We explore the representation of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in 27 models from the CMIP6 multimodel ensemble. Comparison with RAPID and SAMBA observations suggests that the ensemble mean represents the AMOC strength and vertical profile reasonably well. Linear trends over the entire historical period (1850-2014) are generally neutral, but many models exhibit an AMOC peak around the 1980s. Ensemble mean AMOC decline in future (SSP) scenarios is stronger in CMIP6 than CMIP5 models. In fact, AMOC decline in CMIP6 is surprisingly insensitive to the scenario at least up to 2060. We find an emergent relationship among a majority of models between AMOC strength and 21st century AMOC decline. Constraining this relationship with RAPID observations suggests that the AMOC might decline between 6 and 8 Sv (34-45%) by 2100. A smaller group of models projects much less AMOC weakening of only up to 30%. Plain Language Summary The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a circulation pattern in the Atlantic Ocean that is an important component of the climate system, due to its ability to redistribute and sequester heat and carbon. An accurate representation of the AMOC is a critical test for climate models and essential for building confidence in their projections. Here we investigate the AMOC in 27 climate models that contributed simulations to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). We find that many models reproduce the observed AMOC quite well, but there are still several models in which the AMOC is too weak or too strong. Most models suggest a slight upward trend in the AMOC from 1850 to the 1980s. Simulations representing different scenarios for future socioeconomic development suggest a stronger AMOC decline compared to previous assessments. Using direct measurements of the AMOC since 2004 and an emerging across-model relationship between AMOC decline in the 21st century and their present-day mean state, we find that the majority of CMIP6 models point to an end of century AMOC weakening of 34-45% of its present-day strength. A smaller group of models projects much less weakening of only up to 30% of its present state.

Global warming induces ocean circulation changes that not only can redistribute ocean reservoir temperature stratification but also change the total heat content anomaly of the ocean. Here all consequences of this process are referred to collectively as “redistribution.” Previous model studies of redistributive effects could not measure the net global contribution to the amount of ocean heat uptake by redistribution. In this study, a global ocean model experiment with abrupt increase in surface temperature is conducted with a new passive tracer formulation. This separates ocean heat uptake into contributions due to redistribution temperature and surface heat flux anomalies and those due to the passive advection and mixing of surface heat flux anomalies forced in the atmosphere. For a decline in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation of about 40%, redistribution nearly doubles the Atlantic passive anomalous surface heat input and depth penetration of temperature anomalies. However, smaller increases in the Indian and Pacific Oceans cause the net global redistributive contribution to be only 25% of the passive contribution. Despite the much larger anomalous surface heat input in the Atlantic, the Pacific gains heat content anomaly similar to that in the Atlantic because of export from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans via the global conveyor belt. Of this interbasin heat transport, most of the passive component comes from the Indian Ocean and the redistributive component comes from the Atlantic.

Sea levels of different atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) respond to climate change forcing in different ways, representing a crucial uncertainty in climate change research. We isolate the role of the ocean dynamics in setting the spatial pattern of dynamic sea-level (ζ) change by forcing several AOGCMs with prescribed identical heat, momentum (wind) and freshwater flux perturbations. This method produces a ζ projection spread comparable in magnitude to the spread that results from greenhouse gas forcing, indicating that the differences in ocean model formulation are the cause, rather than diversity in surface flux change. The heat flux change drives most of the global pattern of ζ change, while the momentum and water flux changes cause locally confined features. North Atlantic heat uptake causes large temperature and salinity driven density changes, altering local ocean transport and ζ. The spread between AOGCMs here is caused largely by differences in their regional transport adjustment, which redistributes heat that was already in the ocean prior to perturbation. The geographic details of the ζ change in the North Atlantic are diverse across models, but the underlying dynamic change is similar. In contrast, the heat absorbed by the Southern Ocean does not strongly alter the vertically coherent circulation. The Arctic ζ change is dissimilar across models, owing to differences in passive heat uptake and circulation change. Only the Arctic is strongly affected by nonlinear interactions between the three air-sea flux changes, and these are model specific.

The temporal evolution of the effective climate sensitivity is shown to be influenced by the changing pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean heat uptake (OHU), which in turn have been attributed to ocean circulation changes. A set of novel experiments are performed to isolate the active role of the ocean by comparing a fully coupled CO2 quadrupling community Earth System Model (CESM) simulation against a partially coupled one, where the effect of the ocean circulation change and its impact on surface fluxes are disabled. The active OHU is responsible for the reduced effective climate sensitivity and weaker surface warming response in the fully coupled simulation. The passive OHU excites qualitatively similar feedbacks to CO2 quadrupling in a slab ocean model configuration due to the similar SST spatial pattern response in both experiments. Additionally, the nonunitary forcing efficacy of the active OHU (1.7) explains the very different net feedback parameters in the fully and partially coupled responses.

The role of ocean dynamics in the response of the equatorial Pacific Ocean to climate warming is investigated using both an atmosphere–ocean coupled climate system and its ocean component. Results show that the initial response (fast pattern) to an uniform heating imposed on the ocean is a warming centered to the west of the date line owing to the conventional ocean dynamical thermostat (ODT) mechanism in the eastern equatorial Pacific—a cooling effect arising from the up-gradient upwelling. In time, the warming pattern gradually propagates eastward, becoming more El Niño–like (slow pattern). The transition from the fast to the slow pattern likely results from 1) the gradual warming of the equatorial thermocline temperature, which is associated with the arrival of the relatively warmer extratropical waters advected along the subsurface branch of the subtropical cells (STCs), and 2) the reduction of the STC strength itself. A mixed layer heat budget analysis finds that it is the total ocean dynamical effect rather than the conventional ODT that holds the key for understanding the pattern of the SST in the equatorial Pacific and that the surface heat flux works mainly to compensate the ocean dynamics. Further passive tracer experiments with the ocean component of the coupled system verify the role of the ocean dynamical processes in initiating a La Niña–like SST warming and in setting the pace of the transition to an El Niño–like warming and identify an oceanic origin for the slow eastern Pacific warming independent of the weakening trade wind.