Tracking ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus

Liu, Wei; Xie, Shang -Ping; Lu, Jian

doi:10.1038/ncomms10926

Title: Tracking ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus

Journal Article · Wed Mar 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10926· OSTI ID:1337247

Liu, Wei ^[1]; Xie, Shang -Ping ^[1]; Lu, Jian ^[2]

Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States)
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Ocean heat uptake is observed to penetrate deep during the recent hiatus1,2,3 of global warming in the Atlantic and Southern Ocean. This has been suggested to indicate that the two regions are the driver of the surface warming hiatus4. We show that the deep heat penetration in the Atlantic and Southern Ocean is not unique to the hiatus but common to the past four decades including the 1970s-90s epoch of accelerated surface warming. Our analyses of a large ensemble simulation5 confirm the deep heat penetration in the Atlantic and Southern Ocean in ensemble members with or without surface warming hiatus in the early 21th century. During the past four decades, the global ocean heat content (OHC) of upper 1500m is dominated by a warming trend, and the depth of anthropogenic heat penetration merely reflects the depth of the mean meridional overturning circulation in the basin. Furthermore, the heat penetration depth is not a valid basis to infer the hiatus mechanism.

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Research Organization:: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-76RL01830

OSTI ID:: 1337247

Report Number(s):: PNNL-SA-111949; KP1703010

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 7; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 92 works

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