Importance of the deep ocean for estimating decadal changes in Earth's radiation balance

Palmer, Matthew D.; McNeall, Doug; Dunstone, Nick

doi:10.1029/2011gl047835

Cited by 97 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…These inconsistencies have been mainly attributed to differences in estimation periods, instrumental biases, quality control and processing issues, the role of salinity and the influence of the reference depth for GSSL calculations (Leuliette and Miller, 2009;Trenberth, 2010;Purkey and Johnson, 2010;Palmer et al, 2011;Meehl et al, 2011;Trenberth and Fasullo, 2010). In particular, GSSL from in-situ data remains a considerable challenge, as long-term trend estimations of global quantities are very sensitive to any sensor drift or systematic instrumental bias.…”

Section: Global Ocean Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The CORA dataset: validation and diagnostics of in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measurements

et al. 2013

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Abstract. The French program Coriolis, as part of the French operational oceanographic system, produces the COriolis dataset for Re-Analysis (CORA) on a yearly basis. This dataset contains in-situ temperature and salinity profiles from different data types. The latest release CORA3 covers the period 1990 to 2010. Several tests have been developed to ensure a homogeneous quality control of the dataset and to meet the requirements of the physical ocean reanalysis activities (assimilation and validation). Improved tests include some simple tests based on comparison with climatology and a model background check based on a global ocean reanalysis. Visual quality control is performed on all suspicious temperature and salinity profiles identified by the tests, and quality flags are modified in the dataset if necessary. In addition, improved diagnostic tools have been developed -including global ocean indicators -which give information on the quality of the CORA3 dataset and its potential applications. CORA3 is available on request through the MyOcean Service Desk (http://www.myocean.eu/).

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Section: Global Ocean Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The CORA dataset: validation and diagnostics of in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measurements

et al. 2013

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“…Although the most recent decade is the warmest since 1850 1 , this does not mean there is no pause as some have suggested 27 . To overcome these communication challenges, some have discussed the overall energy budget of the Earth, which has been suggested as a more robust indicator of climate change than surface temperature alone 28,29 . However, surface warming impacts people directly, is readily understood by the public, and is also the canonical example of climate change which has been iconic for many years.…”

Section: Communicating the Possibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pause for thought

2014

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The recent slowdown (or 'pause') in global surface temperature rise is a hot topic for climate scientists and the wider public. We discuss how climate scientists have tried to communicate the pause and suggest that 'many-to-many' communication offers a key opportunity to directly engage the public on important science issues.Since the late-1990s, global mean surface temperature increased more slowly than during the preceding period. The reasons for this 'pause' have been actively debated by the climate science community 1,2,3,4 . The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report (AR5) concluded in their Summary for Policymakers (SPM) that this slowdown "is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from natural internal variability" 1 .Discussion of the pause, while a relatively small part of the IPCC report, was prominent in the mainstream media reporting 5 at the release of the AR5 WG1 SPM, much of which accurately reflected the views of scientists, while some were less aligned with IPCC conclusions. This media attention was perhaps predictable, given a long-term sceptical narrative around the pause which can be traced back to at least 2006 6 . For example, in 2007, New Statesman magazine proclaimed that 'global warming has stopped' 7 , starting a pervasive trend in some parts of the media (especially in the UK) to prominently highlight the slowdown and suggest that climate models are 'running too hot' 8 or that climate sensitivity is on 'negative watch' 9 .These media articles raise questions about the public communication embarked on by the climate science community, especially since the 'Climategate' affair of 2009, and highlight the need for climate scientists to accurately convey information of societal relevance to a very wide range of interested parties 10,11 . Did the climate science community do enough in communicating the pause, and how could it do better in future? Communicating the possibilityThe IPCC suggests that the pause is likely due to a combination of factors 1 . Here we mainly focus on the communication of one particular aspect -the role of internal climate variabilitybut the radiative forcing changes are also important.The peer-reviewed literature contains much discussion of unforced decadal fluctuations in global surface temperature and the IPCC discusses internal climate variability extensively in all of their reports. Such variability has been invoked to help explain both the early 20th century warming 12 and the faster warming during the 1980s and 1990s 13 . In addition, projections from global climate models (GCMs) have shown decadal periods of cooling embedded within longerterm warming since they were first developed 14 to the present 15,16 .However, to our knowledge, the possibility that warming might slow due to internal variability was not highlighted by the mainstream media prior to 2006, raising the possibility that climate scientists did not stress enough the importance of such variability. For...

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“…Analysis of climate model simulations has shown substantial vertical re-arrangement of ocean heat and highlighted Carton and Giese (2008) 19. UR025.4 (1989UR025.4 ( -2010 University of Reading 1°/4° NEMO3.2 OI (SLA/T/S/SST) Haines et al (2012) the global ocean's dominant role in Earth's energy budget on annual-to-decadal timescales (Palmer et al 2011;Palmer and McNeall 2014). Through combining the available ocean observations with OGCMs, ORAs may offer new insights into the processes of vertical heat re-arrangement and have also be used to derive estimates of Earth's energy imbalance (Loeb et al 2012;Trenberth et al 2014;Smith et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ocean heat content variability and change in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses

et al. 2015

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regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans where the interannual variability of the ensemble mean exceeds ensemble spread, indicating that OHC variations are well-constrained by the available observations over the period [1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009]. At deeper levels, the ORAs are less well-constrained by observations with the largest differences across the ensemble mostly associated with areas of high eddy kinetic energy, such as the Southern Ocean and boundary current regions. Spatial patterns of OHC change for the period 1997-2009 show good agreement in the upper 300 m and are characterized by a strong dipole pattern in the Pacific Ocean. There is less agreement in the patterns of change at deeper levels, potentially linked to differences in the representation of ocean dynamics, such as water mass formation processes. However, the Atlantic and Southern Oceans Abstract Accurate knowledge of the location and magnitude of ocean heat content (OHC) variability and change is essential for understanding the processes that govern decadal variations in surface temperature, quantifying changes in the planetary energy budget, and developing constraints on the transient climate response to external forcings. We present an overview of the temporal and spatial characteristics of OHC variability and change as represented by an ensemble of dynamical and statistical ocean reanalyses (ORAs). Spatial maps of the 0-300 m layer show large This paper is a contribution to the special issue on Ocean estimation from an ensemble of global ocean reanalyses, consisting of papers from the Ocean Reanalyses Intercomparsion Project (ORAIP), coordinated by CLIVAR-GSOP and GODAE OceanView. The special issue also contains specific studies using single reanalysis systems. The current work emphasizes the need to better observe the deep ocean, both for providing observational constraints for future ocean state estimation efforts and also to develop improved models and data assimilation methods.

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Importance of the deep ocean for estimating decadal changes in Earth's radiation balance

Cited by 97 publications

References 15 publications

The CORA dataset: validation and diagnostics of in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measurements

The CORA dataset: validation and diagnostics of in-situ ocean temperature and salinity measurements

Pause for thought

Ocean heat content variability and change in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses

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