RT Journal Article
T1 Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation
A1 Rahmstorf, Stefan
A1 Box, Jason E.
A1 Feulner, Georg
A1 Mann, Michael E.
A1 Robinson, Alexander James
A1 Rutherford, Scott
A1 Schaffernicht, Erik J.
AB Possible changes in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) provide a key source of uncertainty regarding future climate change. Maps of temperature trends over the twentieth century show a conspicuous region of cooling in the northern Atlantic. Here we present multiple lines of evidence suggesting that this cooling may be due to a reduction in the AMOC over the twentieth century and particularly after 1970. Since 1990 the AMOC seems to have partly recovered. This time evolution is consistently suggested by an AMOC index based on sea surface temperatures, by the hemispheric temperature difference, by coral-based proxies and by oceanic measurements. We discuss a possible contribution of the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet to the slowdown. Using a multi-proxy temperature reconstruction for the AMOC index suggests that the AMOC weakness after 1975 is an unprecedented event in the past millennium (p > 0.99). Further melting of Greenland in the coming decades could contribute to further weakening of the AMOC.
PB Nature Publishing Group
SN 1758-678X
YR 2015
FD 2015-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24108
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24108
LA eng
NO © Nature Publishing Group.We thank O. Sherwood for providing coral data. M.E.M. acknowledges support for this work from the ATM program of the National Science Foundation (grant ATM-0902133).
NO National Science Foundation (NSF), EE.UU.
DS Docta Complutense
RD 11 may 2025