The Deep Ocean-Climate Link

Location of sites used for a collaborative study with Maureen Raymo (Boston University) and Jerry McManus (WHOI) in the 1990s.

The Atlantic Ocean is characterized by a whole ocean overturning cell.  Warm, salty tropical upper ocean waters flow northward in the western Atlantic.  The heat loss to the overlying cold atmosphere results in a loss of bouyancy, and convection to great depths in the Labrador and Nordic Seas. These newly formed North Atlantic Deep Waters flow southward, eventually exiting the Atlantic basin.  Waters that are exported must be replaced. The more vigorous the North Atlantic overturning and southward export, the more warm upper ocean waters that must flow northward to replace them. Considerable evidence suggests that this strength of the Atlantic Ocean overturning has varied in the past, and that these variations were linked to large climatic changes in the North Atlantic region.

Much of our current work is directed towards reconstructing these past changes for key intervals, including the last deglaciation and the Holocene, and understanding the causes and climatic impacts of these changes.  Understanding this link also motivates us to develop surface climate records.