A new study has found that the strength of the Florida Current, the beginning of the Gulf Stream system and a key component of the global Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), has remained stable for the past four decades.
Understanding the state of the Florida Current is very important for developing coastal sea level forecast systems, assessing local weather and ecosystem and societal impacts.
There is growing scientific and public interest in the AMOC, a three-dimensional system of ocean currents that act as a “conveyer belt” to distribute heat, salt, nutrients and carbon dioxide across the world’s oceans. Changes in the AMOC’s strength could impact global and regional climate, weather, sea level, precipitation patterns and marine ecosystems.
Scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, along with NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the UK’s National Oceanography Centre took part in the study.
According to Denis Volkov, lead author of the study and a scientist at CIMAS which is based at the Rosenstiel School:
“This study does not refute the potential slowdown of AMOC, it shows that the Florida Current, one of the key components of the AMOC in the subtropical North Atlantic, has remained steady over the more than 40 years of observations.
“With the corrected and updated Florida Current transport time series, the negative tendency in the AMOC transport is indeed reduced, but it is not gone completely. The existing observational record is just starting to resolve interdecadal variability, and we need many more years of sustained monitoring to confirm if a long-term AMOC decline is happening.”
Check out the study at nature.com.
