Reconciling the Stommel Box Model with the Stommel–Arons Model: A Possible Role for Southern Hemisphere Wind Forcing?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract In the Stommel box model, the strength of the overturning circulation is parameterized in terms of the density (and hence the pressure) difference between the two boxes. Straub has pointed out that this parameterization is not consistent with the Stommel–Arons model for the abyssal circulation. In particular, the zonally averaged density field implied by the Stommel–Arons model is unrelated to the strength or the direction of the meridional overturning circulation. Here, the inconsistency is examined using the abyssal circulation model of Kawase and a variant to include the effect of Southern Hemisphere wind forcing. The important parameter is R, the ratio of two timescales: the timescale for a perturbation to the density field to propagate, by either wave or advective processes, from a high-latitude source to the equator and the timescale for the dissipation of a perturbation to the density field by diapycnal mixing. If the model is forced only by a deep water source in the northern basin, it is found that the model behaves like the Stommel–Arons model when R ≪ 1 (the “weak” damping regime) and like the Stommel box model when R ≫ 1 (the “strong” damping regine). Estimates of R suggest that coarse-resolution models generally reside in or near the Stommel box model regime (R ≫ 1), which is probably why these models generally support the Stommel box model hypothesis and corroborate the momentum-based closure used in zonally averaged models. On the other hand, it is not clear that the real world is also in the strong damping regime. Indeed, it is easy to obtain estimates for R, using realistic parameter values, that sit in the weak damping regime. It is shown that, even in the weak damping regime (R ≪ 1), adding forcing by the Southern Hemisphere circumpolar westerlies generally moves the model into the Stommel box model regime. It therefore is concluded that, at least in the context of the Kawase model, the inconsistency noted by Straub can be removed by including the effect of Southern Hemisphere wind forcing and that the Stommel box model approach probably has wider applicability than is suggested by estimates of R alone.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".