A patch of the Atlantic Ocean just south of Greenland is cooling while much of the world warms.
A patch of the Atlantic Ocean just south of Greenland is cooling while much of the world warms. The origin of this “cold blob” has been linked to weakening ocean currents that help regulate global climate — called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). A team of scientists led by Penn State has found a weakening AMOC impacts not just the ocean but also the atmosphere, and that these two factors may contribute equally to the cold anomaly.
The researchers reported their findings in the journal Sciences Advances.
“In the past century, most of the planet has warmed while the subpolar North Atlantic has been stubbornly cooling,” said Pengfei Zhang, an assistant research professor in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State and a co-author on the study. “Our findings help explain why this so-called cold blob exists and shed light on how future changes in ocean currents could ripple through the climate system.”
Previous studies on the cold blob have focused on ocean currents that bring warm water to the North Atlantic. But a cooling ocean will also result in a cooler, drier atmosphere, which can further amplify the cold anomaly, the scientists said.
Read more at Penn State
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