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21st December 2005, 11:23 AM
credits to: http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/web/index.html
AGU Journal Highlight
Global climate models and paleo-observations have associated periods of weak or absent global thermohaline circulation (THC) with widespread cooling around the North Atlantic. However, the low spatial resolutions of past climate models prevented detailed analyses of the weakened circulation’s effects on specific locations in Europe. To study this, Jacob et al. used a high resolution regional climate model nested into a global climate model to perform a THC slowdown experiment through imposing additional freshwater to the northern Atlantic, corresponding to one-sixth of the Greenland ice sheet melting over 100 years. According to the model hierarchy, this reduced the strength of the THC by half, changing atmospheric circulation and enhancing maritime climate influences over Europe. Their model system predicted more than 3°C of surface cooling over the North Atlantic, forcing winter temperatures in northern Europe to drop by 1.5°C or more. Precipitation also decreased in their model, especially in summer. The remaining precipitation manifested as snow, increasing the albedo of Scandinavia, northern Germany and Britain, and mountainous areas in central Europe. If these scenarios occur, the authors noted that energy consumption in Europe would likely increase due to humans responding to such cold temperatures.
Citation:
Jacob, D., H. Goettel, J. Jungclaus, M. Muskulus, R. Podzun, and J. Marotzke (2005), Slowdown of the thermohaline circulation causes enhanced maritime climate influence and snow cover over Europe, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L21711, doi:10.1029/2005GL023286
Contact:
Dr. Daniela Jacob
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Phone: +49 40 41173 313
e-mail (jacob@dkrz.de)
December 12, 2005 http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/web/img/trans.gif
AGU Journal Highlight
Global climate models and paleo-observations have associated periods of weak or absent global thermohaline circulation (THC) with widespread cooling around the North Atlantic. However, the low spatial resolutions of past climate models prevented detailed analyses of the weakened circulation’s effects on specific locations in Europe. To study this, Jacob et al. used a high resolution regional climate model nested into a global climate model to perform a THC slowdown experiment through imposing additional freshwater to the northern Atlantic, corresponding to one-sixth of the Greenland ice sheet melting over 100 years. According to the model hierarchy, this reduced the strength of the THC by half, changing atmospheric circulation and enhancing maritime climate influences over Europe. Their model system predicted more than 3°C of surface cooling over the North Atlantic, forcing winter temperatures in northern Europe to drop by 1.5°C or more. Precipitation also decreased in their model, especially in summer. The remaining precipitation manifested as snow, increasing the albedo of Scandinavia, northern Germany and Britain, and mountainous areas in central Europe. If these scenarios occur, the authors noted that energy consumption in Europe would likely increase due to humans responding to such cold temperatures.
Citation:
Jacob, D., H. Goettel, J. Jungclaus, M. Muskulus, R. Podzun, and J. Marotzke (2005), Slowdown of the thermohaline circulation causes enhanced maritime climate influence and snow cover over Europe, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L21711, doi:10.1029/2005GL023286
Contact:
Dr. Daniela Jacob
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Phone: +49 40 41173 313
e-mail (jacob@dkrz.de)
December 12, 2005 http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/web/img/trans.gif