Influence of the thermohaline circulation on projected sea level rise

A zonally averaged three-basin ocean-atmosphere model is used to investigat e mean steric sea level rise in global warming scenarios. It is shown that if the North Atlantic deep water formation stops due to global warming, ste ric sea level rise is much larger for the same global mean atmospheric temp erature increase than if the thermohaline circulation remains near the pres ent state. In the equilibrium, global mean steric sea level rise depends li nearly on the global mean atmospheric temperature increase. The influence o f different subgrid-scale ocean mixing parameterizations on steric sea leve l rise is investigated.