Climate Response to External Sources of Freshwater: North Atlantic versus the Southern Ocean

Abstract The response of an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) to perturbations of freshwater fluxes across the sea surface in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean is investigated. The purpose of this study is to investigate aspects of the so-called bipolar seesaw where one hemisphere warms and the other cools and vice versa due to changes in the ocean meridional overturning. The experimental design is idealized where 1 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) of freshwater is added to the ocean surface for 100 model years and then removed. In one case, the freshwater perturbation is located in the Atlantic Ocean from 50° to 70°N. In the second case, it is located south of 60°S in the Southern Ocean. In the case where the North Atlantic surface waters are freshened, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and associated northward oceanic heat transport weaken. In the Antarctic surface freshening case, the Atlantic THC is mainly unchanged with a slight weakening toward the end of the integration. This w...