Horizontal circulation across density surfaces contributes substantially to the long-term mean northern Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
Open Access
- 8 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Communications Earth & Environment
- Vol. 2 (1), 1-12
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00182-y
Abstract
The Greenland Sea is often viewed as the northern terminus of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. It has also been proposed that the shutdown of open-ocean deep convection in the Labrador or Greenland Seas would substantially weaken the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Here we analyze Robust Diagnostic Calculations conducted in a high-resolution global coupled climate model constrained by observed hydrographic climatology to provide a holistic picture of the long-term mean Atlantic Overturning Circulation at northern high latitudes. Our results suggest that the Arctic Ocean, not the Greenland Sea, is the northern terminus of the mean Atlantic Overturning Circulation; open-ocean deep convection, in either the Labrador or Greenland Seas, contributes minimally to the mean Atlantic Overturning Circulation, hence it would not necessarily be substantially weakened by a shutdown of open-ocean deep convection; horizontal circulation across sloping isopycnals contributes substantially (more than 40%) to the maximum mean northeastern subpolar Atlantic Overturning Circulation.Keywords
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