Sensitivity of climate response to variations in freshwater hosing location |
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Authors: | Thomas Kleinen Timothy J Osborn Keith R Briffa |
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Institution: | 1.Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences,University of East Anglia,Norwich,UK;2.Max Planck Institute for Meteorology,Hamburg,Germany |
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Abstract: | In a recent intercomparison of the response of general circulation models (GCMs) to high-latitude freshwater forcing (Stouffer
et al., J Climate 19(8):1365–1387, 2006), a number of the GCMs investigated showed a localised warming response in the high-latitude North Atlantic, as opposed to
the cooling that the other models showed. We investigated the causes for this warming by testing the sensitivity of the meridional
overturning circulation (MOC) to variations in freshwater forcing location, and then analysing in detail the causes of the
warming. By analysing results from experiments with HadCM3, we are able to show that the high-latitude warming is independent
of the exact location of the additional freshwater in the North Atlantic or Arctic Ocean basin. Instead, the addition of freshwater
changes the circulation in the sub-polar gyre, which leads to enhanced advection of warm, saline, sub-surface water into the
Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian Sea despite the overall slowdown of the MOC. This sub-surface water is brought to the surface
by convection, where it leads to a strong warming of the surface waters and the overlying atmosphere. |
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Keywords: | Thermohaline circulation Meridional overturning circulation Freshwater hosing Sub-polar gyre |
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