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On the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the last deglaciation

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Abstract

Using a generalized stability indicator L, we explore the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) during the last deglaciation based on a paleoclimate simulation. From the last glacial maximum, as forced by various external climate forcings, notably the meltwater forcing, the AMOC experiences a collapse and a subsequent rapid recovery in the early stage of deglaciation. This change of the AMOC induces an anomalous freshwater divergence and later convergence across the Atlantic and therefore leads to a positive L, suggesting a negative basin-scale salinity advection feedback and, in turn, a mono-stable deglacial AMOC. Further analyses show that most anomalous freshwater is induced by the AMOC via the southern boundary of the Atlantic at 34°S where the freshwater transport (M ovS ) is about equally controlled by the upper branch of the AMOC and the upper ocean salinity along 34°S. From 19 to 17 ka, as a result of multiple climate feedbacks associated with the AMOC change, the upper ocean at 34°S is largely salinified, which helps to induce a switch in M ovS , from import to export. Our study has important implications to the deglacial simulations by climate models. A decomposition of L shows that the AMOC stability is mostly determined by two terms, the salinity stratification at 34°S and the change of stratification with the AMOC. Both terms appear positive in model. However, the former is likely to be distorted towards positive, as associated with a common bias existing over the South Atlantic in climate models. Therefore, the AMOC is potentially biased towards mono-stability in most paleoclimate simulations.

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Acknowledgments

Wei Liu and Zhengyu Liu are supported by NSF, DOE and NSFC 41,130,105. Jun Cheng is supported by NSFC 41206024. Haibo Hu is supported by the National Key Program for Developing Basic Science (Grant Nos. 2010CB428504, 2012CB956002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Wei Liu

  2. NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC, USA

    Wei Liu

  3. CASPO, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Wei Liu

  4. Lab. Climate, Ocean and Atmosphere Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Zhengyu Liu

  5. Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Zhengyu Liu

  6. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education, School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Jun Cheng

  7. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Haibo Hu

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Liu, W., Liu, Z., Cheng, J. et al. On the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation during the last deglaciation. Clim Dyn 44, 1257–1275 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2153-1

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