Effect of horizontal resolution in North Atlantic mixing and ocean circulation in the EC-Earth3P HighResMIP simulations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. We investigate the impact of increasing horizontal model resolution on the oceanic mixing processes in the North Atlantic, their drivers, their link with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and the propagation of newly generated dense waters through the deep western boundary current (DWBC). We use three versions of the EC-Earth Earth system model, one of standard resolution (SR, ∼1° in the ocean), one of high resolution (HR, ∼0.25° in the ocean), and one of very high resolution (VHR, ∼1/12° in the ocean). The higher resolutions allow for the explicit simulation of mesoscale processes that are parameterised at the coarse resolution, with additional improvements in ocean topography, boundary currents, and air–sea interactions. We find that the North Atlantic Oscillation plays a critical role in driving the mixed layer depth (MLD) in the Labrador Sea at HR and VHR. The three model configurations also show the influence of surface salinity signals in the mixing, with the VHR configuration showing a distinct slow propagation of these signals from the eastern subpolar gyre into the Labrador Sea. Furthermore, March MLD shows a strong positive bias in HR, which is reduced in VHR. In terms of the AMOC, resolution plays a pivotal role in shaping its response to the mixing. At the highest resolutions, the signal of the newly formed dense waters propagates faster along the better-resolved boundary current, indicating a shift from advective propagation to wave propagation of the signals. Additionally, the persistence of the AMOC responses to MLD is much shorter in VHR (less than 2 years) than for SR and HR, which exhibit longer-lived changes. These differences highlight how resolution affects both the timing and spatial reach of the AMOC changes. Our study underscores the importance of model resolution in accurately simulating the North Atlantic's oceanic processes and their implications for the AMOC. While the VHR configuration offers a more realistic climatology of the Labrador Sea MLD, the results also demonstrate significant differences in variability and persistence across resolutions. These findings stress the need for high-resolution simulations to improve the understanding of deep ocean processes and their connection to larger climate systems, although they also highlight challenges in comparing simulated and observed data, particularly given the sparse historical observations and the lack of decadal variability in the model simulations.
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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 | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 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".