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The evolution of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation since 1980

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 241–254 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a key component of the climate through its transport of heat in the North Atlantic Ocean. Decadal changes in the AMOC, whether through internal variability or anthropogenically forced weakening, therefore have wide-ranging impacts. In this Review, we synthesize the understanding of contemporary decadal variability in the AMOC, bringing together evidence from observations, ocean reanalyses, forced models and AMOC proxies. Since 1980, there is evidence for periods of strengthening and weakening, although the magnitudes of change (5–25%) are uncertain. In the subpolar North Atlantic, the AMOC strengthened until the mid-1990s and then weakened until the early 2010s, with some evidence of a strengthening thereafter; these changes are probably linked to buoyancy forcing related to the North Atlantic Oscillation. In the subtropics, there is some evidence of the AMOC strengthening from 2001 to 2005 and strong evidence of a weakening from 2005 to 2014. Such large interannual and decadal variability complicates the detection of ongoing long-term trends, but does not preclude a weakening associated with anthropogenic warming. Research priorities include developing robust and sustainable solutions for the long-term monitoring of the AMOC, observation–modelling collaborations to improve the representation of processes in the North Atlantic and better ways to distinguish anthropogenic weakening from internal variability.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of AMOC timescales.
Fig. 2: Timeseries of AMOC anomalies.
Fig. 3: AMOC proxy records from 1980.
Fig. 4: North Atlantic temperature and salinity trends.
Fig. 5: Past and future AMOC changes from climate models.

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Acknowledgements

L.C.J. was supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra (grant GA01101). M.W.B. gratefully acknowledges support from the NOAA ESS Program (grant NA20OAR4310396) and the NASA Physical Oceanography Program (grant 80NSSC20K0823). J.R. was supported by NERC through NCAS, and through the NERC ACSIS project (grant NE/N018001/1), and the UKRI-NERC WISHBONE (grant NE/T013516/1) and SNAP-DRAGON (grant NE/T013494/1) projects. E.F.-W. and B.M. were supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council RAPID-AMOC programme at 26.5° N. B.M. was also supported by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme BLUE-ACTION (grant 727852). The authors thank H. Mercier, A. Sanchez-Franks and G. McCarthy for providing updated time series for the AMOC at A25-OVIDE, AMOC at 26.5° N and a sea-level proxy, respectively.

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  1. Met Office, Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

    Laura C. Jackson

  2. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Arne Biastoch

  3. Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Arne Biastoch

  4. Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Martha W. Buckley

  5. Ifremer, University of Brest, CNRS, IRD, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Plouzané, France

    Damien G. Desbruyères

  6. National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK

    Eleanor Frajka-Williams & Ben Moat

  7. National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Jon Robson

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Jackson, L.C., Biastoch, A., Buckley, M.W. et al. The evolution of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation since 1980. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 241–254 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00263-2

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