Internal Ocean Dynamics Contribution to North Atlantic Interdecadal Variability Strengthened by Ocean–Atmosphere Thermal Coupling

Abstract

Abstract Identifying the primary drivers of North Atlantic interdecadal climate variability is crucial for improving climatic prediction over the coming decades. Here the effect of thermal coupling on the leading energy sources of the interdecadal variability of the ocean–atmosphere system is examined by means of a stochastically forced idealized coupled model. The effect of coupling is quantified from a comparison of the buoyancy variance budget of coupled and uncoupled model configurations. The simplicity of the model allows us to contrast the effect of coupling between a supercritical regime where the deterministic ocean dynamics drive the variability and a damped regime where noise forcing is central to its existence. The results show that changes in surface buoyancy fluxes act as a sink of temperature variance in the supercritical regime, and only become a source in the strongly damped regime. By contrast, internal ocean dynamics associated with the interaction of transient buoyancy fluxes with mean buoyancy gradients always act as a source of interdecadal variability. In addition to the reduced thermal damping effect in coupled integrations, thermal coupling with the atmosphere is shown to significantly increase the role of internal ocean dynamics in the variability, particularly in the regime where interdecadal modes are damped. Only for oceanic background states in the strongly damped regime do changes in surface buoyancy fluxes play a leading role in the upper-ocean variability. A stochastically forced coupled box model is proposed that captures the basic effect of thermal coupling on atmospheric and oceanic energy sources of variability. Significance Statement The purpose of this study is to better understand the impact of ocean–atmosphere thermal coupling on the leading energy sources of Atlantic interdecadal variability. Increasing our understanding of the physical mechanisms driving climate variability at interdecadal time scales is important to improve climate prediction. We show that the effect of ocean–atmosphere thermal coupling, as measured by the atmospheric feedback on sea surface temperature anomalies, is to substantially increase the role of internal ocean dynamics in the low-frequency variability of the upper-ocean heat content and sea surface temperature. Atmospheric stochastic forcing only becomes the primary driver of the oceanic temperature variability in the large dissipative limit, when internal ocean modes are strongly damped.