TY - JOUR T1 - Subpolar North Atlantic western boundary density anomalies and the Meridional Overturning Circulation A1 - Li,F. A1 - Lozier,M. S. A1 - Bacon,S. A1 - Bower,A. S. A1 - Cunningham,S. A. A1 - de Jong,M. F. A1 - Deyoung,B. A1 - Fraser,N. A1 - Fried,N. A1 - Han,G. A1 - Holliday,N. P. A1 - Holte,J. A1 - Houpert,L. A1 - Inall,M. E. A1 - Johns,W. E. A1 - Jones,S. A1 - Johnson,C. A1 - Karstensen,J. A1 - Le Bras,I. A. A1 - Lherminier,Pascale A1 - Lin,X. A1 - Mercier,Herle A1 - Oltmanns,M. A1 - Pacini,A. A1 - Petit,T. A1 - Pickart,R. S. A1 - Rayner,D. A1 - Straneo,F. A1 - Thierry,Virginie A1 - Visbeck,M. A1 - Yashayaev,I. A1 - Zhou,C. AD - State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science & College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China AD - School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA AD - National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK AD - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA AD - Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, UK AD - NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Texel, Netherlands AD - Department of Physics and Physical Oceanography, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada AD - Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Institute of Ocean Sciences, Sidney, BC, Canada AD - Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, St. John’s, NL, Canada AD - Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, USA AD - School of Geosciences, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK AD - Department of Ocean Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA AD - GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany AD - Univ. Brest, Ifremer, CNRS, IRD, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Plouzané, France AD - Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China AD - CNRS, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Plouzané, France AD - Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada UR - https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00697/80879/ DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-23350-2 N2 - Changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which have the potential to drive societally-important climate impacts, have traditionally been linked to the strength of deep water formation in the subpolar North Atlantic. Yet there is neither clear observational evidence nor agreement among models about how changes in deep water formation influence overturning. Here, we use data from a trans-basin mooring array (OSNAP—Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program) to show that winter convection during 2014–2018 in the interior basin had minimal impact on density changes in the deep western boundary currents in the subpolar basins. Contrary to previous modeling studies, we find no discernable relationship between western boundary changes and subpolar overturning variability over the observational time scales. Our results require a reconsideration of the notion of deep western boundary changes representing overturning characteristics, with implications for constraining the source of overturning variability within and downstream of the subpolar region. Y1 - 2021/05 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC JF - Nature Communications SN - 2041-1723 VL - 12 IS - 1 ID - 80879 ER -