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The potential mechanisms of the dominant timescale of AMOC multidecadal variability in CMIP6/CMIP5 preindustrial simulations

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Abstract

Observations, theoretical analyses, and climate models show that the dominant timescale of multidecadal variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is related to westward temperature propagations in the subpolar North Atlantic, which is modulated by oceanic baroclinic Rossby waves or thermal Rossby waves. Here, we find major timescales of AMOC variability of 12–28 years and associated westward temperature propagations in the preindustrial simulations of 9 CMIP6/CMIP5 models. The comparison with observations shows that the models reasonably simulate ocean stratifications and baroclinic Rossby waves in the subpolar North Atlantic. The timescale of the oceanic baroclinic Rossby wave propagating on a static background across the basin overestimates the major timescale of AMOC variability. The dual effects of the mean flow on the AMOC timescale are then considered, involving the eastward advection and the additional westward propagation (i.e., thermal Rossby wave) induced by the northward mean potential vorticity gradient. We find that the AMOC major timescale is generally determined by the comprehensive effects of the baroclinic Rossby wave and the mean flow effects, in which the additional westward propagation plays a dominant role. Our results illustrate the importance of considering mean flow effects in the estimate of the dominant timescale of AMOC multidecadal variability.

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Data availability

The CMIP6/CMIP5 data are freely available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/ and https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip5/. The IPRC Argo plus Aviso altimetry data can be download from https://argo.ucsd.edu/data/argo-data-products/. The Levitus94 world-ocean atlas is available at https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.LEVITUS94/index.html. The WOA18 world-ocean atlas is available at https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/woa18/. Partial data of this study could be downloaded on this website: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d9D16g0n7BiQpjjHndJBpPQCTRfZULMQ?usp=sharing.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42141019, 41831175, 91937302, and 41721004) and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (2019QZKK0102). Xichen Li is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41976193 and 42176243).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD)/Institute for Climate and Application Research (ICAR), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology (NUIST), Nanjing, 210044, China

    Xiaofan Ma

  2. State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Xiaofan Ma & Gang Huang

  3. Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Gang Huang

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Gang Huang

  5. International Center for Climate and Environment Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10029, China

    Xichen Li

  6. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Shouwei Li

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  1. Xiaofan Ma
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  2. Gang Huang
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Correspondence to Gang Huang.

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Ma, X., Huang, G., Li, X. et al. The potential mechanisms of the dominant timescale of AMOC multidecadal variability in CMIP6/CMIP5 preindustrial simulations. Clim Dyn 60, 2131–2145 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06440-9

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