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  • Matters Arising
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Atlantic circulation change still uncertain

Nature Geoscience volume 15, pages 165–167 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 17 February 2022

The Original Article was published on 25 February 2021

arising from L. Caesar et al. Nature Geoscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z (2021)

Deep oceanic overturning circulation in the Atlantic (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)) is projected to decrease in the future in response to anthropogenic warming. Caesar et al.1 argue that an AMOC slowdown started in the nineteenth century and intensified during the mid-twentieth century. Although the argument and selected evidence proposed have some merits, we find that their conclusions might be different if a more complete array of data available in the North Atlantic region is considered. We argue that the strength of AMOC over recent centuries is still poorly constrained and the expected slowdown may not have started yet.

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Fig. 1: Available well-dated northern North Atlantic palaeoceanographic records include proxies for temperature, salinity, sea ice and ocean circulation.

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Acknowledgements

K.H.K. acknowledges funding from NOAA grant NA20OAR4310481. D.E.A. and B.L.O.-B. acknowledge support from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a major facility sponsored by the National Science Foundation under cooperative agreement no. 1852977. N.M.W. acknowledges support from a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.F.J. acknowledges support from NSF award OCE-1846821 and C.M.L. acknowledges support from NSF award OCE-1805029. This is UMCES contribution 6062.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Solomons, MD, USA

    K. Halimeda Kilbourne

  2. Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

    Alan D. Wanamaker

  3. Geography Department, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Paola Moffa-Sanchez

  4. Centre for Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK

    David J. Reynolds, Paul G. Butler & James Scourse

  5. Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Daniel E. Amrhein & Bette L. Otto-Bliesner

  6. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Falmouth, MA, USA

    Geoffrey Gebbie & Nina M. Whitney

  7. Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Marlos Goes

  8. Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Miami, FL, USA

    Marlos Goes

  9. Department of the Geophysical Sciences, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Malte F. Jansen

  10. Oceanography Department, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Texas, TX, USA

    Christopher M. Little

  11. US Geological Survey, St Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St Petersburg, FL, USA

    Madelyn Mette

  12. Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain

    Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro & Pablo Ortega

  13. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA

    Thomas Rossby

  14. University Corporation of Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Nina M. Whitney

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  1. K. Halimeda Kilbourne
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Contributions

K.H.K., A.D.W., P.M.-S. and D.J.R. drafted the manuscript. All the authors contributed to discussions in the conception of the work, writing and editing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K. Halimeda Kilbourne.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Geoscience thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: James Super, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Figure 1 credits and table of data in the figure.

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Kilbourne, K.H., Wanamaker, A.D., Moffa-Sanchez, P. et al. Atlantic circulation change still uncertain. Nat. Geosci. 15, 165–167 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00896-4

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