![]() On the connection between dense water formation, overturning, and poleward heat transport in a convective basin. Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic overturning during the past 150 years. Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Changing spatial structure of the thermohaline circulation in response to atmospheric CO 2 forcing in a climate model. This finding highlights the critical relationship between temperature and salinity in determining the overturning strength in the Labrador Sea and underlines the necessity of accurate freshwater flux estimates for improved Meridional Overturning Circulation predictions. As a result, the transformation across density surfaces, that is, the imprint on the overturning circulation, is relatively small. Although convection induces important changes of temperature and salinity in the basin interior, the export of the thermal and haline anomalies to the boundary current largely takes place along density surfaces. From an analysis of the observational and reanalysis data, we show here that this weak response can be explained by a strong density compensation in the Labrador Sea. ![]() However, the first observations from the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program reveal a minimal response of the Meridional Overturning Circulation to the strong Labrador Sea convection during the winters of 2015–2016. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a key constituent of the climate system, is projected to slow down in the twenty-first century due to a weakening of the Labrador Sea convection, itself a response to greenhouse gas warming and/or enhanced freshwater flux from the Arctic. ![]()
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