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Linking the inter-basin climate variability through the overturning circulation

Presentation Date
Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 2:10pm
Location
Moscone West 2002, L2
Authors

Author

Abstract

Although the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is thought to be a global scale ocean circulation, AMOC variations and the associated impacts on inter-basin climate mode variability are still not well understood. Here, by analyzing a set of simulations using the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1), we explore how significant changes in AMOC would affect the inter-basin connections of the ocean circulation and the decadal mode variability in different ocean basins. It is found that a collapsed AMOC would induce a reorganization of the global ocean circulations, such as a weakening of the Bering Strait throughflow and the Indonesian throughflow, but a strengthening of the Antarctic circumpolar current. Resulting from these changes, the decadal mode in the Pacific weakens overall with a strengthened variability in the subpolar region. On the other hand, the Atlantic multi-decadal variability strengthens in the subpolar Northeast Atlantic, but weakens a bit in the subtropical Atlantic. Our results suggest that changes in AMOC affect not only the ocean circulations, but also the surface decadal climate variability.

Category
Ocean Sciences
Funding Program Area(s)