Modes of North Atlantic Decadal Variability in the ECHAM1/LSG Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere General Circulation Model

Abstract

The climate variability in the North Atlantic sector is investigated in a 325-yr integration of the ECHAM1/ LSG coupled ocean?atmosphere general circulation model. At the interannual timescale, the coupled model behaves realistically and sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies arise as a response of the oceanic surface layer to the stochastic forcing by the atmosphere, with the heat exchanges both generating and damping the SST anomalies. In the ocean interior, the temperature spectra are red up to a period of about 20 years, and substantial decadal fluctuations are found in the upper kilometer or so of the water column. Using extended empirical orthogonal function analysis, two distinct quasi-oscillatory modes of ocean?atmosphere variability are identified, with dominant periods of about 20 and 10 years, respectively. The oceanic changes in both modes reflect the direct forcing by the atmosphere through anomalous air?sea fluxes and Ekman pumping, which after some delay affects the intensity of the subtropical and subpolar gyres. The SST is also strongly modulated by the gyre currents. In the thermocline, the temperature and salinity fluctuations are in phase, as if caused by thermocline displacements, and they have no apparent connection with the thermohaline circulation. The 20-yr mode is the most energetic one; it is easily seen in the thermocline and can be found in SST data, but it is not detected in the atmosphere alone. As there is no evidence of positive ocean?atmosphere feedback, the 20-yr mode primarily reflects the passive response of the ocean to atmospheric fluctuations, which may be in part associated with climate anomalies appearing a few years earlier in the North Pacific. The 10-yr mode is more surface trapped in the ocean. Although the mode is most easily seen in the temperature variations of the upper few hundred meters of the ocean, it is also detected in the atmosphere alone and thus appears to be a coupled ocean?atmosphere mode. In both modes, the surface heat flux acts neutrally on the associated SST anomalies once they have been generated, so that their persistence appears to be due in part to an overall adjustment of the air?sea heat exchanges to the SST patterns.