AOMC - Comparison of climate at UK latitude

AOMC - Comparison of climate at UK latitude


Climate

Comparison of cities at similar latitudes


So lets start with a table of UK cities on approximately the same latitude with some basic climate data.

CityWinter Avg. (Jan)AMOC
Leeds4.30CYes
Moscow-9.80CNo
Minsk-6.50CNo
Shetland2.00CYes
Belarus-6.50CNo
Copenhagen-1.10CNo
Hamburg-0.40CNo
Newcastle4.0 0CYes

Admittedly the effects are more complicated than just AMOC given that climate is a highly dynamic and chaotic system and the weather for the given examples is affected by combination of the gulf stream of which AMOC is just a part and the jet stream. Nonetheless it is an important driver of northern european climate.

So AMOC in simple terms: Running from the arctic near Greenland all the way down through the Indian and Pacific oceans where it picks up heat and transfers it back up past Africa and Europe thus returning to Greenland.

The driving this is the thermocline / halocline. Put simply cold fresh water is denser than warm salty water drops to the bottom of the ocean and runs south like a river within the sea picking up nutrients as it goes which in turn supports fisheries in the southern oceans. As it picks up salts mixes and warms it is pushed back towards the north. A global circulation of heat and nutrients driven by the release of cold pure water of the ice in the far north - however too much will disrupt this delicate flow and then?