Quantifying Spread in Spatiotemporal Changes of Upper-Ocean Heat Content Estimates: An Internationally Coordinated Comparison

Savita, Abhishek; Domingues, Catia M.; Boyer, Tim; Gouretski, Viktor; Ishii, Masayoshi; Johnson, Gregory C.; Lyman, John M.; Willis, Josh; Marsland, Simon J.; Hobbs, Will; Church, John A.; Monselesan, Didier; Dobrohotoff, Peter; Cowley, Rebecca; Wijffels, Susan

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-20-0603.1

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 103 publications

(230 reference statements)

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“…Currently, ~3,900 profiling floats constitute the array, providing a system to make near-global measurements of the Earth's open ocean 36 , with a target resolution of one profile every 3° × 3° every 10 days. However, the Argo data are much more limited in polar areas, shallow and coastal regions, in some major current systems, including the Indonesian throughflow (ITF), and in the water column below 2,000 m. Because the Argo network has incomplete global coverage, the global upper-2,000-m OHC rates based on Argo-only products can underestimate the rate of change by 10-20% [37][38][39] . Deep Argo has been developed to better capture measurements at 4,000-6,000 dbar (rEF.…”

Section: Observing and Estimating Ohcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and future ocean warming

Cheng

Schuckmann

Abraham

et al. 2022

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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Increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations cause a positive Earth energy imbalance (EEI), with resulting surplus heat in the climate system increasing ocean heat content (OHC) 1-3 (Fig. 1a, F1). Unprecedented oceanic warming has been observed since at least the 1950s, reaching record values from 2012-2021 (rEFs. 3,4 ). This oceanic warming has been pervasive, spreading from the surface to the abyssal layers (each responding differently; Box 1), and with the long-term oHC trend accelerating [5][6][7][8] .Owing to the large thermal inertia of the ocean, subsurface warming represents the slow response to external influences, in particular to GHG forcing (Box 1). In response to past and current carbon emissions, future ocean warming is therefore committed for many centuries 5,9 , and is related to the current acceleration of ocean warming 10 (Fig. 1a). For instance, under representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5, it is projected that the total upper-2,000-m OHC increase from 2017-2100 will be ~5-7 times that observed from 1970 to 2017 (rEF. 6 ). The irreversibility of this ocean warming on centennial timescales creates additional requirements for climate policy, particularly considering the widespread impacts 10,11 .Indeed, ocean warming has a multifaceted role in the Earth system via its links to the energy, water and carbon

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Section: Observing and Estimating Ohcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and future ocean warming

Cheng

Schuckmann

Abraham

et al. 2022

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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“…However, the OLS regression does not consider the uncertainty associated with the variable for which we aim to estimate the trend, which is why some studies use other methods such as the Weighted Least Square (WLS) regression (e.g., ref. 36,[64][65][66] ). In this study, we consider these types of regressions together, with the aim of choosing the most suitable method for our case study in terms of approximating uncertainties and trends.…”

Section: Linear Least Squares Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades

Minière

Schuckmann

Sallée

2023

Preprint

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Global heating of the Earth system is unequivocal. However, detecting an acceleration of Earth heating has remained elusive to date, despite suggestive evidence of a potential increase in heating rates. In this study, we demonstrate that since 1960, the warming of the world ocean has accelerated at a relatively consistent pace of 0.15±0.02 W/m2/decade, while the land, cryosphere, and atmosphere have exhibited an acceleration pace of 0.013±0.002 W/m2/decade. This has led to a substantial increase in ocean warming, with a magnitude of 0.82±0.47 W/m2 between the decades 1960-1970 and 2010-2020, which overlays significant decadal-scale variability in ocean warming of up to 0.6 W/m2. Our findings withstand a wide range of sensitivity analyses and are consistent across different observation-based datasets. The long-term acceleration of Earth warming aligns qualitatively with the rise in CO2 concentrations and the decline in aerosol concentration during the same period, but further investigations are necessary to properly attribute these changes.

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“…Consequently, each research group must make important assumptions regarding data quality control, data correction, and strategies for filling spatio-temporal gaps. These assumptions collectively contribute to the uncertainty associated with the reconstruction of the GOHC [36][37][38] . Unfortunately, producers do not always provide the GOHC uncertainty associated with their methodological choices (see Table S2), commonly referred to as internal GOHC uncertainty 39 .…”

Section: Heat Content Rate Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades

Minière,

von Schuckmann,

Sallée

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Global heating of the Earth system is unequivocal. However, detecting an acceleration of Earth heating has remained elusive to date, despite suggestive evidence of a potential increase in heating rates. In this study, we demonstrate that since 1960, the warming of the world ocean has accelerated at a relatively consistent pace of 0.15 ± 0.05 (W/m2)/decade, while the land, cryosphere, and atmosphere have exhibited an accelerated pace of 0.013 ± 0.003 (W/m2)/decade. This has led to a substantial increase in ocean warming, with a magnitude of 0.91 ± 0.80 W/m2 between the decades 1960–1970 and 2010–2020, which overlies substantial decadal-scale variability in ocean warming of up to 0.6 W/m2. Our findings withstand a wide range of sensitivity analyses and are consistent across different observation-based datasets. The long-term acceleration of Earth warming aligns qualitatively with the rise in CO2 concentrations and the decline in aerosol concentration during the same period, but further investigations are necessary to properly attribute these changes.

show abstract

Quantifying Spread in Spatiotemporal Changes of Upper-Ocean Heat Content Estimates: An Internationally Coordinated Comparison

Cited by 8 publications

References 103 publications

Past and future ocean warming

Past and future ocean warming

Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades

Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades

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