Global atmospheric transport in a climate subject to a substantial weakening of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC)
is studied by using climatological Green’s functions of the mass conservation equation for a conserved, passive tracer. Two
sets of Green’s functions for the perturbed climate and for the present climate are evaluated from 11-year atmospheric trajectory
calculations, based on 3-D winds simulated by GFDL’s newly developed global coupled ocean–atmosphere model (CM2.1). The Green’s
function analysis reveals pronounced effects of the climate change on the atmospheric transport, including seasonally modified
Hadley circulation with a stronger Northern Hemisphere cell in DJF and a weaker Southern Hemisphere cell in JJA. A weakened
THC is also found to enhance mass exchange rates through mixing barriers between the tropics and the two extratropical zones.
The response in the tropics is not zonally symmetric. The 3-D Green’s function analysis of the effect of THC weakening on
transport in the tropical Pacific shows a modified Hadley cell in the eastern Pacific, confirming the results of our previous
studies, and a weakening (strengthening) of the upward and eastward motion to the south (north) of the Equator in the western
Pacific in the perturbed climate as compared to the present climate.
Keywords Climate change - Atmospheric transport - Atlantic thermohaline circulation - Green’s function analysis - Hadley cell