Skip to main content
Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Stommel’s 1961 Tellus Paper on Thermohaline Circulation Stability: Curious Early History and Lasting Legacy Cover

Stommel’s 1961 Tellus Paper on Thermohaline Circulation Stability: Curious Early History and Lasting Legacy

By:   
Open Access
|Jul 2026

References

  1. Bice, K. L., & Marotzke, J. (2001). Numerical evidence against reversed thermohaline circulation in the warm Paleocene/Eocene ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research, 106, 1152911542. 10.1029/2000JC000561
  2. Bretherton, F. P. (1982). Ocean climate modeling. Progress in Oceanography, 11, 93129. 10.1016/0079-6611(82)90005-2
  3. Broecker, W. S., Peteet, D. M., & Rind, D. (1985). Does the ocean–atmosphere system have more than one stable mode of operation? Nature, 315, 2126. 10.1038/315021a0
  4. Bryan, F. (1986a). High-latitude salinity effects and interhemispheric thermohaline circulations. Nature, 323, 301304. 10.1038/323301a0
  5. Bryan, F. O. (1986b). Maintenance and variability of the thermohaline circulation. Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 271 pp. Available online at https://tinyurl.com/tpvy4mes
  6. Bryan, K., & Hansen, F. C. (1995). A stochastic model of North Atlantic climate variability on decade-to-century time scales. In Natural Climate Variability on Decade-to-Century Time Scales, National_Research_Council, Ed., The National Academies Press. 10.17226/5142
  7. Buckley, M. W., & Marshall, J. (2016). Observations, inferences, and mechanisms of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: A review. Reviews of Geophysics, 54, 563. 10.1002/2015RG000493
  8. Cessi, P. (1994). A simple box model of stochastically forced thermohaline flow. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 24, 19111920. 10.1175/1520-0485(1994)024<;1911:ASBMOS>2.0.CO;2
  9. Ferreira, D., Cessi, P., Coxall, H. K., de Boer, A., Dijkstra, H. A., Drijfhout, S. S., Eldevik, T., Harnik, N., McManus, J. F.. Marshall, D. P., Nilsson, J., Roquet, F., Schneider, T., & Wills, R. C. (2018). Atlantic-Pacific asymmetry in deep water formation. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 46, 327352. 10.1146/annurev-earth-082517-010045
  10. Foote, E. (1856). ART. XXXI.–Circumstances affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays;: (Read before the American Association, August 23rd, 1856.). American Journal of Science and Arts (1820–1879), 22, 382383. Available online at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46660430#page/398/mode/1up
  11. Haney, R. L. (1971). Surface thermal boundary condition for ocean circulation models. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 1, 241248. 10.1175/1520-0485(1971)001<;0241:STBCFO>2.0.CO;2
  12. Huang, R. X., Luyten, J. R., & Stommel, H. M. (1992). Multiple equilibrium states in combined thermal and saline circulation. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 22, 231246. 10.1175/1520-0485(1992)0222.0.Co;2
  13. Hughes, T. M. C., & Weaver, A. J. (1994). Multiple equilibria of an asymmetric two-basin model. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 24, 619637. 10.1175/1520-0485(1994)0242.0.CO;2
  14. Johnson, H. L., Cessi, P., Marshall, D. P., Schloesser, F., & Spall, M. A. (2019). Recent contributions of theory to our understanding of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 124, 53765399. 10.1029/2019jc015330
  15. Kuhlbrodt, T., Griesel, A., Montoya, M., Levermann, A., Hofmann, M., & Rahmstorf, S. (2007). On the driving processes of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Reviews of Geophysics, 45. 10.1029/2004rg000166
  16. Longworth, H., Marotzke, J., & Stocker, T. F. (2005). Ocean gyres and abrupt change in the thermohaline circulation: A conceptual analysis. Journal of Climate, 18, 24032416. 10.1175/JCLI3397.1
  17. Manabe, S., & Stouffer, R. J. (1988). Two stable equilibria of a coupled ocean atmosphere model. Journal of Climate, 1, 841866. 10.1175/1520-0442(1988)0012.0.CO;2
