Global reconstruction of historical ocean heat storage and transport.
Earth’s energy imbalance
climate change
ocean heat content
ocean processes
sea-level rise
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN: 1091-6490
Titre abrégé: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 7505876
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
22 01 2019
22 01 2019
Historique:
pubmed:
9
1
2019
medline:
9
1
2019
entrez:
9
1
2019
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Most of the excess energy stored in the climate system due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has been taken up by the oceans, leading to thermal expansion and sea-level rise. The oceans thus have an important role in the Earth's energy imbalance. Observational constraints on future anthropogenic warming critically depend on accurate estimates of past ocean heat content (OHC) change. We present a reconstruction of OHC since 1871, with global coverage of the full ocean depth. Our estimates combine timeseries of observed sea surface temperatures with much longer historical coverage than those in the ocean interior together with a representation (a Green's function) of time-independent ocean transport processes. For 1955-2017, our estimates are comparable with direct estimates made by infilling the available 3D time-dependent ocean temperature observations. We find that the global ocean absorbed heat during this period at a rate of 0.30 ± 0.06 W/[Formula: see text] in the upper 2,000 m and 0.028 ± 0.026 W/[Formula: see text] below 2,000 m, with large decadal fluctuations. The total OHC change since 1871 is estimated at 436 ± 91 [Formula: see text] J, with an increase during 1921-1946 (145 ± 62 [Formula: see text] J) that is as large as during 1990-2015. By comparing with direct estimates, we also infer that, during 1955-2017, up to one-half of the Atlantic Ocean warming and thermosteric sea-level rise at low latitudes to midlatitudes emerged due to heat convergence from changes in ocean transport.
Identifiants
pubmed: 30617081
pii: 1808838115
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1808838115
pmc: PMC6347704
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Langues
eng
Pagination
1126-1131Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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