The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) shows contrasting responses in two sensitivity experiments with increased stratospheric aerosols, offering insight into the physical processes that may impact the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in a warmer climate. In one, the upper ocean becomes warm and salty, but in the other it becomes cold and fresh. The changes are accompanied by diverging AMOC responses. The first experiment strengthens the AMOC, opposing the weakening trend in the reference simulation. The second experiment shows a much smaller impact. Both simulations use the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model component (CESM-WACCM) but differ in model versions and stratospheric aerosol specifications. Despite both experiments using similar approaches to increase stratospheric aerosols to counteract the rising global temperature, the contrasting SPNA and AMOC responses indicate a considerable dependency on model physics, climate states, and model responses to forcings. This study focuses on examining the physical processes involved with the impact of stratospheric aerosols on the SPNA salinity changes and their potential connections with the AMOC and the Arctic. We find that in both cases, increased stratospheric aerosols act to enhance the SPNA upper-ocean salinity by reducing freshwater export from the Arctic, which is closely tied to the Arctic sea ice changes. The impact on AMOC is primarily through the thermal component of the surface buoyancy fluxes, with negligible contributions from the freshwater component. These experiments shed light on the physical processes that dictate the important connections between the SPNA, the Arctic, the AMOC, and their subsequent feedbacks on the climate system.
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.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10131337
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Meteorological Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- Volume:
- 33
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0894-8755
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1535-1545
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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We explore the mechanisms by which Arctic sea ice decline affects the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in a suite of numerical experiments perturbing the Arctic sea ice radiative budget within a fully coupled climate model. The imposed perturbations act to increase the amount of heat available to melt ice, leading to a rapid Arctic sea ice retreat within 5 years after the perturbations are activated. In response, the AMOC gradually weakens over the next ~100 years. The AMOC changes can be explained by the accumulation in the Arctic and subsequent downstream propagation to the North Atlantic of buoyancy anomalies controlled by temperature and salinity. Initially, during the first decade or so, the Arctic sea ice loss results in anomalous positive heat and salinity fluxes in the subpolar North Atlantic, inducing positive temperature and salinity anomalies over the regions of oceanic deep convection. At first, these anomalies largely compensate one another, leading to a minimal change in upper ocean density and deep convection in the North Atlantic. Over the following years, however, more anomalous warm water accumulates in the Arctic and spreads to the North Atlantic. At the same time, freshwater that accumulates from seasonal sea ice melting over most of the upper Arctic Ocean also spreads southward, reaching as far as south of Iceland. These warm and fresh anomalies reduce upper ocean density and suppress oceanic deep convection. The thermal and haline contributions to these buoyancy anomalies, and therefore to the AMOC slowdown during this period, are found to have similar magnitudes. We also find that the related changes in horizontal wind-driven circulation could potentially push freshwater away from the deep convection areas and hence strengthen the AMOC, but this effect is overwhelmed by mean advection.
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Abstract The effect of anthropogenic climate change in the ocean is challenging to project because atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) respond differently to forcing. This study focuses on changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), ocean heat content (
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The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is pivotal for regional and global climate due to its key role in the uptake and redistribution of heat and carbon. Establishing the causes of historical variability in AMOC strength on different timescales can tell us how the circulation may respond to natural and anthropogenic changes at the ocean surface. However, understanding observed AMOC variability is challenging because the circulation is influenced by multiple factors that co-vary and whose overlapping impacts persist for years. Here we reconstruct and unambiguously attribute intermonthly and interannual AMOC variability at two observational arrays to the recent history of surface wind stress, temperature and salinity. We use a state-of-the-art technique that computes space- and time-varying sensitivity patterns of the AMOC strength with respect to multiple surface properties from a numerical ocean circulation model constrained by observations. While, on interannual timescales, AMOC variability at 26° N is overwhelmingly dominated by a linear response to local wind stress, overturning variability at subpolar latitudes is generated by the combined effects of wind stress and surface buoyancy anomalies. Our analysis provides a quantitative attribution of subpolar AMOC variability to temperature, salinity and wind anomalies at the ocean surface.more » « less
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ABSTRACT 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.
