North Atlantic currents may not be linked to Meridional Overturning Circulation

A new international study has cast doubts on the view that variations in the density of some of the deepest currents of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean are caused by winter surface conditions and represent changes in the strength of the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). The study was co-led by Susan Lozier, Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences. Lozier, a physical oceanographer, is president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU.) (The study was also covered on the Subsea UK website and the Memorial University Gazette.)