Oceanic hindcast simulations at high resolution suggest that the Atlantic MOC is bistable

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Deshayes, J., Tréguier, A.-M., Barnier, B., Lecointre, A., Sommer, J. Le, Molines, Joan-Marc, Penduff, T., Bourdallé-Badie, R., Drillet, Y., Garric, G., Benshila, R., Madec, G., Biastoch, Arne, Böning, Claus W., Scheinert, Markus, Coward, A. C., Hirschi, J. J.-M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AGU (American Geophysical Union) 2013
• Subjects: North Atlantic; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/21557/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/21557/1/grl50534.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50534

All climate models predict a freshening of the North Atlantic at high latitude that may induce an abrupt change of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (hereafter AMOC) if it resides in the bistable regime, where both a strong and a weak state coexist. The latter remains uncertain as there is no consensus among observations and ocean reanalyses, where the AMOC is bistable, versus most climate models that reproduce a mono-stable strong AMOC. A series of four hindcast simulations of the global ocean at 1/12° resolution, which is presently unique, are used to diagnose freshwater transport by the AMOC in the South Atlantic, an indicator of AMOC bistability. In all simulations, the AMOC resides in the bistable regime: it exports freshwater southward in the South Atlantic, implying a positive salt advection feedback that would act to amplify a decreasing trend in subarctic deep water formation as projected in climate scenarios.