Two regimes of Atlantic multidecadal oscillation: Cross-basin dependent or Atlantic-intrinsic

Most coupled models failed to reproduce the observed 50-80-year AMO, but were overwhelmed by a 10-30-year AMO. Here we show that the 50-80-year AMO and 10-30-year AMO represent two different AMO regimes.

The key differences are: (1) the 50-80-year AMO involves transport of warm and saline Atlantic water into the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN) Seas prior to reaching its maximum positive phase, while such a transport is weak for the 10-30-year AMO; (2) the zonality of atmospheric variability associated with the 50-80 year AMO favors the transport of warm and saline water into the GIN Seas; (3) the disappearance of Pacific variability weakens the zonality of atmospheric variability and the transport of warm and saline water into the GIN Seas, leading to the weakening of the 50-80-year AMO.