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Global change

South dials north

Nature volume 424, pages 496–499 (2003)Cite this article

Climate is greatly influenced by ocean circulation in the North Atlantic. But warming episodes, as glacial conditions turned into interglacials, may have been triggered by events far to the south.

The Atlantic thermohaline circulation is mainly driven by density differences in bodies of water, density being determined by temperature and salinity. Warm water flows north from the tropics, cooling and sinking as it approaches high latitudes to become a return flow at depth as North Atlantic Deep Water3. The traditional view, based on studies of how this 'meridional circulation' can collapse, is that bursts of fresh, less dense water from melting northern ice sheets or background noise in the North Atlantic trigger instabilities that cause it to weaken or shut down4,5.

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Figure 1: Southern perspective: a satellite view of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

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  1. Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

    Thomas F. Stocker

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Stocker, T. South dials north. Nature 424, 496–499 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/424496a

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