North Atlantic climate and deep-ocean flow speed

They are called Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water (ISOW) and contribute to North Atlantic Deep Water, a current that hugs the seafloor as it traces a path around Africa before joining deep waters surrounding Antarctica and later upwelling in the Pacific Ocean. Water returns to the northern Atlantic through a series of surface currents; this global ocean conveyor regulates climate by redistributing heat across the world's oceans. Using a sediment core from the subpolar North Atlantic, Boessenkool et al. study variations in the flow speed of ISOW over the past 230 years. They find that deep flow speeds of ISOW are coupled with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a climate mode that shifts the pathway and strength of Atlantic storms and depressions across Europe, with more vigorous ISOW flow when these storm tracks were over southern Europe and less vigorous ISOW flow when storm tracks were over northern Europe.-American Geophysical Union