Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Shifting seas in the greenhouse?

Nature volume 399, pages 523–524 (1999)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 24 June 1999

The effect that global warming might have on the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean has been a topic of much speculation and research. On page 572 of this issue, Wood et al.1 present greenhouse warming scenarios computed with a climate model that, for the first time, gives a realistic simulation of the large-scale ocean currents without requiring artificial adjustments of the air-sea fluxes.

In 1987, in an article entitled “Unpleasant surprises in the greenhouse?”, Broecker2 warned that the response of the climate system to greenhouse warming might involve ‘mode switches’ of the Atlantic circulation. He drew this inference from palaeoclimatic data, indicating that such events had occurred in the past, and from early ocean modelling results. Initially, the idea was simply that a positive feedback meant that the large-scale overturning motion of the Atlantic (sometimes popularly dubbed the ‘conveyor belt’, in which warm surface waters flow northwards and cold deep water returns south throughout the Atlantic, acting like a central-heating system for Europe; see Fig. 1) could exist in two distinct states — switched on (as at present) or switched off.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Simplified sketch of currents in the North Atlantic, showing the two main convection sites in the Greenland and Labrador Seas.
Figure 2: Simulated water-volume transport of the Atlantic ‘conveyor belt’ (Atlantic overturning) in a range of global warming scena.

References

  1. Wood, R. A., Keen, A. B., Mitchell, J. F. B. & Gregory, J. M. Nature 399, 572–575 ( 1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Broecker, W. Nature 328, 123–126 ( 1987).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Lenderink, G. & Haarsma, R. J. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 24, 1480–1493 (1994).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rahmstorf, S. Nature 378, 145–149 ( 1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Rahmstorf, S. Nature 388, 825–826 ( 1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Marotzke, J. & Stone, P. H. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 25, 1350–1364 (1995).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Rahmstorf, S. & Ganopolski, A. Clim. Change (in the press).

  8. Dickson, B. Nature 386, 649–650 ( 1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Houghton, J. T. et al. (eds) Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996).

  10. Oppenheimer, M. Nature 393, 325–332 ( 1998).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Boer, G. J., Flato, G. M. & Ramsden, D. Clim. Dyn. (submitted).

  12. Hirst, A. C., Gordon, H. B. & O'Farrell, S. P. Geophys. Res. Lett. 23, 3361 –3364 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Knutson, T. R., Delworth, T. L., Dixon, K. & Stouffer, R. J. J. Geophys. Res. (submitted).

  14. Hegerl, G. et al. Clim. Dyn. 13, 631–634 ( 1997).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), PO Box 60 12 03, 14412 , Potsdam, Germany

    Stefan Rahmstorf

Authors
  1. Stefan Rahmstorf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rahmstorf, S. Shifting seas in the greenhouse?. Nature 399, 523–524 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/21066

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/21066

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing