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12 - Ocean Circulation: Knowns and Unknowns

from Part III - Future Earth and the Earth’s Fluid Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2018

By
Harry L. Bryden  and
Lawrence A. Mysak
Edited by
Tom Beer ,
Jianping Li  and
Keith Alverson
Tom Beer
Affiliation:
IUGG Commission on Climatic and Environmental Change (CCEC)
Jianping Li
Affiliation:
Beijing Normal University
Keith Alverson
Affiliation:
UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre
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Summary

The principal unknown is how the ocean circulation will change on centennial time scales as a result of changes in radiative forcing associated with the increase in atmospheric CO2 and global warming. For centennial and longer time scale variability, abrupt climate changes that have occurred during the last 100,000 years and about the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 years ago to the present provide instruction. For both the abrupt changes known as Dansgaard–Oeschager warm events and Heinrich cold events and for the transition from glacial climate to the present mild climate, changes in the ocean circulation, particularly in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, are implicated as central to these climate shifts: the principal unknown is what causes the sudden changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, changes that are not found in present coupled climate models.
Type
Chapter
Information
Global Change and Future Earth
The Geoscience Perspective
 , pp. 159 - 176
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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