2000 Years of Subpolar North Atlantic Circulation

The United Nations has expressed concern over the potential weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the next century, which could cause climate and weather alterations that lead to various socio-economic stresses, especially in agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure maintenance and social migration.

The value of information associated with a continuous observational record of the AMOC system, which enables confident prediction of future trend, has been estimated to be tens of billions of euros.

While instrumental observations of the AMOC system are only available for the last decades, we must rely on proxy indicators in natural archives to capture the long-term trend of ocean circulation throughout the Industrial Age, and further back in time when there were little anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Such a long-term record is particularly important for the subpolar North Atlantic: a region of deep convection that maintains the AMOC, susceptible to freshening as a result of increasing Arctic ice melt.

This project aims to develop the first comprehensive, long-term record of subpolar North Atlantic circulation through cross-disciplinary, cross-border collaboration between the French Institute for Ocean Science (host), University of Iceland (secondment), and Copenhagen University.

The proposed study will compile new proxy analyses with the expanding coverage of instrumental observations to provide a confident reconstruction of the region’s hydrography and dynamics over the past two millennia.

Ultimately, the project findings will be effectively delivered to the decision makers, the young generation and the general public through participation in policy works at JPI Oceans (placement), university teaching and outreach activities.

The multimodal delivery of project findings aims to raise awareness of the severity of a long-term AMOC decline and to facilitate cooperation for timely mitigation of potential socio-economic consequences.