scholarly journals Model‐Derived Uncertainties in Deep Ocean Temperature Trends Between 1990 and 2010

2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 1155-1169 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. K. Garry ◽  
E. L. McDonagh ◽  
A. T. Blaker ◽  
C. D. Roberts ◽  
D. G. Desbruyères ◽  
...  
Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 363 (6422) ◽  
pp. 70-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Gebbie ◽  
P. Huybers

Proxy records show that before the onset of modern anthropogenic warming, globally coherent cooling occurred from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age. The long memory of the ocean suggests that these historical surface anomalies are associated with ongoing deep-ocean temperature adjustments. Combining an ocean model with modern and paleoceanographic data leads to a prediction that the deep Pacific is still adjusting to the cooling going into the Little Ice Age, whereas temperature trends in the surface ocean and deep Atlantic reflect modern warming. This prediction is corroborated by temperature changes identified between the HMS Challenger expedition of the 1870s and modern hydrography. The implied heat loss in the deep ocean since 1750 CE offsets one-fourth of the global heat gain in the upper ocean.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Harrison ◽  
Mark Carson

Abstract Subsurface temperature trends in the better-sampled parts of the World Ocean are reported. Where there are sufficient observations for this analysis, there is large spatial variability of 51-yr trends in the upper ocean, with some regions showing cooling in excess of 3°C, and others warming of similar magnitude. Some 95% of the ocean area analyzed has both cooled and warmed over 20-yr subsets of this period. There is much space and time variability of 20-yr running trend estimates, indicating that trends over a decade or two may not be representative of longer-term trends. Results are based on sorting individual observations in World Ocean Database 2001 into 1° × 1° and 2° × 2° bins. Only bins with at least five observations per decade for four of the five decades since 1950 are used. Much of the World Ocean cannot be examined from this perspective. The 51-yr trends significant at the 90% level are given particular attention. Results are presented for depths of 100, 300, and 500 m. The patterns of the 90% significant trends are spatially coherent on scales resolved by the bin size. The vertical structure of the trends is coherent in some regions, but changes sign between the analysis depths in a number of others. It is suggested that additional attention should be given to uncertainty estimates for basin average and World Ocean average thermal trends.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Desbruyères ◽  
Léon Chafik ◽  
Guillaume Maze

<p>The Subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is known for rapid reversals of decadal temperature trends, with ramifications encompassing the large-scale meridional overturning and gyre circulations, Arctic heat and mass balances, or extreme continental weather. Here, we combine datasets derived from sustained ocean observing systems (satellite and in situ), and idealized observation-based modelling (advection-diffusion of a passive tracer) and machine learning technique (ocean profile clustering) to document and explain the most-recent and ongoing cooling-to-warming transition of the SPNA. Following a gradual cooling of the region that was persisting since 2006, a surface-intensified and large-scale warming sharply emerged in 2016 following an ocean circulation shift that enhanced the northeastward penetration of warm and saline waters from the western subtropics. Driving mechanisms and ramification for deep ocean heat uptake will be discussed.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eun-Pa Lim ◽  
Harry H. Hendon ◽  
Pandora Hope ◽  
Christine Chung ◽  
Francois Delage ◽  
...  

AbstractObservational records show that occurrences of the negative polarity of the Southern Annular Mode (low SAM) is significantly linked to El Niño during austral spring and summer, potentially providing long-lead predictability of the SAM and its associated surface climate conditions. In this study, we explore how this linkage may change under a scenario of a continuation of the ocean temperature trends that have been observed over the past 60 years, which are plausibly forced by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. We generated coupled model seasonal forecasts for three recent extreme El Niño events by initialising the forecasts with observed ocean anomalies of 1 September 1982, 1997 and 2015 added into (1) the current ocean mean state and into (2) the ocean mean state updated to include double the recent ocean temperature trends. We show that the strength of extreme El Niño is reduced with the warmer ocean mean state as a result of reduced thermocline feedback and weakened rainfall-wind-sea surface temperature coupling over the tropical eastern Pacific. The El Niño-low SAM relationship also weakens, implying the possibility of reduced long-lead predictability of the SAM and associated surface climate impacts in the future.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (17) ◽  
pp. 4498-4513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achim Stössel

