Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA.
Nat Commun. 2020 Aug 7;11(1):3973. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17761-w.
The Florida Current marks the beginning of the Gulf Stream at Florida Straits, and plays an important role in climate. Nearly continuous measurements of Florida Current transport are available at 27°N since 1982. These data are too short for assessing possible multidecadal or centennial trends. Here I reconstruct Florida Current transport during 1909-2018 using probabilistic methods and principles of ocean physics applied to the available transport data and longer coastal sea-level records. Florida Current transport likely declined steadily during the past century. Transport since 1982 has likely been weaker on average than during 1909-1981. The weakest decadal-mean transport in the last 110 y likely took place in the past two decades. Results corroborate hypotheses that the deep branch of the overturning circulation declined over the recent past, and support relationships observed in climate models between the overturning and surface western boundary current transports at multidecadal and longer timescales.
佛罗里达洋流在佛罗里达海峡标志着墨西哥湾流的开始，在气候中起着重要作用。自 1982 年以来，在 27°N 处几乎可以连续测量到佛罗里达洋流的输送量。这些数据对于评估可能的数十年或百年趋势来说太短了。在这里，我使用概率方法和海洋物理学原理来重建 1909 年至 2018 年期间的佛罗里达洋流输送量，这些原理应用于可用的输送量数据和更长的沿海海平面记录。在过去的一个世纪里，佛罗里达洋流的输送量可能一直在稳步下降。自 1982 年以来的输送量可能平均比 1909 年至 1981 年期间弱。在过去的 110 年中，可能在过去二十年里出现了最弱的十年平均输送量。研究结果证实了过去一段时间深层翻转环流分支减少的假设，并支持气候模型中在数十年和更长时间尺度上观察到的翻转和表面西部边界流输送之间的关系。
