PC31A:
Meridional Overturning Circulation Dynamics in Past Warm and Cold Climates I


Session ID#: 36869

Session Description:
The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is a key component of the global climate system, as it modulates the transport and storage of both heat and carbon. Changes in deep-ocean circulation are thought to have played a key role in past climatic transitions, such as between glacial and interglacial periods. However, reaching a quantitative understanding of the dynamics that contributed to these changes, remains a major challenge in climate research. The MOC’s response to current climate trends is also an unknown when assessing future global ocean-climate-carbon cycle interactions. Investigating how the MOC varied in the past can provide crucial information on the mechanisms and drivers of its variability, as well as on the possible impacts of future circulation changes. This multidisciplinary session will facilitate discussions between the modeling and data communities, with the aim to explore both the transient and equilibrium response of the MOC to different forcing scenarios. We welcome contributions from both proxy-based studies to reconstruct past changes, and those exploring these dynamics from a mechanistic perspective, spanning from theoretical approaches to fully-coupled numerical modeling efforts. We especially encourage combined model-data analyses, as well as studies investigating past periods that could be viewed as analogues for future climates.
Primary Chair:  Alice Marzocchi, University of Chicago, Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, IL, United States
Co-chairs:  Benoit Thibodeau, The University of Hong Kong, Earth Sciences and SWIMS, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Juan Muglia, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States and Andrea Burke, University of St Andrews, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, St Andrews, United Kingdom
Moderators:  Benoit Thibodeau, The University of Hong Kong, Earth Sciences and SWIMS, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Andrea Burke, University of St Andrews, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, St Andrews, United Kingdom, Juan Muglia, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), CESIMAR, Puerto Madryn, Argentina and Alice Marzocchi, The Challenger Society for Marine Science, Geophysical Sciences, Southampton, United Kingdom
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  Benoit Thibodeau, The University of Hong Kong, Earth Sciences and SWIMS, Hong Kong, Hong Kong and Alice Marzocchi, The Challenger Society for Marine Science, Geophysical Sciences, Southampton, United Kingdom
Index Terms:

1616 Climate variability [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4255 Numerical modeling [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
4532 General circulation [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4962 Thermohaline [PALEOCEANOGRAPHY]
Cross-Topics:
  • BN - Biogeochemistry and Nutrients
  • HE - High Latitude Environments
  • OM - Ocean Modeling
  • PL - Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

How CO2, ice sheets and astronomical forcings conspire to alter the strength of the AMOC, volume of NADW, and ocean carbon storage: Expectations from a coarse resolution model (318747)
Eric D Galbraith, ICREA Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona, Spain, Casimir de Lavergne, UNSW, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, Australia and Sarah Eggleston, Empa, Laboratory for Air Pollution & Environmental Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland
The AMOC’s response to global temperature change on time-scales from decades to millennia. (314312)
Malte Jansen, University of Chicago, Department of the Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, United States
Ocean Density Changes and LGM-to-Modern Sealevel Rise (325359)
Geoffrey Gebbie, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States, Alexander Simms, University of California Santa Barbara, Earth Science, Santa Barbara, United States and Lorraine E Lisiecki, University of California, Santa Barbara, Earth Science, Santa Barbara, United States

Reconstructing carbon cycle and overturning changes since the LGM using benthic δ13C (315530)

Carlye Peterson, University of California Riverside, Earth Sciences, Riverside, CA, United States, Lorraine E Lisiecki, University of California, Santa Barbara, Earth Science, Santa Barbara, United States and Geoffrey Gebbie, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States
Dynamical controls on the depth of the boundary between bottom and deep waters in the Last Glacial Maximum Atlantic (307832)
Daniel E Amrhein, University of Washington, School of Oceanography & Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Seattle, WA, United States, Carl Wunsch, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States and LuAnne Thompson, University of Washington, School of Oceanography, Seattle, United States
'Overturning Circulation and Atmospheric CO2 Variations Under Varying Southern Ocean Climate and Geometrical Setups' (318814)
Jonathan Baker, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4, United Kingdom, Andrew J. Watson, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom and Geoffery K Vallis, University of Exeter, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Exeter, United Kingdom
Abyssal ocean overturning shaped by seafloor distribution (305449)
Casimir de Lavergne1, Madec Gurvan2, Fabien Roquet3, Ryan Holmes4,5 and Trevor J McDougall5, (1)UNSW, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, Australia, (2)LOCEAN-IPSL, CNRS/IRD/MNHN/Sorbonne Université, Paris, France, (3)Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm, Sweden, (4)University of New South Wales, Climate Change Research Centre, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, NSW, Australia, (5)University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
An Atlantic-Pacific Seesaw in Overturning Circulation and Biogeochemistry (317891)
James William Buchanan Rae1, David Thornalley2, Louisa I Bradtmiller3, Andrea Burke4, Holger Gebhardt5, William Robert Gray4, Rhian Laura Rees-Owen4 and Michael Sarnthein6, (1)University of St Andrews, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, St Andrews, KY16, United Kingdom, (2)University College London, Department of Geography, London, United Kingdom, (3)Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN, United States, (4)University of St Andrews, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, St Andrews, United Kingdom, (5)Geologische Bundesanstalt, Vienna, Austria, (6)Univ Kiel, Kiel, Germany

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