Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole
Abstract Most oceans over the globe have experienced surface warming during the past century, but the subpolar Atlantic is quite otherwise. The sea surface temperature cooling trend to the south of Greenland, known as the North Atlantic Warming Hole, has raised debate over whether it is driven by th...
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Nature Portfolio
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Communications Earth & Environment |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02403-0 |
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| author | Kai-Yuan Li Wei Liu |
| author_facet | Kai-Yuan Li Wei Liu |
| author_sort | Kai-Yuan Li |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Most oceans over the globe have experienced surface warming during the past century, but the subpolar Atlantic is quite otherwise. The sea surface temperature cooling trend to the south of Greenland, known as the North Atlantic Warming Hole, has raised debate over whether it is driven by the slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Here we use observations as a benchmark and climate models as a tool to demonstrate that only models simulating a weakened historical Atlantic overturning can broadly reproduce the observed cooling and freshening in the warming hole region. This, in turn, indicates that the realistic Atlantic overturning slowed between 1900 and 2005, at a rate of −1.01 to −2.97 Sv century−1 (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1), according to a sea-surface-temperature-based fingerprint index estimate. Particularly, the Atlantic overturning slowdown causes an oceanic heat transport divergence across the subpolar North Atlantic, which, while partially offset by enhanced ocean heat uptake, results in cooling over the warming hole region. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-63d9abea354c45f787f7b1bddce241a7 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2662-4435 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Earth & Environment |
| spelling | doaj-art-63d9abea354c45f787f7b1bddce241a72025-08-20T02:00:00ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Earth & Environment2662-44352025-05-016111010.1038/s43247-025-02403-0Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming HoleKai-Yuan Li0Wei Liu1Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California RiversideDepartment of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California RiversideAbstract Most oceans over the globe have experienced surface warming during the past century, but the subpolar Atlantic is quite otherwise. The sea surface temperature cooling trend to the south of Greenland, known as the North Atlantic Warming Hole, has raised debate over whether it is driven by the slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Here we use observations as a benchmark and climate models as a tool to demonstrate that only models simulating a weakened historical Atlantic overturning can broadly reproduce the observed cooling and freshening in the warming hole region. This, in turn, indicates that the realistic Atlantic overturning slowed between 1900 and 2005, at a rate of −1.01 to −2.97 Sv century−1 (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1), according to a sea-surface-temperature-based fingerprint index estimate. Particularly, the Atlantic overturning slowdown causes an oceanic heat transport divergence across the subpolar North Atlantic, which, while partially offset by enhanced ocean heat uptake, results in cooling over the warming hole region.https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02403-0 |
| spellingShingle | Kai-Yuan Li Wei Liu Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole Communications Earth & Environment |
| title | Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole |
| title_full | Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole |
| title_fullStr | Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole |
| title_full_unstemmed | Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole |
| title_short | Weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation causes the historical North Atlantic Warming Hole |
| title_sort | weakened atlantic meridional overturning circulation causes the historical north atlantic warming hole |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02403-0 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kaiyuanli weakenedatlanticmeridionaloverturningcirculationcausesthehistoricalnorthatlanticwarminghole AT weiliu weakenedatlanticmeridionaloverturningcirculationcausesthehistoricalnorthatlanticwarminghole |