Changes in External Forcings Drive Divergent AMOC Responses Across CESM
Generations
Abstract
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in many CMIP6
models has been shown to be overly-sensitive to anthropogenic aerosol
forcing, and it has been speculated that this is due to the inclusion of
aerosol indirect effects for the first time in many models of that
generation. We analyze the AMOC response in a newly-released ensemble of
historic simulations performed with CESM2 and forced by the older CMIP5
input datasets (CESM2-CMIP5). This AMOC response is then compared to the
CESM1 large ensemble (CESM1-LE, forced by the older CMIP5 inputs) and
the CESM2 large ensemble (CESM2-LE, forced by the newer CMIP6 inputs). A
key conclusion, only made possible by this experimental setup, is that
changes in modeled aerosol-indirect effects cannot explain the
differences in turbulent fluxes between CESM1-LE and CESM2-LE. Instead,
differences in surface turbulent heat fluxes from changes in model
inputs likely drive the different AMOC responses.