The Adequacy of Observing Systems in Monitoring the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and North Atlantic Climate

Abstract The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) has an important influence on climate, and yet adequate observations of this circulation are lacking. Here, the authors assess the adequacy of past and current widely deployed routine observing systems for monitoring the AMOC and associated North Atlantic climate. To do so, this study draws on two independent simulations of the twentieth century using an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) coupled climate model. One simulation is treated as “truth” and is sampled according to the observing system being evaluated. The authors then assimilate these synthetic “observations” into the second simulation within a fully coupled system that instantaneously exchanges information among all coupled components and produces a nearly balanced and coherent estimate for global climate states including the North Atlantic climate system. The degree to which the assimilation recovers the truth is an assessment of the a...

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