Towards two decades of Atlantic Ocean mass and heat transports at 26.5° N.

Continuous measurements of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and meridional ocean heat transport at 26.5° N began in April 2004 and are currently available through December 2020. Approximately 90% of the total meridional heat transport (MHT) at 26.5° N is carried by the zonally averaged overturning circulation, and an even larger fraction of the heat transport variability (approx. 95%) is explained by the variability of the zonally averaged overturning. A physically based separation of the heat transport into large-scale AMOC, gyre and shallow wind-driven overturning components remains challenging and requires new investigations and approaches. We review the major interannual changes in the AMOC and MHT that have occurred over the nearly two decades of available observations and their documented impacts on North Atlantic heat content. Changes in the flow-weighted temperature of the Florida Current (Gulf Stream) over the past two decades are now taken into account in the estimates of MHT, and have led to an increased heat transport relative to the AMOC strength in recent years. Estimates of the MHT at 26.5° N from coupled models and various surface flux datasets still tend to show low biases relative to the observations, but indirect estimates based on residual methods (top of atmosphere net radiative flux minus atmospheric energy divergence) have shown recent promise in reproducing the heat transport and its interannual variability. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Atlantic overturning: new observations and challenges'.

Atlantic meridional overturning circulation increases flood risk along the United States southeast coast.

The system of oceanic flows constituting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) moves heat and other properties to the subpolar North Atlantic, controlling regional climate, weather, sea levels, and ecosystems. Climate models suggest a potential AMOC slowdown towards the end of this century due to anthropogenic forcing, accelerating coastal sea level rise along the western boundary and dramatically increasing flood risk. While direct observations of the AMOC are still too short to infer long-term trends, we show here that the AMOC-induced changes in gyre-scale heat content, superimposed on the global mean sea level rise, are already influencing the frequency of floods along the United States southeastern seaboard. We find that ocean heat convergence, being the primary driver for interannual sea level changes in the subtropical North Atlantic, has led to an exceptional gyre-scale warming and associated dynamic sea level rise since 2010, accounting for 30-50% of flood days in 2015-2020.

High spatial resolution global ocean metagenomes from Bio-GO-SHIP repeat hydrography transects.

Detailed descriptions of microbial communities have lagged far behind physical and chemical measurements in the marine environment. Here, we present 971 globally distributed surface ocean metagenomes collected at high spatio-temporal resolution. Our low-cost metagenomic sequencing protocol produced 3.65 terabases of data, where the median number of base pairs per sample was 3.41 billion. The median distance between sampling stations was 26 km. The metagenomic libraries described here were collected as a part of a biological initiative for the Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program, or "Bio-GO-SHIP." One of the primary aims of GO-SHIP is to produce high spatial and vertical resolution measurements of key state variables to directly quantify climate change impacts on ocean environments. By similarly collecting marine metagenomes at high spatiotemporal resolution, we expect that this dataset will help answer questions about the link between microbial communities and biogeochemical fluxes in a changing ocean.

Unprecedented reduction and quick recovery of the South Indian Ocean heat content and sea level in 2014-2018.

Following the onset of the strong 2014-2016 El Niño, a decade-long increase of the basin-wide sea level and heat content in the subtropical southern Indian Ocean (SIO) in 2004-2013 ended with an unprecedented drop, which quickly recovered during the weak 2017-2018 La Niña. Here, we show that the 2014-2016 El Niño contributed to the observed cooling through an unusual combination of both the reduced heat advection from the Pacific (dominant in the eastern SIO) and the basin-wide cyclonic wind anomaly that led to shoaling of isotherms (dominant in the western SIO). The ensuing recovery was mainly forced by an anticyclonic wind anomaly associated with stronger trade winds that caused deepening of isotherms and upper-ocean warming, effectively suppressing the 2014-2016 cooling signal propagating from the eastern boundary. The results presented here highlight the complexity of the SIO heat content variability driven by remote and local forcing.

Decade-long deep-ocean warming detected in the subtropical South Pacific.

The persistent energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, inferred from satellite measurements, indicates that the Earth's climate system continues to accumulate excess heat. As only sparse and irregular measurements of ocean heat below 2000 m depth exist, one of the most challenging questions in global climate change studies is whether the excess heat has already penetrated into the deep ocean. Here we perform a comprehensive analysis of satellite and in situ measurements to report that a significant deep-ocean warming occurred in the subtropical South Pacific Ocean over the past decade (2005-2014). The local accumulation of heat accounted for up to a quarter of the global ocean heat increase, with directly and indirectly inferred deep ocean (below 2000 m) contribution of 2.4 ± 1.4 and 6.1-10.1 ± 4.4%, respectively. We further demonstrate that this heat accumulation is consistent with a decade-long intensification of the subtropical convergence, possibly linked to the persistent La Niña-like state.

Autonomous Multi-Platform Observations During the Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study.

The Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study (SPURS) aims to understand the patterns and variability of sea surface salinity. In order to capture the wide range of spatial and temporal scales associated with processes controlling salinity in the upper ocean, research vessels delivered autonomous instruments to remote sites, one in the North Atlantic and one in the Eastern Pacific. Instruments sampled for one complete annual cycle at each of these two sites, which are subject to contrasting atmospheric forcing. The SPURS field programs coordinated sampling from many different platforms, using a mix of Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches. This article discusses the motivations, implementation, and first results of the SPURS-1 and SPURS-2 programs.