Abstract The quality of Southern Ocean sea ice simulations in a global ocean general circulation model (GCM) depends decisively on the simulated upper-ocean temperature. This is confirmed by assimilating satellite-derived sea ice concentration to constrain the upper-layer temperature of a sea ice–ocean GCM. The resolution of the model’s sea ice component is about 22 km and thus comparable to the pixel resolution of the satellite data. The ocean component is coarse resolution to afford long-term integrations for investigations of the deep-ocean equilibrium response. Besides improving the sea ice simulation considerably, the simulations with constrained upper-ocean temperature yield much more realistic global deep-ocean properties, in particular when combined with glacial freshwater input. Both outcomes are relatively insensitive to the passive-microwave algorithm used to retrieve the ice concentration being assimilated. The sensitivity of the long-term global deep-ocean properties and circulation to the possible freshwater input from ice shelves and to the parameterization of vertical mixing in the Southern Ocean is reevaluated under the new constraint.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (11) ◽  
pp. 2199-2210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Uchida ◽  
Toshiya Nakano ◽  
Jun Tamba ◽  
Januarius V. Widiatmo ◽  
Kazuaki Yamazawa ◽  
...  

AbstractThe uncertainty of deep ocean temperature (~1°C) measurement was evaluated. The time drifts of six deep ocean standards thermometers were examined based on laboratory calibrations as performed by the manufacturer in triple point of water (TPW) cells and gallium-melting-point (GaMP) cells. The time drifts ranged from −0.11 to 0.14 mK yr−1. Three of the six thermometers were evaluated at the National Metrology Institute of Japan in five TPW cells and a GaMP cell, and the temperature readings agreed with the realized temperature of the national standard cells of Japan within ±0.14 and ±0.41 mK for TPW and GaMP, respectively. The pressure sensitivities of the deep ocean standards thermometers were estimated by comparison with conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) thermometers in the deep ocean, and no notable difference was detected. Pressure sensitivities of the two CTD thermometers were examined by laboratory tests, and the results suggest that the deep ocean standards thermometers have no pressure sensitivity, at least up to 65 MPa. The position and attitude motion of the CTD system can affect temperature and salinity data quality. The overall expanded uncertainty of the deep ocean temperature measurement (up to 65 MPa) by the CTD thermometer calibrated in reference to the deep ocean standards thermometer is estimated to be 0.7 mK.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 2259-2268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Carson ◽  
D. E. Harrison

Abstract There is great interest in World Ocean temperature trends, yet the historical global ocean database has very uneven coverage in space and time. Previous work on 50-yr upper ocean temperature trends from the NOAA ocean data archive is extended here. Trends at depths from 50 to 1000 m are examined, based on observations gridded over larger regions than in the earlier study. Despite the use of larger grid boxes, most of the ocean does not have significant 50-yr trends at the 90% confidence level (CL). In fact only 30% of the ocean at 50 m has 90% CL trends, and the percentage decreases significantly with increasing depth. As noted in the previous study, there is much spatial structure in 50-yr trends, with areas of strong warming and strong cooling. These trend results are compared with trends calculated from data interpolated to standard levels and from a highly horizontally interpolated version of the dataset that has been used in previous heat content trend studies. The regional trend results can differ substantially, even in the areas with statistically significant trends. Trends based on the more interpolated analyses show more warming. Together with major temporal and spatial sampling limitations, the previously described strong interdecadal and spatial variability of trends makes it very difficult to formally estimate uncertainty in World Ocean averages, but these results suggest that upper ocean heat content integrals and integral trends may be substantially more uncertain than has yet been acknowledged. Further exploration of uncertainties is needed.


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