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RAPID-WATCH 2008-2014

RAPID-WATCH builds on RAPID to deliver a decade-long (2004-2014) time series of observations of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). The observations will be used with data from other sources to

  • determine and interpret recent changes in the Atlantic MOC,
  • assess the risk of rapid climate change due to changes in the MOC, and
  • investigate the potential for predicting the MOC and its impacts on climate.

This work will be carried out in collaboration with the Hadley Centre in the UK, and through international partnerships.

International Science Meeting on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

The venue

12-15 July 2011 in Bristol, UK.

Observations and models have suggested links between variability in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and global climate patterns. Reduction in the strength of the overturning may have played a key role in rapid climate change in the past and could have the potential to so in the future. The meeting will explore our scientific understanding of Atlantic variability on a range of time scales, with a main focus of the role of the meridional overturning circulation. A joint initiative between the UK Natural Environment Research Council's Rapid Climate Change programme (RAPID) and the US AMOC Program, it has four main themes:

  1. What do we know about present and past changes in the AMOC on seasonal to millennial time scales?
  2. How does the AMOC influence ocean, atmosphere and terrestrial climate and ecosystems?
  3. How will the AMOC change over the next few decades and over the 21st century?
  4. Outlook and Challenges.

For more information and to register for e-mail updates, see the meeting website at www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/ic2011/.

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