The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a pronounced signal of climate variability in the North Atlantic sea-surface temperature field. In this paper, we propose an explanation of the physical processes responsible for the timescale and the spatial pattern of the AMO. Our approach involves the analysis of solutions of a hierarchy of models. In the lowest member of the model hierarchy, which is an ocean-only model for flow in an idealized basin, the variability shows up as a multidecadal oscillatory mode which is able to destabilize the mean thermohaline circulation. In the highest member of the model hierarchy, which is the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory R30 climate model, multidecadal variability is found as a dominant statistical mode of variability. The connection between both results is established by tracing the spatial and temporal expression of the multidecadal mode through the model hierarchy while monitoring changes in specific quantities (mechanistic indicators) associated with its physics. The proposed explanation of the properties of the AMO is eventually based on the changes in the spatial patterns of variability through the model hierarchy.

The aim of this paper is to identify the physical mechanism of interdecadal variability in simulations of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation with the Modular Ocean Model of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. To that end, a hierarchy of increasingly complex model configurations is used. The variability in the simplest case, that of viscous, purely thermally driven flows in a flat-bottom ocean basin with a box-shaped geometry, is shown to be caused by an internal interdecadal mode. The westward propagation of temperature anomalies and the phase difference between the anomalous zonal and meridional overturning that characterize the interdecadal mode are used as “fingerprints” of the physical mechanism of the variability. In this way, the variability can be followed toward a less viscous regime in which the effects of continental geometry and bottom topography are also included. It is shown that, although quantitative aspects of the variability like period and spatial pattern are changing, the physical mechanism of the interdecadal variability in the more complex simulations can be attributed to the same processes as in the simplest model configuration.

A systematic approach is proposed to determine thresholds in freshwater flux perturbations related to abrupt changes in the ocean's thermohaline circulation. The typical problem considered is the response of a thermohaline driven flow to a localized change, of specified strength and duration, in the surface freshwater flux. The initial transient response due to the freshwater anomaly is considered as a finite amplitude perturbation. An estimate of this response can be obtained by using ideas from dynamical systems theory. Central quantity to determine whether such a perturbation leads to instability (i.e. a ‘collapsed’ state) is the sign of the tendency of a specific energy functional. The approach is first illustrated with a simple box model and then shown to give good results in a global ocean general circulation model.

International audienceThe stability of the thermohaline circulation of modern and glacial climates is compared with the help of a two dimensional ocean--atmosphere--sea ice coupled model. It turns out to be more unstable as less freshwater forcing is required to induce a polar halocline catastrophy in glacial climates. The large insulation of the ocean by the extensive sea ice cover changes the temperature boundary condition and the deepwater formation regions moves much further South. The nature of the instability is of oceanic origin, identical to that found in ocean models under mixed boundary conditions. With similar strengths of the oceanic circulation and rates of deep water formation for warm and cold climates, the loss of stability of the cold climate is due to the weak thermal stratification caused by the cooling of surface waters, the deep water temperatures being regulated by the temperature of freezing. Weaker stratification with similar overturning leads to a weakening of the meridional oceanic heat transport which is the major negative feedback stabilizing the oceanic circulation. Within the unstable regime periodic millennial oscillations occur spontaneously. The climate oscillates between a strong convective thermally driven oceanic state and a weak one driven by large salinity gradients. Both states are unstable. The atmosphere of low thermal inertia is carried along by the oceanic overturning while the variation of sea ice is out of phase with the oceanic heat content. During the abrupt warming events that punctuate the course of a millennial oscillation, sea ice variations are shown respectively to damp (amplify) the amplitude of the oceanic (atmospheric) response. This sensitivity of the oceanic circulation to a reduced concentration of greenhouse gases and to freshwater forcing adds support to the hypothesis that the millennial oscillations of the last glacial period, the so called Dansgaard--Oeschger events, may be internal instabilities of the climate system