Langehaug, H. R., Ortega, P., Counillon, F., Matei, D., Maroon, E., Keenlyside, N., Mignot, J., Wang, Y., Swingedouw, D., Bethke, I., Yang, S., Danabasoglu, G., Bellucci, A., Ruggieri, P., Nicolì, D., Årthun, M. 2022: Propagation of Thermohaline Anomalies and Their Predictive Potential along the Atlantic Water Pathway. J Clim. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-022-01523-x

Summary: In this study, we find that dynamical prediction systems and their respective climate models struggle to realistically represent ocean surface temperature variability in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic and Nordic seas on interannual-to-decadal time scales. In previous studies, ocean advection is proposed as a key mechanism in propagating temperature anomalies along the Atlantic water pathway toward the Arctic Ocean. Our analysis suggests that the predicted temperature anomalies are not properly circulated to the north; this is a result of model errors that seems to be exacerbated by the effect of initialization shocks and forecast drift. Better climate predictions in the study region will thus require improving the initialization step, as well as enhancing process representation in the climate models.

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