Exceptional 20th century ocean circulation in the Northeast Atlantic

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Spooner, Peter T., Thornalley, David J. R., Oppo, Delia W., Fox, Alan D., Radionovskaya, Svetlana, Rose, Neil L., Mallett, Robbie, Cooper, Emma, Roberts, J. Murray
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2020
• Subjects: Foraminifera; Subpolar gyre; North Atlantic; Ocean circulation; Industrial era; Arctic; Abrams; Foraminifera*; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/26224

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Spooner, P. T., Thornalley, D. J. R., Oppo, D. W., Fox, A. D., Radionovskaya, S., Rose, N. L., Mallett, R., Cooper, E., & Roberts, J. M. Exceptional 20th century ocean circulation in the Northeast Atlantic. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(10), (2020): e2020GL087577, doi:10.1029/2020GL087577. The North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG) connects tropical and high‐latitude waters, playing a leading role in deep‐water formation, propagation of Atlantic water into the Arctic, and as habitat for many ecosystems. Instrumental records spanning recent decades document significant decadal variability in SPG circulation, with associated hydrographic and ecological changes. Emerging longer‐term records provide circumstantial evidence that the North Atlantic also experienced centennial trends during the 20th century. Here, we use marine sediment records to show that there has been a long‐term change in SPG circulation during the industrial era, largely during the 20th century. Moreover, we show that the shift and late 20th century SPG configuration were unprecedented in the last 10,000 years. Recent SPG dynamics resulted in an expansion of subtropical ecosystems into new habitats and likely also altered the transport of heat to high latitudes. We thank Janet Hope and UCL laboratory staff, colleagues who sailed on EN539, Kathryn Pietro‐Rose, Sean O'Keefe and Henry Abrams, Sara Chipperton, Tanya Monica, Laura Thrower and Kitty Green for sediment processing, Miles Irving for artwork assistance, James Rolfe for nitrogen isotope measurement, Maryline Vautravers and Michael Kucera for guidance, Arne Biastoch and Christian Mohn for discussion of VIKING20, and Chris Brierley, Meric Srokosz, and Jon Robson for comments. Funding was provided by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant OCE‐1304291 to D.W.O. and D.J.R.T., the Leverhulme Trust, National Environment Research Council ...