The influence of warming patterns on passive ocean heat uptake

Newsom, E., Zanna, L., Khatiwala, S. and Gregory, J. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1296-8644 (2020) The influence of warming patterns on passive ocean heat uptake. Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (18). ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1029/2020GL088429

Abstract/Summary

The climate's response to forcing depends on how efficiently heat is absorbed by the ocean. Much, if not most, of this ocean heat uptake results from the passive transport of warm surface waters into the ocean's interior. Here we examine how geographic patterns of surface warming influence the efficiency of this passive heat uptake process. We show that the average pattern of surface warming in CMIP5 damps passive ocean heat uptake efficiency by nearly 25%, as compared to homogeneous surface warming. This “pattern effect” occurs because strong ventilation and weak surface warming are robustly colocated, particularly in the Southern Ocean. However, variations in warming patterns across CMIP5 do not drive significant ensemble spread in passive ocean heat uptake efficiency. This spread is likely linked to intermodel differences in ocean circulation, which our idealized results suggest may be dominated by differences in Southern Ocean and subtropical ventilation processes.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/92413
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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