Implications of the recent trend in the Arctic/North Atlantic oscillation for the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation

Most projections of greenhouse gas-induced climate change indicate a weaken ing of the thermohaline circulation (THC) in the North Atlantic in response to increased freshening and warming in the subpolar region. These changes reduce high-latitude upper-ocean density and therefore weaken the THC. Usin g ensembles of numerical experiments with a coupled ocean-atmosphere model, it is found that this weakening could be delayed by several decades in res ponse to a sustained upward trend in the Arctic/North Atlantic oscillation during winter, such as has been observed over the last 30 years. The strong er winds over the North Atlantic associated with this trend extract more he at from the ocean, thereby cooling and increasing the density of the upper ocean and thus opposing the previously described weakening of the THC. This result is of particular importance if the positive trend in the Arctic/Nor th Atlantic oscillation is a response to increasing greenhouse gases, as ha s been recently suggested.