediment transport by the deep ocean currents of the North
Atlantic. The most influential bottom current is the Western
Boundary Undercurrent (WBUC) which plays a major role in
the global meridional overturning circulation and is driven by
deep water formation in the Greenland, Labrador, Norwegian
and Iceland Seas. Tectonic events and changing climate condi
-
tions have altered the pathway and strength of the WBUC over
the last millions of years (Uenzelmann-Neben et al. (2016)).
These changes are recorded in the sediments of Eirik Drift. By
means of seismic profiles (e.g., Muller-Michaels and Uenzel
-
mann-Neben (2014, 2015)) and drill cores (Expedition 303 Sci
-
entists (2006), Shipboard Scientific Party (1987)), sedimentati
-
on rate and grain sizes can be determined since the late Miocene
and the Pliocene. Both time slices have attracted interest of the
climatological community due to their resemblance to possible
future anthropogenically modified climate states (Salzmann et
al. (2009)). Several numerical climate and ocean studies have
linked local temperature and precipitation proxies to global
climate changes during the late Miocene and the Pliocene. In
the project TRANSPORTED we will link tectonic events and
climate change to alterations of the strength and flowpaths of
the WBUC and, hence, to sedimentation rates and grain sizes
recorded in the cores from Sites 646 and U1305-1307 in the
Eirik Drift.
The numerical simulations will be carried out with the Re
-
gional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS, Shchepetkin and Mc
-
Williams (2005)). A regionalization to the North Atlantic enab
-
les us to simulate the areas of deep water formation in the North
Atlantic and the Nordic Seas at unusually high spatial resolution and to resolve sediment transport by the WBUC in time and
space. ROMS is a modern and highly modular ocean model
code that uses terrain following sigma coordinates. The resul-
ting higher resolution of oceanic bottom layers and the state of
the art sediment and sea ice modules make ROMS a suitable
choice for the proposed sensitivity simulations (cf., Li (2012)).
This will lead to quantitative comparisons between simulated
and reconstructed sediment transports at the Eirik Drift for the
first time. Variations in sedimentation rate, sediment transport
and grain sizes can be linked to climatic and tectonic events.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
0
References
0
Citations
NaN
KQI