Unraveling the mechanisms and implications of a stronger mid-Pliocene Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in PlioMIP2

Julia E. Weiffenbach, Michiel L. J. Baatsen, Henk A. Dijkstra, Anna S. von der Heydt, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Esther C. Brady, Wing-Le Chan, Deepak Chandan, Mark A. Chandler, Camille Contoux, Ran Feng, Chuncheng Guo, Zixuan Han, Alan M. Haywood, Qiang Li, Xiangyu Li, Gerrit Lohmann, Daniel J. Lunt, Kerim H. Nisancioglu, Bette L. Otto-BliesnerW. Richard Peltier, Gilles Ramstein, Linda E. Sohl, Christian Stepanek, Ning Tan, Julia C. Tindall, Charles J. R. Williams, Qiong Zhang, Zhongshi Zhang

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Abstract

The mid-Pliocene warm period (3.264–3.025 Ma) is the most recent geological period in which the atmospheric CO2 concentration was approximately equal to the concentration we measure today (ca. 400 ppm). Sea surface temperature (SST) proxies indicate above-average warming over the North Atlantic in the mid-Pliocene with respect to the pre-industrial period, which may be linked to an intensified Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Earlier results from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2 (PlioMIP2) show that the ensemble simulates a stronger AMOC in the mid-Pliocene than in the pre-industrial. However, no consistent relationship between the stronger mid-Pliocene AMOC and either the Atlantic northward ocean heat transport (OHT) or average North Atlantic SSTs has been found. In this study, we look further into the drivers and consequences of a stronger AMOC in mid-Pliocene compared to pre-industrial simulations in PlioMIP2. We find that all model simulations with a closed Bering Strait and Canadian Archipelago show reduced freshwater transport from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic. This contributes to an increase in salinity in the subpolar North Atlantic and Labrador Sea that can be linked to the stronger AMOC in the mid-Pliocene. To investigate the dynamics behind the ensemble's variable response of the total Atlantic OHT to the stronger AMOC, we separate the Atlantic OHT into two components associated with either the overturning circulation or the wind-driven gyre circulation. While the ensemble mean of the overturning component is increased significantly in magnitude in the mid-Pliocene, it is partly compensated by a reduction in the gyre component in the northern subtropical gyre region. This indicates that the lack of relationship between the total OHT and AMOC is due to changes in OHT by the subtropical gyre. The overturning and gyre components should therefore be considered separately to gain a more complete understanding of the OHT response to a stronger mid-Pliocene AMOC. In addition, we show that the AMOC exerts a stronger influence on North Atlantic SSTs in the mid-Pliocene than in the pre-industrial, providing a possible explanation for the improved agreement of the PlioMIP2 ensemble mean SSTs with reconstructions in the North Atlantic.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)61-85
Number of pages25
JournalClimate of the Past
Volume19
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Jan 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Qiong Zhang acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council (2013-06476 and 2017-04232). The EC-Earth3-LR simulations were performed with resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC), partially funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant no. 2018-05913.

Funding Information:
This research has been supported by the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (OCW grant no. 024.002.001).

Funding Information:
Alan M. Haywood and Julia C. Tindall acknowledge the FP7 Ideas program from the European Research Council (grant no. PLIO-ESS, 278636), the Past Earth Network (EPSRC grant no. EP/M008.363/1) and the University of Leeds Advanced Research Computing service. Julia C. Tindall was also supported through the Centre for Environmental Modelling and Computation (CEMAC), University of Leeds.

Funding Information:
Charles J. R. Williams and Dan Lunt acknowledge the financial support of the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)-funded SWEET project (research grant no. NE/P01903X/1), as well as the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-868 2013) (ERC grant agreement no. 340923).

Funding Information:
Zhongshi Zhang and Xiangyu Li acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 42005042), the China Scholarship Council (201804910023) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (project no. 2015M581154). The NorESM simulations benefitted from resources provided by UNINETT Sigma2 – the National Infrastructure for High Performance Computing and Data Storage in Norway.

Funding Information:
Christian Stepanek acknowledges funding from the Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM. Christian Stepanek and Gerrit Lohmann acknowledge funding via the Alfred Wegener Institute's research programme Marine, Coastal and Polar Systems.

Funding Information:
The work by Julia E. Weiffenbach, Michiel L. J. Baatsen, Henk A. Dijkstra and Anna S. von der Heydt was carried out under the program of the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSC), financially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW grant number 024.002.001). CCSM4-Utr simulations were performed at the SURFsara Dutch national computing facilities and were sponsored by NWO-EW (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Exact Sciences) under the projects 17189 and 2020.022.

Funding Information:
Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Esther C. Brady and Ran Feng acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation grant numbers 1814029 and 1852977 (B.L.O and E.C.B). The CCSM4 and CESM1 and CESM2 simulations are performed with high-performance computing support from Cheyenne ( 10.5065/D6RX99HX ) provided by NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Funding Information:
W. Richard Peltier and Deepak Chandan were supported by Canadian NSERC Discovery Grant A9627, and they wish to acknowledge the support of the SciNet HPC Consortium for providing computing facilities. SciNet is funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation under the auspices of Compute Canada, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence and the University of Toronto.

Funding Information:
Wing-Le Chan and Ayao Abe-Ouchi acknowledge funding from JSPS KAKENHI (grant no. 17H06104) and MEXT KAKENHI (grant no. 17H06323) and are grateful to JAMSTEC for use of the Earth Simulator.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Julia E. Weiffenbach et al.

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  • SWEET NERC Large Grant

    Lunt, D. (Principal Investigator)

    1/10/1730/09/23

    Project: Research

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