Ideas for schematics plot

[willaguiar]

By now, we were able to narrow down the explanation of what causes DSW formation to decrease, when using thicker top cells.

Essentially, thicker top cells shift the Ekman transport near the Antarctic Shelf to be more southward-directed. This brings low-salinity offshore waters to the shelf, and turns the surface of the shelf too light to form DSW efficiently. I created this issue so we can discuss ideas on how to represent this mechanism in an (schematic) plot.

[willaguiar]

Here are some ideas....
For previous presentations, I did something like the schematic below. I could try to find a way to add here the winds stress experiment, and perhaps also a representation of the Ekman transport or spiral

Alternatively, we can do something more elaborated based on the (ugly) drawing below. This is more to have an idea of the elements that would need to be shown in the schematics, plotted in three sheets in a 3d space (x,y,z). The idea would be to have three sheets, one for surface winds, transports and salinity gradients on the top 5m, a second sheet below, for the density gradients, and a third to somehow showing how it affects the overflow

Any additional idea is welcome...

[adele-morrison]

Since the main result is the Ekman transport, I think that should definitely be in the schematic. Also the geometry of the shelf/coast is important (i.e. it doesn't happen in the North Atlantic because there's no coastline to build up fresh water against). And the freshening signal at the surface is important. What about a 3d shelf/slope box showing the direction of the Ekman transport and surface freshening and an arrow for dense water export? One box for 1m and one for 5m.

[willaguiar]

I gave it a try editing the figure from Wilma's interview to do our schematics for two cases (Asked Wilma before).

New trial schematics below.... Let me know your suggestions! (I think perhaps adding something about the low salinity waters offshore?). Happy to go another direction for the schematic too....

1mtop on left/ 5mtop on right

[adele-morrison]

I like it.

I think you could remove the "ice shelf" and "seafloor" labels. And add labels for the strong/weak bottom water. And "salinities" -> "salinity".

And is it possible to show the thickness (not to scale) of the upper grid cell with a label on the front/side faces?

[willaguiar]

Here is a try with these changes:

[wghuneke]

Nice adaptation from the orig schematic! Some small suggestions:

• consistent small or large capital letters for the labels
• I like the addition of the 1m / 5m surface cell, it just looks a little funky that the 5 m cell is deeper than the ice shelf front. I don't have an idea how to fix this though. So maybe ignore this point.
• red colour for salinity water: my brain jumps to red=warm, can you play around with other colours (green?, gray?, yellow?)
• move the "high/low salinity" labels further down to reduce the overall figure height?