scholarly journals Contribution of ocean physics and dynamics at different scales to heat uptake in low-resolution AOGCMs

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-62
Author(s):  
Oleg A. Saenko ◽  
Jonathan M. Gregory ◽  
Stephen M. Griffies ◽  
Matthew P. Couldrey ◽  
Fabio Boeira Dias
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Upper Ocean ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Heat Uptake

AbstractUsing an ensemble of atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) in an idealized climate change experiment, this study quantifies the contributions to ocean heat uptake (OHU) from ocean physical parameterizations and resolved dynamical processes operating at different scales. Analysis of heat budget diagnostics reveals a leading-order global heat balance in the sub-surface upper ocean in a steady state between the large-scale circulation warming it and mesoscale processes cooling it, and shows that there are positive contributions from processes on all scales to the subsurface OHU during climate change. There is better agreement among the AOGCMs in the net OHU than in the individual scales/processes contributing to it. In the upper ocean and at high latitudes, OHU is dominated by small-scale diapycnal processes. Below 400 m, OHU is dominated by the super-residual transport, representing large-scale ocean dynamics combined with all parameterized mesoscale and submesoscale eddy effects. Weakening of the AMOC leads to less heat convergence in the subpolar North Atlantic and less heat divergence at lower latitudes, with a small overall effect on the net Atlantic heat content. At low latitudes, the dominance of advective heat redistribution is contrary to the diffusive OHU mechanism assumed by the commonly used upwelling-diffusion model. Using a density watermass framework, it is found that most of the OHU occurs along isopycnal directions. This feature of OHU is used to accurately reconstruct the global vertical ocean warming profile from the surface heat flux anomalies, supporting advective (rather than diffusive) models of OHU and sea-level rise.

scholarly journals High frequency fluctuations in the heat content of an ocean general circulation model

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-61
Author(s):  
A. M. Huerta-Casas ◽  
D. J. Webb
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean General Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Model Studies

Abstract. The transport and storage of heat by the ocean is of crucial importance because of its effect on ocean dynamics and its impact on the atmosphere, climate and climate change. Unfortunately, limits to the amount of data that can be collected and stored means that many experimental and modelling studies of the heat budget have to make use of mean datasets where the effects of short term fluctuations are lost. In this paper we investigate the magnitude of the resulting errors making use of data from OCCAM, a high resolution global ocean model. The model carries out a proper heat balance every timestep so any imbalances that are found in the analysis must result from the use of mean fields. The study concentrates on two areas of the ocean affecting the El Nino. The first is the region of tropical instability waves north of the equator. The second is in the upwelling region along the equator. It is shown that in both cases, processes with a period of less than five days can have a significant impact on the heat budget. Thus analyses using data averaged over five days or more are likely to have significant errors. It is also shown that if a series of instantaneous values is available, reasonable estimates can be made of the size of the errors. In model studies such values are available in the form of the datasets used to restart the model. In experimental studies they may be in the form of individual unaveraged observations.

PDO-Related Heat and Temperature Budget Changes in a Model of the North Pacific

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2092-2108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan T. Dawe ◽  
Lu Anne Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flux ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Upper Ocean ◽  
The North ◽  
Atmospheric Heat ◽  
The Kuroshio ◽  
The North Pacific

Abstract Heat and temperature budget changes in a ⅓° model of the North Pacific driven by an idealized Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) atmospheric forcing are diagnosed to determine the roles of atmospheric heat flux and ocean dynamics in upper-ocean heat content and mixed layer temperature (MLT) changes. Changes in MLT and heat content during the transition between negative and positive PDOs are driven primarily by atmospheric heat fluxes, with contributions from ageostrophic advection and entrainment. Once the new PDO state is established, atmospheric heat flux in the central North Pacific works to mitigate the MLT change while vertical entrainment and ageostrophic advection act to enhance it. Upper-ocean heat content is affected in a similar matter, except that vertical processes are not important in the heat budget balance. At the same time, changes in wind stress curl cause the subtropical gyre to spin up and the subpolar gyre boundary to migrate southward. These circulation changes cause a large increase in the geostrophic advective heat flux in the Kuroshio region. This increase results in more heat flux to the atmosphere, demonstrating an active role for ocean dynamics in the upper-ocean heat budget. Eddy heat flux divergence along the Kuroshio Extension doubles after the transition, due to stronger eddy activity related to increased Kuroshio transport.

