Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources
Abstract
The current Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) can best be estimated from changes in ocean heat content (OHC), complemented by top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation measurements and an assessment of the small non-ocean components. Sustained observations from the Argo array of autonomous profiling floats enable near-global estimates of OHC since 2005, which reveal considerable cancellation of variations in the upper 300 m. An analysis of the monthly contributions to EEI from non-ocean components (land and ice) using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble reveals standard deviations of 0.3–0.4 W m-2 (global); largest values occur in August, but values are below 0.75 W m-2 greater than 95% of the time. Global standard deviations of EEI of 0.64 W m-2 based on top-of-atmosphere observations therefore substantially constrain ocean contributions, given by the tendencies of OHC. Instead, monthly standard deviations of many Argo-based OHC tendencies are 6–13 W m-2, and nonphysical fluctuations are clearly evident. It is shown that an ocean reanalysis with multivariate dynamical data assimilation features much better agreement with TOA radiation, and 44% of the vertically integrated short-term OHC trend for 2005–14 of 0.8 ± 0.2 W m-2 (globally) occurs below 700-m depth. Largest warming occurs from 20° to 50°S, especiallymore »
- Authors:
-
- National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Mercator Ocean, Ramonville St. Agne (France)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1537015
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012711
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 29; Journal Issue: 20; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Citation Formats
Trenberth, Kevin E., Fasullo, John T., von Schuckmann, Karina, and Cheng, Lijing. Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1175/jcli-d-16-0339.1.
Trenberth, Kevin E., Fasullo, John T., von Schuckmann, Karina, & Cheng, Lijing. Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-16-0339.1
Trenberth, Kevin E., Fasullo, John T., von Schuckmann, Karina, and Cheng, Lijing. Sat .
"Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-16-0339.1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1537015.
@article{osti_1537015,
title = {Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources},
author = {Trenberth, Kevin E. and Fasullo, John T. and von Schuckmann, Karina and Cheng, Lijing},
abstractNote = {The current Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) can best be estimated from changes in ocean heat content (OHC), complemented by top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation measurements and an assessment of the small non-ocean components. Sustained observations from the Argo array of autonomous profiling floats enable near-global estimates of OHC since 2005, which reveal considerable cancellation of variations in the upper 300 m. An analysis of the monthly contributions to EEI from non-ocean components (land and ice) using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble reveals standard deviations of 0.3–0.4 W m-2 (global); largest values occur in August, but values are below 0.75 W m-2 greater than 95% of the time. Global standard deviations of EEI of 0.64 W m-2 based on top-of-atmosphere observations therefore substantially constrain ocean contributions, given by the tendencies of OHC. Instead, monthly standard deviations of many Argo-based OHC tendencies are 6–13 W m-2, and nonphysical fluctuations are clearly evident. It is shown that an ocean reanalysis with multivariate dynamical data assimilation features much better agreement with TOA radiation, and 44% of the vertically integrated short-term OHC trend for 2005–14 of 0.8 ± 0.2 W m-2 (globally) occurs below 700-m depth. Largest warming occurs from 20° to 50°S, especially over the southern oceans, and near 40°N in all ocean analyses. The EEI is estimated to be 0.9 ± 0.3 W m-2 for 2005–14.},
doi = {10.1175/jcli-d-16-0339.1},
journal = {Journal of Climate},
number = 20,
volume = 29,
place = {United States},
year = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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