Work Package 1 sits at the core of the EPOC project. EPOC researchers are building the first consistent, observation-based picture of AMOC transport variability across the full Atlantic, from 35°S to the Arctic. This work links directly to EPOC’s concept and objectives and underpins all five scientific work packages.
Specifically:
Since the early 2000s AMOC observing systems have been deployed in the Atlantic. This was the beginning of a new era for our understanding of the AMOC: for the first time we had continuous observations of its strength and variability. In parallel, advances in modelling the ocean allowed us to simulate the ocean with ever-increasing levels of realism.
Despite these advances we have not been able to provide a consistent view of the AMOC for the whole Atlantic. Observing systems at different latitudes use different methodologies, making direct comparison difficult. Models face their own constraints: computational costs require simplifications in ocean physics, and agreement between observed and simulated AMOC remains limited.
In EPOC we will produce a novel, consistent observation-based estimate for the heat and freshwater transports from the Arctic and Nordic Seas to the southern limit of the Atlantic at 34.5S. A new technique will be used to estimate the exchanges of heat and freshwater between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, and the latest generation of coupled climate models will be used to assess how the AMOC variability at any given latitude relates to the variability at other latitudes (i.e. the “coherence” of the AMOC).