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Climate change

Is the ocean at the helm?

Nature volume 388, pages 521–522 (1997)Cite this article

The global climate heads off, unpredictably, into different regimes of behaviour for periods of years and decades. At middle latitudes, the central question is whether the ocean is a passive participant in climate change, merely responding to the atmosphere conditions above its surface, or a far more active component of the climate. On page 563 of this issue1, Sutton and Allen present compelling evidence that the North Atlantic is an active participant in the decadally evolving regional climate, with vivid images of propagating and oscillating sea surface temperature (SST) distributions.

Sea surface temperature distributions are a critical link between the circulations of the atmosphere and the ocean. But the physics of this link is difficult. The question is whether the atmosphere and ocean circulations are truly coupled (rather than the atmosphere directing all the action), and if so, how. Sutton and Allen have analysed patterns of wintertime SST measured in the North Atlantic over several decades, together with records of the overlying atmospheric circulation, mapped through sea-level pressure (SLP) distributions. They find that the patterns evolve in a remarkably organized way over decade timescales, propagating with slow but steady persistence in the direction of the main ocean currents. Ocean circulation is ponderous compared with that of the atmosphere, but the huge heat capacity of water gains the ocean equal partnership in the movement of heat in the climate system.

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Figure 1: Winter North Atlantic Oscillation index, based on the difference of normalized sea-level pressures (SLP) between Lisbon and Stykkisholmur (in Iceland) (ref. 3 and J. W. Hurrel, personal communication).

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  1. Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Mike McCartney

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  1. Mike McCartney
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McCartney, M. Is the ocean at the helm?. Nature 388, 521–522 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/41438

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