Deep Ocean Circulation, Heat Transport and the Timing of Climate Change

Abstract:

Since the 1960s, changes in the production of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) have been invoked as a way to influence climate changes in the southern hemisphere, to synchronize the changes in both hemispheres or to trigger an early climate response in the southern hemisphere. While not the first to document the role of NADW and changes in heat transport in hemispheric linkages, Tom Crowley’s 1992 paper “North Atlantic Deep Water Cools the Southern Hemisphere” was an elegant and influential contribution outlining how changes in NADW production may have caused the early southern hemisphere response seen on orbital time scales by Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton (1976) as well as other researchers studying climate variability in marine sediments and polar ice cores.

Our understanding of climate change and ocean circulation has improved greatly since the early 1990s. Modern observations have increased our understanding of processes governing deep water production, mixing and circulation. A dedicated community effort to better reconstruct past changes in ocean circulation has resulted in: 1) longer and more highly-resolved time series of deep water production on orbital time scales; 2) reconstructions of the bathymetric and geographic distribution of nutrients that are affected by circulation and water mass geometry; 3) the development of new ways to determine rates of ocean overturning, especially in the Atlantic; and 4) the development of highly-resolved records of ocean circulation that document variability on centennial and millennial time scales. In this presentation we aim to synthesize the current state of understanding of deep water production and climate change on these longer time scales.