Climate impacts of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

Abstract

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a near‐global scale mode of observed multidecadal climate variability with alternating warm and cool phases over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Many prominent examples of regional multidecadal climate variability have been related to the AMO, such as North Eastern Brazilian and African Sahel rainfall, Atlantic hurricanes and North American and European summer climate. The relative shortness of the instrumental climate record, however, limits confidence in these observationally derived relationships. Here, we seek evidence of these links in the 1400 year control simulation of the HadCM3 climate model, which produces a realistic long‐lived AMO as part of its internal climate variability. By permitting the analysis of more AMO cycles than are present in observations, we find that the model confirms the association of the AMO with almost all of the above phenomena. This has implications for the predictability of regional climate.