Atlantic Climate Change Experiment
From The Encyclopedia of Earth
Oceans and seas (main)
March 29, 2010, 12:00 am
May 31, 2012, 5:27 pm
The Atlantic Climate Change Experiment (ACCE) is a joint program between the U.S. World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Atlantic Climate Change Program designed to increase understanding of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean and the overlying atmosphere at interannual and longer time scales.
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The goals of ACCE were to:
- Provide a quantitative 4–D observational description of the pathways and material property fluxes of the MOC within the North Atlantic Ocean that vary on time scales from interannual to at least decadal;
- Improve understanding and modeling of the relationships between the rates and natural variability of the MOC, internal ocean properties, sea surface temperature (SST), and the variability of the overlying atmosphere (Earth's atmosphere); and
- Identify and initiate measurements to be continued beyond the ACCE observational period to monitor the variability of important elements of the MOC and its relation to global climate variability.
Further Reading
- Physical Oceanography Index
- WOCE. U.S. Contribution to WOCE and ACCP: A Program Designed for an Atlantic Circulation and Climate Experiment (ACCE). Technical report, U.S. WOCE Office, 1995.
- Circulation and Climate Experiment
