HR: 08:00h
AN: PP21E-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Simulated global-scale response to a substantial weakening of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation
AU: * Delworth, T L
EM: tom.delworth@noaa.gov
AF: GFDL/NOAA, P.O. Box 308 Princeton University, princeton, NJ 08542 United States
AU: Zhang, R
EM: rong.zhang@noaa.gov
AF: Princeton University, P.O. Box 308, Princeton, NJ 08542 United States
AB: In this study, a mechanism is demonstrated whereby a large reduction in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) can induce global-scale changes in the Tropics that are consistent with paleoevidence of the global synchronization of millennial-scale abrupt climate change. Using GFDL's newly developed global coupled ocean-atmosphere models (CM2.0 and CM2.1), the global response to a sustained addition of freshwater to the model's North Atlantic is simulated. This freshwater forcing substantially weakens the Atlantic THC, resulting in a southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone over the Atlantic and Pacific, an El Ni¤o-like pattern in the southeastern tropical Pacific, and weakened Indian and Asian summer monsoons through air-sea interactions.
DE: 1616 Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (0429, 3309)
DE: 1626 Global climate models (3337, 4928)
DE: 1655 Water cycles (1836)
DE: 4513 Decadal ocean variability (1616, 1635, 3305, 4215)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005