A late medieval warm period in the Southern Ocean as a delayed response to external forcing?

International audience On the basis of long simulations performed with a three‐dimensional climate model, we propose an interhemispheric climate lag mechanism, involving the long‐term memory of deepwater masses. Warm anomalies, formed in the North Atlantic when warm conditions prevail at surface, ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Goosse, H., Masson-Delmotte, Valérie, Renssen, H., Delmotte, M., Fichefet, T., Morgan, V., van Ommen, T., Khim, B., Stenni, B.
Other Authors: Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables (GLACCIOS), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Amsterdam (VU), ICOS-RAMCES (ICOS-RAMCES), Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE-CRC), Pusan National University (PNU), Università degli studi di Trieste = University of Trieste
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2004
Subjects:
[SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology
[SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean
Atmosphere
Southern Ocean
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://hal.science/hal-03103293
https://hal.science/hal-03103293/document
https://hal.science/hal-03103293/file/169680.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL019140
Description
Summary:International audience On the basis of long simulations performed with a three‐dimensional climate model, we propose an interhemispheric climate lag mechanism, involving the long‐term memory of deepwater masses. Warm anomalies, formed in the North Atlantic when warm conditions prevail at surface, are transported by the deep ocean circulation towards the Southern Ocean. There, the heat is released because of large scale upwelling, maintaining warm conditions and inducing a lagged response of about 150 years compared to the Northern Hemisphere. Model results and observations covering the first half of the second millenium suggest a delay between the temperature evolution in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Southern Ocean. The mechanism described here provides a reasonable hypothesis to explain such an interhemipsheric lag.

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