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Transport of salt and freshwater in the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre

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Abstract

Transport of salt in the Irminger Current, the northern branch of the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre coupling the eastern and western subpolar North Atlantic, plays an important role for climate variability across a wide range of time scales. High-resolution ocean modeling and observations indicate that salinities in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic decrease with enhanced circulation of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG). This has led to the perception that a stronger SPG also transports less salt westward. In this study, we analyze a regional ocean model and a comprehensive global coupled climate model, and show that a stronger SPG transports more salt in the Irminger Current irrespective of lower salinities in its source region. The additional salt converges in the Labrador Sea and the Irminger Basin by eddy transports, increases surface salinity in the western SPG, and favors more intense deep convection. This is part of a positive feedback mechanism with potentially large implications for climate variability and predictability.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge comments by Juliette Mignot and three anonymous reviewers. The simulation with CCSM4 was carried out on CISL compute and storage resources. MICOM simulations were supported by the Norwegian Supercomputer Committee. AB was supported by the European Commission under the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship ECLIPS (PIEF-GA-2011-300544). TFS acknowledges the support by the Swiss National Science Foundation through grant 159563. ABS was funded by the Norwegian Research Council through projects EPOCASA and NORTH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Andreas Born & Thomas F. Stocker

  2. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Bern, Switzerland

    Andreas Born & Thomas F. Stocker

  3. Institute for Marine Research, Bergen, Norway

    Anne Britt Sandø

  4. Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway

    Anne Britt Sandø

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  1. Andreas Born
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  2. Thomas F. Stocker
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Correspondence to Andreas Born.

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Born, A., Stocker, T.F. & Sandø, A.B. Transport of salt and freshwater in the Atlantic Subpolar Gyre. Ocean Dynamics 66, 1051–1064 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-016-0970-y

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