TY - JOUR A1 - Caesar, Levke A1 - Rahmstorf, Stefan A1 - Robinson, Alexander A1 - Feulner, Georg A1 - Saba, V. T1 - Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation JF - Nature : the international weekly journal of science N2 - The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)—a system of ocean currents in the North Atlantic—has a major impact on climate, yet its evolution during the industrial era is poorly known owing to a lack of direct current measurements. Here we provide evidence for a weakening of the AMOC by about 3 ± 1 sverdrups (around 15 per cent) since the mid-twentieth century. This weakening is revealed by a characteristic spatial and seasonal sea-surface temperature ‘fingerprint’—consisting of a pattern of cooling in the subpolar Atlantic Ocean and warming in the Gulf Stream region—and is calibrated through an ensemble of model simulations from the CMIP5 project. We find this fingerprint both in a high-resolution climate model in response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and in the temperature trends observed since the late nineteenth century. The pattern can be explained by a slowdown in the AMOC and reduced northward heat transport, as well as an associated northward shift of the Gulf Stream. Comparisons with recent direct measurements from the RAPID project and several other studies provide a consistent depiction of record-low AMOC values in recent years. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5 SN - 0028-0836 SN - 1476-4687 VL - 556 IS - 7700 SP - 191 EP - 196 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zhuang, Guangsheng A1 - Johnstone, Samuel A. A1 - Hourigan, Jeremy A1 - Ritts, Bradley A1 - Robinson, Alexander A1 - Sobel, Edward T1 - Understanding the geologic evolution of Northern Tibetan Plateau with multiple thermochronometers JF - Gondwana research : international geoscience journal ; official journal of the International Association for Gondwana Research N2 - The early onset of deformation following the India-Asia collision, Neogene expanse of uplift, and complex systems that comprise strike-slip faults, thrust faults, and intermontane basins characterize the Cenozoic tectonism of Northern Tibetan Plateau and raise two prominent questions in orogenic geodynamics: 1) What mechanism(s) control(s) the transfer of stress related to the India-Asia collision across the distance of >2000 km; and 2) Why the development of high topography was delayed in the Northern Tibetan Plateau and what does it reveal about how the internal forces and external boundary conditions evolved. To address these two questions, we reconstruct a holistic spatial-temporal deformation history of the Northern Tibetan Plateau by using a range of thermochronometers, with closure temperature spanning from 350 degrees C to-60-70 degrees C. This multi-thermochronometer study reveals three stages of faulting related cooling, in the early Cretaceous, in Paleocene-Eocene and in middle-late Miocene. We observe that Paleocene-Eocene deformation was spatially restricted and mostly occurred on reactivated Cretaceous structures, indicating a control of pre-existing weakness on early Cenozoic deformation. Extensive Neogene deformation contrasts with restricted Paleocene-Eocene deformation and relatively quiescent shortening during the Oligocene-early Miocene, which implies a change in the regional tectonics regime. Global plate reconstructions show that this tectonic reorganization is coeval with an increase in Pacific-Asia plate convergence rates. We argue that this change in regional tectonics is a result of increasing constrictive environment of the eastern plate boundary, which changed the behavior of the Altyn Tagh fault the boundary fault of Northern Tibetan Plateau, causing it to change from feeding slip into structures out of the plateau to feeding slip into structures at plateau margins. KW - Northern Tibetan Plateau KW - Thermochronology KW - Altyn Tagh Fault KW - Pacific-Asia convergence KW - Gravitational potential energy Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2018.02.014 SN - 1342-937X SN - 1878-0571 VL - 58 SP - 195 EP - 210 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -