In a transient warming scenario, the North Atlantic is influenced by a complex pattern of surface buoyancy flux changes that ultimately weaken the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Here we study the AMOC response in the CMIP5 experiment, using the near-geostrophic balance of the AMOC on interannual time scales to identify the role of temperature and salinity changes in altering the circulation. The thermal wind relationship is used to quantify changes in the zonal density gradients that control the strength of the flow. At 40°N, where the overturning cell is at its strongest, weakening of the AMOC is largely driven by warming between 1000- and 2000-m depth along the western margin. Despite significant subpolar surface freshening, salinity changes are small in the deep branch of the circulation. This is likely due to the influence of anomalously salty water in the subpolar intermediate layers, which is carried northward from the subtropics in the upper limb of the AMOC. In the upper 1000 m at 40°N, salty anomalies due to increased evaporation largely cancel the buoyancy increase due to warming. Therefore, in CMIP5, temperature dynamics are responsible for AMOC weakening, while freshwater forcing instead acts to strengthen the circulation in the net. These results indicate that past modeling studies of AMOC weakening, which rely on freshwater hosing in the subpolar gyre, may not be directly applicable to a more complex warming scenario.
Regional connectivity is important to the global climate salinity response, particularly because salinity anomalies do not have a damping feedback with atmospheric freshwater fluxes and may therefore be advected over long distances by ocean circulation, resulting in nonlocal influences. Climate model intercomparison experiments such as CMIP5 exhibit large uncertainty in some aspects of the salinity response, hypothesized here to be a result of ocean dynamics. We use two types of Lagrangian particle tracking experiments to investigate pathways of exchange for salinity anomalies. The first uses forward trajectories to estimate average transport time scales between water cycle regimes. The second uses reverse trajectories and a freshwater accumulation method to quantitatively identify remote influences in the salinity response. Additionally, we compare velocity fields with both resolved and parameterized eddies to understand the impact of eddy stirring on intergyre exchange. These experiments show that surface anomalies are readily exchanged within the ocean gyres by the mean circulation, but intergyre exchange is slower and largely eddy driven. These dynamics are used to analyze the North Atlantic salinity response to climate warming and water cycle intensification, where the system is broadly forced with fresh surface anomalies in the subpolar gyre and salty surface anomalies in the subtropical gyres. Under these competing forcings, strong intergyre eddy fluxes carry anomalously salty subtropical water into the subpolar gyre which balances out much of the local freshwater input.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10131328
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Meteorological Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Physical Oceanography
- Volume:
- 50
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0022-3670
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 255-268
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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