  18. Marotzke, J. (1989). Instabilities and multiple steady states of the thermohaline circulation. In D. L. T. Anderson & J. Willebrand (Eds.), Oceanic circulation models: Combining data and dynamics (pp. 501511). Kluwer. 10.1007/978-94-009-1013-3
  19. Marotzke, J. (1990). Instabilities and multiple equilibria of the thermohaline circulation. Ph.D. thesis, Berichte aus dem Institut für Meereskunde, p. 126. Available online at https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/24688/
  20. Marotzke, J. (1994). Ocean models in climate problems. In P. Malanotte-Rizzoli & A. R. Robinson (Eds.), Ocean processes in climate dynamics: Global and mediterranean examples (pp. 79109). Kluwer. 10.1007/978-94-011-0870-6
  21. Marotzke, J. (1996). Analysis of thermohaline feedbacks. In D. L. T. Anderson & J. Willebrand (Eds.), Decadal climate variability: Dynamics and predictability (333378). Springer-Verlag. 10.1007/978-3-662-03291-6
  22. Marotzke, J. (2000). Abrupt climate change and thermohaline circulation: Mechanisms and predictability. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences (USA), 97, 13471350. 10.1073/pnas.97.4.1347
  23. Marotzke, J. (2023). From theory to RAPID AMOC observations: A personal voyage of discovery. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 381, 20220192. 10.1098/rsta.2022.0192
  24. Marotzke, J., & Stone, P. H. (1995). Atmospheric transports, the thermohaline circulation, and flux adjustments in a simple coupled model. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 25, 13501364. 10.1175/1520-0485(1995)0252.0.CO;2
  25. Marotzke, J., Welander, P., & Willebrand, J. (1988). Instability and multiple steady states in a meridional-plane model of the thermohaline circulation. Tellus, 40 A, 162172. 10.1111/j.1600-0870.1988.tb00414.x
  26. Marotzke, J., & Willebrand, J. (1991). Multiple equilibria of the global thermohaline circulation. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 21, 13721385. 10.1175/1520-0485(1991)0212.0.CO;2
  27. Mead, C. T. (1988). Asymmetries of the oceanic thermohaline circulation and meridional heat transport. PhD thesis, University of Southampton, p. 253.
  28. Merton, R. K. (1968). The Matthew Effect in science. Science, 159, 5663. 10.1126/science.159.3810.56
  29. Rooth, C. (1982). Hydrology and ocean circulation. Progress in Oceanography, 11, 131149. 10.1016/0079-6611(82)90006-4
  30. Stommel, H. (1961). Thermohaline convection with two stable regimes of flow. Tellus, 13, 224230. 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1961.tb00079.x
  31. Stommel, H., & Rooth, C. (1968). On the interaction of gravitational and dynamic forcing in simple circulation models. Deep-Sea Research, 15, 165170. 10.1016/0011-7471(68)90038-7
  32. Walin, G. (1985). The thermohaline circulation and the control of ice ages. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 50, 323332. 10.1016/S0031-0182(85)80020-1
  33. Warren, B. A., & Wunsch, C. (Eds.) (1981). Evolution of physical oceanography – Scientific surveys in honor of Henry Stommel. MIT Press, xxxiii, p. 623.
  34. Weijer, W., Cheng, W., Drijfhout, S. S., Fedorov, A. V., Hu, A., Jackson, L. C., Liu, W., McDonagh, E. L., Mecking, J. V., & Zhang, J. (2019). Stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: A review and synthesis. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 124, 53365375. 10.1029/2019JC015083
  35. Welander, P. (1986). Thermohaline effects in the ocean circulation and related simple models. In J. Willebrand & D. L. T. Anderson (Eds.), Large-scale transport processes in oceans and atmosphere (pp. 163200), NATO ASI Series. Springer. 10.1007/978-94-009-4768-9
  36. Youngs, M. K., Ferrari, R., & Flierl, G. R. (2020). Basin-width dependence of northern deep convection. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2020GL089135. 10.1029/2020gl089135
Language: English
Page range: 126 - 135
Submitted on: Mar 1, 2026
Accepted on: May 20, 2026
Published on: Jul 9, 2026
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2026 Jochem Marotzke, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.