Mechanisms of Southern Ocean Heat Uptake and Transport in a Global Eddying Climate Model

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 2059-2075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adele K. Morrison ◽  
Stephen M. Griffies ◽  
Michael Winton ◽  
Whit G. Anderson ◽  
Jorge L. Sarmiento
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Heat Transport ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
The North ◽  
Heat Uptake ◽  
Mixed Layers

Abstract The Southern Ocean plays a dominant role in anthropogenic oceanic heat uptake. Strong northward transport of the heat content anomaly limits warming of the sea surface temperature in the uptake region and allows the heat uptake to be sustained. Using an eddy-rich global climate model, the processes controlling the northward transport and convergence of the heat anomaly in the midlatitude Southern Ocean are investigated in an idealized 1% yr−1 increasing CO2 simulation. Heat budget analyses reveal that different processes dominate to the north and south of the main convergence region. The heat transport northward from the uptake region in the south is driven primarily by passive advection of the heat content anomaly by the existing time mean circulation, with a smaller 20% contribution from enhanced upwelling. The heat anomaly converges in the midlatitude deep mixed layers because there is not a corresponding increase in the mean heat transport out of the deep mixed layers northward into the mode waters. To the north of the deep mixed layers, eddy processes drive the warming and account for nearly 80% of the northward heat transport anomaly. The eddy transport mechanism results from a reduction in both the diffusive and advective southward eddy heat transports, driven by decreasing isopycnal slopes and decreasing along-isopycnal temperature gradients on the northern edge of the peak warming.

scholarly journals High frequency fluctuations in the heat content of an ocean general circulation model

Ocean Science ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 813-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Huerta-Casas ◽  
D. J. Webb
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean General Circulation Model ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Time Step

Abstract. The transport and storage of heat by the ocean is of crucial importance because of its effect on ocean dynamics and its impact on the atmosphere, climate and climate change. Unfortunately, limits to the amount of data that can be collected and stored mean that many experimental and modelling studies of the heat budget have to make use of mean datasets where the effects of short term fluctuations are lost. In this paper we investigate the magnitude of the resulting errors by making use of data from OCCAM, a high resolution global ocean model. The model carries out a proper heat balance every time step so any imbalances that are found in the analysis must result from the use of mean fields. The study concentrates on two areas of the ocean affecting the El Nino. The first is the region of tropical instability waves north of the Equator. The second is in the upwelling region along the Equator. It is shown that in both cases, processes with a period of less than five days can have a significant impact on the heat budget. Thus, analyses using data averaged over five days or more are likely to have significant errors. It is also shown that if a series of instantaneous values is available, reasonable estimates can be made of the size of the errors. In model studies, such values are available in the form of the datasets used to restart the model. In experimental studies they may be in the form of individual unaveraged observations.

Intercomparison of anthropogenic ocean heat uptake processes in AOGCMs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Couldrey ◽  
Jonathan Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Shear Instability ◽  
Convection Boundary Layer ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Heat Uptake

<p>Thermosteric sea level change, resulting from ocean heat uptake, is a key component of recent and future sea level rise. The various atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) used to predict future climate produce diverse spatial patterns of future thermosteric sea level rise. Most of this model spread occurs because the representation of ocean circulation and heat transport is different across models. These effects can be analysed through new simulations carried out as part of the Flux Anomaly Forced Intercomparison Project (FAFMIP), in which the exchanges of heat and salt are attributed to specific ocean circulation processes, namely the vertical dianeutral processes (convection, boundary layer mixing, shear instability mixing etc), isopycnal diffusion and residual-mean advection. Here, we present an intercomparison of ocean heat content change in FAFMIP experiments from a water-mass following perspective, to distinguish oceanic heat redistribution and uptake. We find that the redistribution of heat is a key difference across AOGCMs.</p>

Estimating Global Ocean Heat Content Changes in the Upper 1800 m since 1950 and the Influence of Climatology Choice*

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 1945-1957 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Lyman ◽  
Gregory C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Heat Content ◽  
Ocean Heat Content ◽  
Global Ocean ◽  
Ocean Temperature ◽  
Vertical Separation ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Expendable Bathythermograph ◽  
Heat Uptake ◽  
The Mean

Abstract Ocean heat content anomalies are analyzed from 1950 to 2011 in five distinct depth layers (0–100, 100–300, 300–700, 700–900, and 900–1800 m). These layers correspond to historic increases in common maximum sampling depths of ocean temperature measurements with time, as different instruments—mechanical bathythermograph (MBT), shallow expendable bathythermograph (XBT), deep XBT, early sometimes shallower Argo profiling floats, and recent Argo floats capable of worldwide sampling to 2000 m—have come into widespread use. This vertical separation of maps allows computation of annual ocean heat content anomalies and their sampling uncertainties back to 1950 while taking account of in situ sampling advances and changing sampling patterns. The 0–100-m layer is measured over 50% of the globe annually starting in 1956, the 100–300-m layer starting in 1967, the 300–700-m layer starting in 1983, and the deepest two layers considered here starting in 2003 and 2004, during the implementation of Argo. Furthermore, global ocean heat uptake estimates since 1950 depend strongly on assumptions made concerning changes in undersampled or unsampled ocean regions. If unsampled areas are assumed to have zero anomalies and are included in the global integrals, the choice of climatological reference from which anomalies are estimated can strongly influence the global integral values and their trend: the sparser the sampling and the bigger the mean difference between climatological and actual values, the larger the influence.

