Just in! A new study, which analyzed mooring observations and hydrographic data, found the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) abyssal limb in the North Atlantic has weakened over the past two decades contributing to sea level rise in the region.
Changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its transport of heat can affect climate and weather patterns, regional sea levels, and ecosystems. A new study led by Ivenis Pita, a University of Miami PhD student working at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory/ the Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), is the first to estimate the AMOC and heat transport at 22.5°S in the South Atlantic, demonstrating the importance of sustained in situ observations to monitor the state of the AMOC.
Sea level rise is one of the most challenging consequences of global warming. A new collaborative study led by Dr. Denis Volkov from NOAA-AOML and the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Studies found that Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) induced changes in basin-wide ocean heat content are influencing the frequency of floods along the United States southeastern coast.
Scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) have shown that the Global Meridional Overturning Circulation (GMOC), commonly known as the global ocean conveyor belt, has changed significantly in the Southern Ocean since the mid-1970s, with a broadening and strengthening of the upper overturning cell and a contraction and weakening of the lower cell. These changes are attributed to human induced ozone depletion in the Southern Hemisphere stratosphere and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The study also shows that the changes in the Southern Ocean are slowly advancing into the South Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans.
Since the inception of the international South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (SAMOC) initiative in 2007, substantial advances have been made in observing and understanding the South Atlantic component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The goals of the SAMOC initiative are to monitor climatically relevant oceanic fluxes of mass, heat, and freshwater, provide observations to validate and improve numerical models and climate predictions, and understand the impacts of the SAMOC on climate and weather.
After two weeks at sea, the South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (SAM) project team completed its first cruise since June 2019!
In a recent study published in American Geophysical Union (AGU), scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) contributed to an international study that confirmed warming trends and the possibility of increased rates of warming in one of the deepest channels of the Southwest Atlantic ocean, the Vema Channel.
Today, August 25th, the 2020 State of the Climate report was released by the American Meteorological Society, showing 2020 to be one of the hottest years on record since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Even with environmental cooling factors, such as the transition from the El Niño of 2018-2019 to the La Niña of late 2020, global trends indicate the Earth is warming and sea level is rising. Throughout the report, environmental processes that influence climate and these warming trends are documented.
Researchers from the Physical Oceanography Division of AOML conduct regular hydrographic surveys to monitor the western boundary current system in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. These cruises are a part of the laboratory’s long-running Western Boundary Time Series (WBTS) project and are designed to monitor both the Florida Current, east of Florida in the Florida Straits, and the North Atlantic Deep Western Boundary Current east of the Bahamas in the North Atlantic Ocean. These western boundary currents are important parts of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
In a recent article published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans, scientists at AOML evaluate the variability of the heat transport in the South Atlantic by developing a new method to measure its changes on a daily basis. This study presents, for the first time, full‐depth, daily measurements of the volume and heat transported by the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) in the South Atlantic at 34.5°S based on direct observations.
