Estimating trends of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation from long-term hydrographic data and model simulations

Abstract

The ocean meridional overturning circulation (MOC) plays a central role for the climate in the Atlantic realm. Since scenarios for future climate change indicate a significant reduction of the MOC under global warming, an assessment of variations and trends of the real MOC is important. Using observations at ocean weather ship (OWS) stations and along oceanic sections, we examine the hydrographic information that can be used to determine MOC trends via its signature in water mass properties obtained from model simulations with the climate model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. We show that temperature trends at mid-latitudes provide useful indirect measure of large-scale changes of deep circulation: A mid-depth warming is related to MOC weakening and a cooling to MOC strengthening. Based on our model experiments, we argue that a continuation of measurements at key OWS sites may contribute to a timely detection of a possible future MOC slowdown and to separate the signal from interannual-to-multidecadal MOC variability. The simulations suggest that the subsurface hydrographic information related to MOC has a lower variability than the MOC trend measured directly. Based on our model and the available long-term hydrographic data, we estimate non-significant MOC trends for the last 80 years. For the twenty-first century, however, the model simulations predict a significant MOC decline and accompanied mid-depth warming trend.