PL23A:
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: Modeling and Observations II


Session ID#: 36777

Session Description:
Through its associated heat, salt, and carbon transports, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) significantly influences the climate of the North Atlantic and surrounding areas and can even impact global climate through interactions with atmosphere on seasonal to multi-decadal timescales. Because the memory of the ocean vastly exceeds that of the atmosphere, AMOC is thought to represent the dynamical memory of the climate system, playing a major role in climate variations, hence in climate predictions, on these and even longer, i.e., centennial to millennial, timescales. Support for such a prominent role for AMOC on long time scales comes from coupled general circulation model simulations and proxy records. On shorter, i.e., intra-seasonal to decadal, timescales, measurements of transports, heat content, and other variables throughout the Atlantic Ocean have been instrumental in investigating the spatial structure, mechanisms, and impacts of AMOC variability, showing the importance of processes from the mesoscale to the basin scale. A synergy of knowledge gained from all these efforts will lead to a better understanding of AMOC.

We invite contributions from modeling and observational (both instrumental and proxy) studies, investigating AMOC variability and mechanisms as well as its role in climate predictions on various, e.g., decadal, timescales.

Primary Chair:  Gokhan Danabasoglu, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics, Boulder, United States
Co-chairs:  Femke de Jong, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research & Utrecht University, Ocean Science Systems, Texel, Netherlands, Rong Zhang, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Meric A Srokosz, National Oceanography Center, Soton, Southampton, United Kingdom
Moderators:  Gokhan Danabasoglu, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, Femke de Jong, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research & Utrecht University, Ocean Science Systems, Texel, Netherlands, Rong Zhang, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Meric A Srokosz, National Oceanography Centre, United Kingdom
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  Femke de Jong, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research & Utrecht University, Ocean Science Systems, Texel, Netherlands and Rong Zhang, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
Index Terms:

4255 Numerical modeling [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
4262 Ocean observing systems [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
4263 Ocean predictability and prediction [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
4532 General circulation [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Cross-Topics:
  • OM - Ocean Modeling
  • PC - Past, Present and Future Climate

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

The Deep-Western-Boundary-Current at 53°N exiting the Labrador Sea: Vertical Structure and Decadal Variability (318407)
Martin Visbeck1,2, Patricia Vera Klara Handmann3, Jürgen Fischer3, Johannes Karstensen4, Rainer Zantopp3, Arne Biastoch3, Lavinia Patara3 and Claus W Boning3, (1)OceanQuest, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, (2)University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany, (3)GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany, (4)GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Ocean Circulation and Climate Dynamics, Kiel, Germany
An estimate of AMOC related transports at 47°N in the eastern North Atlantic inferred from PIES data (304357)
Hannah Nowitzki1,2, Monika Rhein2,3, Achim Roessler1,2 and Dagmar Kieke1,2, (1)University of Bremen, MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Bremen, Germany, (2)University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics, Bremen, Germany, (3)University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Response of the Atlantic Ocean Circulation to Wind-Forcing, from Sea Surface Height and Bottom Pressure (311854)
Eleanor Frajka-Williams, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO14, United Kingdom, Felix W Landerer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States and Tony Lee, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Observing bottom currents associated with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) using GRACE (324370)
Jordan Meyer, University of South Florida Tampa, Tampa, FL, United States and Don P Chambers, University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, St. Petersburg, United States
Can variations in mixed layer depth explain variations in SST decorrelation timescales in the North Atlantic and North Pacific? (320857)
Martha W Buckley, George Mason University Fairfax, Fairfax, VA, United States, Laifang Li, Duke Univ-Earth & Ocean Sci, Durham, NC, United States, Susan Lozier, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atlanta, United States and Nicholas Foukal, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, UGA, Savannah, United States
Relationship between changes in the AMOC, North Atlantic heat content and SST (308608)
Ben I Moat1, Bablu Sinha1, Simon A Josey1, Jon Robson2, Pablo Ortega3, N. Penny Holliday4, Gerard D McCarthy1 and Joel Hirschi1, (1)National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom, (2)University of Reading, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Reading, United Kingdom, (3)University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom, (4)NERC Natural Environment Research Council, Swindon, United Kingdom
On the existence of a potential multidecadal AMOC-AMO-NAO feedback loop in MIROC (309899)
Ayako Yamamoto1, Hiroaki Tatebe2 and Masami Nonaka1, (1)Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Kanagawa, Japan, (2)JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan
Estimating Advective and Diffusive Fluxes of Heat and Freshwater in the Arctic Using a Novel Inverse Method in Thermohaline Coordinates (319504)
Neill Sutherland Mackay1, Chris Wilson1, Jan D Zika2 and N. Penny Holliday3, (1)National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, United Kingdom, (2)University of New South Wales, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, NSW, Australia, (3)NERC Natural Environment Research Council, Swindon, United Kingdom

See more of: Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger