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The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) regulates the heat distribution and climate of Earth. Here we identify a new feature of the circulation within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre that is associated with the northward flowing component of the AMOC. We find that 70% of the water...

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Autores principales: Berglund, Sara, Döös, Kristofer, Groeskamp, Sjoerd, McDougall, Trevor J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9010438/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35422049
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29607-8
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author Berglund, Sara
Döös, Kristofer
Groeskamp, Sjoerd
McDougall, Trevor J.
author_facet Berglund, Sara
Döös, Kristofer
Groeskamp, Sjoerd
McDougall, Trevor J.
author_sort Berglund, Sara
collection PubMed
description The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) regulates the heat distribution and climate of Earth. Here we identify a new feature of the circulation within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre that is associated with the northward flowing component of the AMOC. We find that 70% of the water that flows northwards as part of the AMOC circulates the Gyre at least once before it can continue northwards. These circuits are needed to achieve an increase of density and depth through a combination of air-sea interaction and interior mixing processes, before water can escape the latitudes of the Gyre and join the northern upper branch of the AMOC. This points towards an important role of the Gyre circulation in determining the strength and variability of the AMOC and the northward heat transport. Understanding this newly identified role of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre is needed to properly represent future changes of the AMOC.
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spelling pubmed-90104382022-04-28 The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre Berglund, Sara Döös, Kristofer Groeskamp, Sjoerd McDougall, Trevor J. Nat Commun Article The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) regulates the heat distribution and climate of Earth. Here we identify a new feature of the circulation within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre that is associated with the northward flowing component of the AMOC. We find that 70% of the water that flows northwards as part of the AMOC circulates the Gyre at least once before it can continue northwards. These circuits are needed to achieve an increase of density and depth through a combination of air-sea interaction and interior mixing processes, before water can escape the latitudes of the Gyre and join the northern upper branch of the AMOC. This points towards an important role of the Gyre circulation in determining the strength and variability of the AMOC and the northward heat transport. Understanding this newly identified role of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre is needed to properly represent future changes of the AMOC. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9010438/ /pubmed/35422049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29607-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Berglund, Sara
Döös, Kristofer
Groeskamp, Sjoerd
McDougall, Trevor J.
The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title_full The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title_fullStr The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title_full_unstemmed The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title_short The downward spiralling nature of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
title_sort downward spiralling nature of the north atlantic subtropical gyre
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9010438/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35422049
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29607-8
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