Abstract The climate responses to Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) fluctuations are investigated in a hierarchy of sensitivity experiments. We modify the baroclinic component of the North Atlantic Ocean currents online in an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to reproduce typical AMOC multidecadal variability found in a preindustrial control simulation in the same model. An analogous experiment is also conducted using a slab-ocean experiment. The responses to a strong AMOC include a widespread warming in the Northern Hemisphere and a northward shift of the intertropical convergence zone over the Atlantic Ocean. The driving mechanism of climate responses is then investigated with the changes in the energy flows in the ocean and atmosphere. The large-scale atmospheric changes in the tropics are organized by an anomalous cross-equatorial Hadley circulation transporting energy southward and moisture and heat northward. Changes in the Indo-Pacific Ocean circulation and heat transport, driven by the wind stress associated with the abnormal Hadley cell, damp the atmospheric responses. The lack of Indo-Pacific transport and ocean heat storage leads to amplified atmospheric changes in the slab-ocean experiments, which are further amplified by a positive feedback due to the interhemispheric antisymmetric changes in low cloud cover.