IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v434y2005i7033d10.1038_nature03476.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decline of the marine ecosystem caused by a reduction in the Atlantic overturning circulation

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Schmittner

    (Oregon State University)

Abstract

Ecosystems in hot water Changes in the North Atlantic component of global ocean overturning circulation, the AMO (Atlantic meridional overturning), were associated with abrupt climate change during the last ice age. It has been suggested that global warming could enhance freshwater discharge into the North Atlantic and shut down the AMO, causing significant cooling. These possible climate effects have attracted a lot of attention, but little thought has been given to what might happen to the marine ecosystem if the AMO were to weaken or disappear. Andreas Schmittner has performed a detailed simulation and finds that a collapse of the AMO would cut global productivity by about 20%. The model results are consistent with the available records of past productivity. The decline in plankton stocks that would accompany changes of that scale could have a dramatic impact on fisheries in the affected areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Schmittner, 2005. "Decline of the marine ecosystem caused by a reduction in the Atlantic overturning circulation," Nature, Nature, vol. 434(7033), pages 628-633, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:434:y:2005:i:7033:d:10.1038_nature03476
    DOI: 10.1038/nature03476
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03476
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature03476?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anders Levermann & Jonathan Bamber & Sybren Drijfhout & Andrey Ganopolski & Winfried Haeberli & Neil Harris & Matthias Huss & Kirstin Krüger & Timothy Lenton & Ronald Lindsay & Dirk Notz & Peter Wadha, 2012. "Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 845-878, February.
    2. Shantong Sun & Andrew F. Thompson & Jimin Yu & Lixin Wu, 2024. "Transient overturning changes cause an upper-ocean nutrient decline in a warming climate," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Da Rocha, José María & Gutiérrez Huerta, María José & Villasante, Sebastián, 2013. "Economic Effects of Global Warming under Stock Growth Uncertainty: The European Sardine Fishery," DFAEII Working Papers 1988-088X, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
    4. Carl-Friedrich Schleussner & Anders Levermann & Malte Meinshausen, 2014. "Probabilistic projections of the Atlantic overturning," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 579-586, December.
    5. Löptien, Ulrike, 2011. "Steady states and sensitivities of commonly used pelagic ecosystem model components," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(8), pages 1376-1386.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:434:y:2005:i:7033:d:10.1038_nature03476. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.