The water masses exiting the Labrador Sea, and in particular the dense water mass formed by convection (i.e. Labrador Sea Water, LSW), are important components of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Several studies have questioned the connection of the LSW production to the AMOC variability. This is partly due to the limited understanding of how this locally formed water mass leaves the interior of the Labrador Sea. In this study, the pathways and the timescales of the water masses exiting the Labrador Sea via the boundary current are investigated by Lagrangian particle tracking. This method is applied to the output of a strongly-eddying idealized model that is capable of representing the essential physical processes involved in the cycle of convection and restratification in the Labrador Sea. The Lagrangian trajectories reveal that prior to exiting the domain the water masses follow either a fast route within the boundary current or a slower route that involves boundary current-interior exchanges. The densest water masses exiting the Labrador Sea stem from this slow route, where particles experience strong water mass transformation while in the interior. In contrast, the particles that follow the fast route experience water mass transformation in the boundary current at the western side of the domain only, yielding a lighter product. Although both routes carry roughly the same transport, we show that 60% of the overturning in density space is associated with the volume transport carried by particles that follow the slow route. This study further highlights that the export of dense water masses, which is governed by the eddy activity in the basin, yields export timescales that are usually longer than a year. This underlines the necessity of resolving the mesoscale features required to capture the interior–boundary current exchange in order to correctly represent the export of the LSW.

Previous studies have indicated that most of the net sinking associated with the downward branch of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) must occur near the subpolar North Atlantic boundaries. In this work we have used monthly mean fields of a high-resolution ocean model (0.1 at the Equator) to quantify this sinking. To this end we have calculated the Eulerian net vertical transport (WΣ) from the modeled vertical velocities, its seasonal variability, and its spatial distribution under repeated climatological atmospheric forcing conditions. Based on this simulation, we find that for the whole subpolar North Atlantic WΣ peaks at about -14 Sv at a depth of 1139 m, matching both the mean depth and the magnitude of the meridional transport of the AMOC at 45° N. It displays a seasonal variability of around 10 Sv. Three sinking regimes are identified according to the characteristics of the accumulated WΣ with respect to the distance to the shelf: one within the first 90 km and onto the bathymetric slope at around the peak of the boundary current speed (regime I), the second between 90 and 250 km covering the remainder of the shelf where mesoscale eddies exchange properties (momentum, heat, mass) between the interior and the boundary (regime II), and the third at larger distances from the shelf where is mostly driven by the ocean's interior eddies (regime III). Regimes I and II accumulate 90% of the of the total sinking and display smaller seasonal changes and spatial variability than regime III. We find that such a distinction in regimes is also useful to describe the characteristics of WΣ in marginal seas located far from the overflow areas, although the regime boundaries can shift a few tens of kilometers inshore or offshore depending on the bathymetric slope and shelf width of each marginal sea. The largest contributions to the sinking come from the Labrador Sea, the Newfoundland region, and the overflow regions. The magnitude, seasonal variability, and depth at which peaks vary for each region, thus revealing a complex picture of sinking in the subpolar North Atlantic.

This study presents a novel methodology to estimate the impact of local sea level rise and extreme surges and waves in coastal areas under climate change scenarios. The methodology is applied to the Ebro Delta, a valuable and vulnerable low-lying wetland located in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. Projections of local sea level accounting for all contributions to mean sea level changes, including thermal expansion, dynamic changes, fresh water addition and glacial isostatic adjustment, have been obtained from regionalized sea level projections during the 21st century. Particular attention has been paid to the uncertainties, which have been derived from the spread of the multi-model ensemble combined with seasonal/inter-annual sea level variability from local tide gauge observations. Besides vertical land movements have also been integrated to estimate local relative sea level rise. On the other hand, regional projections over the Mediterranean basin of storm surges and wind-waves have been used to evaluate changes in extreme events. The compound effects of surges and extreme waves have been quantified using their joint probability distributions. Finally, offshore sea level projections from extreme events superimposed to mean sea level have been propagated onto a high resolution digital elevation model of the study region in order to construct flood hazards maps for mid and end of the 21st century and under two different climate change scenarios. The effect of each contribution has been evaluated in terms of percentage of the area exposed to coastal hazards, which will help to design more efficient protection and adaptation measures.