Reduced interdecadal variability of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under global warming

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Cheng, Jun, Liu, Zhengyu, Zhang, Shaoqing, Liu, Wei, Dong, Lina, Liu, Peng, Li, Hongli
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2016
• Subjects: Physical Sciences; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4812739/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26951654; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519827113

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a key component of the climate system, and its interdecadal variability (IV) significantly modulates climate changes around the North Atlantic region and worldwide. We report a robust shortening in period and weakening in amplitude of AMOC-IV in response to future global warming, which may be contributed to by increased oceanic stratification and, in turn, speedup of Rossby wave propagation. This finding sheds light on the mechanism of AMOC-IV responses to varying background climatology and global warming and therefore should contribute significantly to our understanding and projection of future climate changes.