The impact of polar mesoscale storms on northeast Atlantic Ocean circulation

Atmospheric processes regulate the formation of deep water in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean and hence influence the large-scale ocean circulation. Every year thousands of mesoscale storms, termed polar lows, cross this climatically sensitive region of the ocean. These storms are often either too small or too short-lived to be captured in meteorological reanalyses or numerical models. Here we present simulations with a global, eddy-permitting ocean/sea-ice circulation model, run with and without a parameterization of polar lows. The parameterization reproduces the high wind speeds and heat fluxes observed in polar lows as well as their integrated effects, and leads to increases in the simulated depth, frequency and area of deep convection in the Nordic seas, which in turn leads to a larger northward transport of heat into the region, and southward transport of deep water through Denmark Strait. We conclude that polar lows are important for the large-scale ocean circulation and should be accounted for in short-term climate predictions. Recent studies predict a decrease in the number of polar lows over the northeast Atlantic in the twenty-first century that would imply a reduction in deep convection and a potential weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.