A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age
Among the climatological events of the last millennium, the Northern Hemisphere Medieval Climate Anomaly succeeded by the Little Ice Age are of exceptional importance. The origin of these regional climate anomalies remains a subject of debate and besides external influences like solar and volcanic a...
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ftdatacite:10.34657/730 2023-05-15T17:24:14+02:00 A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age Schleussner, C.F. Feulner, G. 2013 application/pdf https://dx.doi.org/10.34657/730 https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/633 en eng München : European Geopyhsical Union Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported CC BY 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode cc-by-3.0 CC-BY climatology decadal variation gyre Little Ice Age numerical model reconstruction regional climate sea ice stochasticity timescale volcanic eruption volcanology 550 CreativeWork article 2013 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.34657/730 2022-03-10T12:43:22Z Among the climatological events of the last millennium, the Northern Hemisphere Medieval Climate Anomaly succeeded by the Little Ice Age are of exceptional importance. The origin of these regional climate anomalies remains a subject of debate and besides external influences like solar and volcanic activity, internal dynamics of the climate system might have also played a dominant role. Here, we present transient last millennium simulations of the fully coupled model of intermediate complexity Climber 3α forced with stochastically reconstructed wind-stress fields. Our results indicate that short-lived volcanic eruptions might have triggered a cascade of sea ice–ocean feedbacks in the North Atlantic, ultimately leading to a persistent regime shift in the ocean circulation. We find that an increase in the Nordic Sea sea-ice extent on decadal timescales as a consequence of major volcanic eruptions in our model leads to a spin-up of the subpolar gyre and a weakened Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, eventually causing a persistent, basin-wide cooling. These results highlight the importance of regional climate feedbacks such as a regime shift in the subpolar gyre circulation for understanding the dynamics of past and future climate. Article in Journal/Newspaper Nordic Sea North Atlantic Sea ice DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
English |
topic |
climatology decadal variation gyre Little Ice Age numerical model reconstruction regional climate sea ice stochasticity timescale volcanic eruption volcanology 550 |
spellingShingle |
climatology decadal variation gyre Little Ice Age numerical model reconstruction regional climate sea ice stochasticity timescale volcanic eruption volcanology 550 Schleussner, C.F. Feulner, G. A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
topic_facet |
climatology decadal variation gyre Little Ice Age numerical model reconstruction regional climate sea ice stochasticity timescale volcanic eruption volcanology 550 |
description |
Among the climatological events of the last millennium, the Northern Hemisphere Medieval Climate Anomaly succeeded by the Little Ice Age are of exceptional importance. The origin of these regional climate anomalies remains a subject of debate and besides external influences like solar and volcanic activity, internal dynamics of the climate system might have also played a dominant role. Here, we present transient last millennium simulations of the fully coupled model of intermediate complexity Climber 3α forced with stochastically reconstructed wind-stress fields. Our results indicate that short-lived volcanic eruptions might have triggered a cascade of sea ice–ocean feedbacks in the North Atlantic, ultimately leading to a persistent regime shift in the ocean circulation. We find that an increase in the Nordic Sea sea-ice extent on decadal timescales as a consequence of major volcanic eruptions in our model leads to a spin-up of the subpolar gyre and a weakened Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, eventually causing a persistent, basin-wide cooling. These results highlight the importance of regional climate feedbacks such as a regime shift in the subpolar gyre circulation for understanding the dynamics of past and future climate. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Schleussner, C.F. Feulner, G. |
author_facet |
Schleussner, C.F. Feulner, G. |
author_sort |
Schleussner, C.F. |
title |
A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
title_short |
A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
title_full |
A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
title_fullStr |
A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
title_full_unstemmed |
A volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean as a possible origin of the Little Ice Age |
title_sort |
volcanically triggered regime shift in the subpolar north atlantic ocean as a possible origin of the little ice age |
publisher |
München : European Geopyhsical Union |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.34657/730 https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/633 |
genre |
Nordic Sea North Atlantic Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Nordic Sea North Atlantic Sea ice |
op_rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported CC BY 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode cc-by-3.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.34657/730 |
_version_ |
1766115174210600960 |