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Rapid communication of upper‐ocean salinity anomaly to deep waters of the Iceland Basin indicates an AMOC short‐cut

Rapid communication of upper‐ocean salinity anomaly to deep waters of the Iceland Basin indicates an AMOC short‐cut

Authors :
N. Penny Holliday
Leon Chafik
Publication Year :
2022

Abstract

The mooring observations of the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program reveal a significant freshening of the Iceland Scotland overflow waters that did not involve the Nordic Seas, the source of the dense Deep North Atlantic Water (Devana et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094396). Their study suggests that this freshening at depth in the Iceland Basin stems from the largest upper-ocean freshening event in 120 years that rapidly communicated through entrainment with the Iceland Scotland Overflow Waters. This communication, which is very likely driven by strong wintertime heat losses, strongly adds to our thinking that the progression of this extreme freshening event is providing us with a natural tracer that is helping to identify and understand key processes that determine the strength and variability of the overturning circulation and its sensitivity to ongoing climate change. Continued monitoring of the overturning in the North Atlantic is therefore necessary.

Details

Language :
English
Database :
OpenAIRE
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....f249a1d2ae24abaa18de5d38e6271ad5
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL097570