On the Hyperbolicity of the Bulk Air–Sea Heat Flux Functions: Insights into the Efficiency of Air–Sea Moisture Disequilibrium for Tropical Cyclone Intensification

2021 ◽  
Vol 149 (5) ◽  
pp. 1517-1534
Author(s):  
Benjamin Jaimes de la Cruz ◽  
Lynn K. Shay ◽  
Joshua B. Wadler ◽  
Johna E. Rudzin
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Surface Heat ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Surface Heat Fluxes ◽  
Heat Uptake ◽  
Moisture Fluxes ◽  
New Perspective

AbstractSea-to-air heat fluxes are the energy source for tropical cyclone (TC) development and maintenance. In the bulk aerodynamic formulas, these fluxes are a function of surface wind speed U10 and air–sea temperature and moisture disequilibrium (ΔT and Δq, respectively). Although many studies have explained TC intensification through the mutual dependence between increasing U10 and increasing sea-to-air heat fluxes, recent studies have found that TC intensification can occur through deep convective vortex structures that obtain their local buoyancy from sea-to-air moisture fluxes, even under conditions of relatively low wind. Herein, a new perspective on the bulk aerodynamic formulas is introduced to evaluate the relative contribution of wind-driven (U10) and thermodynamically driven (ΔT and Δq) ocean heat uptake. Previously unnoticed salient properties of these formulas, reported here, are as follows: 1) these functions are hyperbolic and 2) increasing Δq is an efficient mechanism for enhancing the fluxes. This new perspective was used to investigate surface heat fluxes in six TCs during phases of steady-state intensity (SS), slow intensification (SI), and rapid intensification (RI). A capping of wind-driven heat uptake was found during periods of SS, SI, and RI. Compensation by larger values of Δq > 5 g kg−1 at moderate values of U10 led to intense inner-core moisture fluxes of greater than 600 W m−2 during RI. Peak values in Δq preferentially occurred over oceanic regimes with higher sea surface temperature (SST) and upper-ocean heat content. Thus, increasing SST and Δq is a very effective way to increase surface heat fluxes—this can easily be achieved as a TC moves over deeper warm oceanic regimes.

scholarly journals State and Perspectives of the Concept of Large‐Scale Conditioning of Regional Climate Modelling

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans von Storch ◽  
Leone Cavicchia ◽  
Frauke Feser ◽  
Delei Li
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Dynamical Downscaling ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Ocean Dynamics ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Global Models ◽  
Atmospheric Disturbances ◽  
Low Level Jets

We review the state of dynamical downscaling with scale-constrained regional and global models. The methodology, in particular spectral nudging, has become a routine and well-researched tool for hindcasting climatologies of sub-synoptic atmospheric disturbances in coastal regions. At present, the spectrum of applications is expanding to other phenomena, but also to ocean dynamics and to extended forecasting. Also new diagnostic challenges are appearing such as spatial characteristics of small-scale phenomena such as Low Level Jets.

Using a novel combination of autonomous vehicles for air-sea interaction studies: Results from the Eurec4a campaign 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Siddle ◽  
Karen J. Heywood ◽  
Ben Webber ◽  
Peter Bromley
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Heat Budget ◽  
Heat Content ◽  
Flux Measurement ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Upper Ocean ◽  
Momentum Exchange ◽  
Tropical North Atlantic

<div> <p>The Tropical North Atlantic region is a key driver of climate variability and extreme weather events, driven largely by heat and momentum exchanges across the air-sea boundary. Observations of these fluxes by satellites and vessels are limited in their spatial resolution and length of time series respectively. In-situ samples across long time periods are needed, which can be obtained through developing a network of in-situ flux measurement platforms. UEA and AutoNaut have worked to address this challenge with the deployment of <em>Caravela</em> - an AutoNaut uncrewed surface vessel. <em>Caravela</em> is a wave and solar powered autonomous vessel, equipped with meteorological and oceanographic sensors and the ability to transport a Seaglider. <em>Caravela</em> successfully completed its first scientific deployment as part of the Eurec<sup>4</sup>a campaign. </p> </div><div> <p>Eurec<sup>4</sup>a ran from January—March 2020 from Barbados, investigating climate change feedback in the Tropical North Atlantic and the role of cloud systems. <em>Caravela</em> spent 11 days of her 33-day deployment occupying a 10 km square, co-located with other Eurec<sup>4</sup>a platforms to gather in-situ surface data on heat and momentum exchange. Preliminary results from <em>Caravela</em> give us an insight into heat exchange at the surface, downwelling radiation and wind conditions during deployment. There is an identifiable diurnal cycle during the deployment, particularly visible in temperature data, which will feed into our understanding of changes in fluxes at a local scale. Profiling ocean gliders at the study site allow us to determine a time series of upper ocean heat content changes. These data, alongside that collected by other platforms during Eurec<sup>4</sup>a, should enable an upper ocean heat budget to be calculated at <em>Caravela’s</em> study site. </p> </div>

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