On the ocean's response to enhanced Greenland runoff in model experiments: relevance of mesoscale dynamics and atmospheric coupling

Abstract

Increasing Greenland Ice Sheet melting is anticipated to impact water mass transformation in the subpolar North Atlantic and ultimately the meridional overturning circulation. Complex ocean and climate models are widely applied to estimate magnitude and timing of related impacts under global warming. We discuss the role of the ocean mean state, subpolar water mass transformation, mesoscale eddies, and atmospheric coupling in shaping the response of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean to enhanced Greenland runoff. In a suite of eight dedicated 60- to 100-year-long model experiments with and without atmospheric coupling, with eddy processes parameterized and explicitly simulated and with regular and significantly enlarged Greenland runoff, we find (1) a major impact by the interactive atmosphere in enabling a compensating temperature feedback, (2) a non-negligible influence by the ocean mean state biased towards greater stability in the coupled simulations, both of which make the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation less susceptible to the freshwater perturbation applied, and (3) a more even spreading and deeper mixing of the runoff tracer in the subpolar North Atlantic and enhanced inter-gyre exchange with the subtropics in the strongly eddying simulations. Overall, our experiments demonstrate the important role of mesoscale ocean dynamics and atmosphere feedback in projections of the climate system response to enhanced Greenland Ice Sheet melting and hence underline the necessity to advance scale-aware eddy parameterizations for next-generation climate models.