AMOC Storylines to inform Ireland’s National Climate Projections

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is an important driver of the climate of Northwestern and Northern Europe, in particular the mild climate of Ireland. Although considered a low-likelihood high-impact scenario, recent studies suggest that a partial or full collapse of the AMOC may not be as unlikely as previously assumed. A strong decline or collapse of the AMOC would not just affect N(W)-Europe via reduced heat transport but also through changes in atmospheric circulation and sea level. Ireland’s national climate projections, standardised in Met Éireann’s TRANSLATE project, consist of dynamically and statistically downscaled global climate model simulations with varying degrees of AMOC decline during the 21st century. However, these projections currently neither subset simulations exhibiting strong AMOC weakening nor include dedicated AMOC storyline simulations. Here we outline a multi-pronged approach to address this gap using simulations that can also be beneficial to other national climate scenarios. We show analysis of global climate simulations that informs the choice of storylines to be created through dynamically downscaled regional climate simulations.