The Atlantic is cooling at a ‘mysteriously’ fast rate after record warmth

A portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) [image credit: R. Curry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @ Wikipedia]

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It’s mysterious to some when human-caused climate change theories appear to take a knock, although its advocates wouldn’t express it like that. The predicted La Niña has yet to arrive so something else must be in play. Only recently (March 2024) the puzzle was where all the extra ocean heat was coming from.
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For over a year, surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean hit new highs, but that trend has reversed at record speed over the past few months, and nobody knows why, says Gizmodo.

In June, temperatures in the Atlantic were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) hotter than normal in much of the ocean, with some areas getting as much as 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) warmer than average.

Those temperatures weren’t a one-off, as the Atlantic had regularly seen record-breaking levels since March 2023. That year marked the fourth in a row that the world’s oceans set new heat records.

The hot water was partially a result of human-caused climate change [Talkshop comment – so the author claims], but it was also due to a particularly strong El Niño in 2023 and 2024. But that system appears to have passed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA data shows Atlantic sea surface temperatures have cooled at a surprising rate since May. Since June began, temperatures have been a degree or two Fahrenheit colder than normal for this time of year. That means El Niño will likely be replaced by its counterpart, La Niña, a weather system that allows cold water to rise to the surface of the Atlantic, some time between September and November.

Both El Niño and La Niña are complex systems driven by trade winds, solar heating, and rainfall in the tropic regions, and can be difficult to predict. Still, the sudden shift in Atlantic temperatures has been puzzling, and nobody seems to know why it’s happened so quickly.

“We’ve gone through the list of possible mechanisms, and nothing checks the box so far,” Frans Philip Tuchen, a postdoctoral student at the University of Miami, told New Scientist.

Full article here.
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Image: A portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) [credit: R. Curry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution @ Wikipedia]