Work under this award will investigate the possibility that the equator may exercise an important control on the deep global circulation of an ocean driven by the thermal contrast between polar and tropical regions. Both a linear analytic model and a nonlinear numerical model of the equatorial ocean will be used to study the response of the deep equatorial ocean to the buoyancy loss that produces dense waters at high latitudes. Particular attention will be paid to the geometry and the dynamics of the cross-equatorial flow. Another focus will be on the possibility that the high-latitude buoyancy forcing may drive the highly baroclinic zonal jets along the equator that have been observed in both the Pacific and the Indian oceans.
