Assessing Deep and Abyssal Ocean Heat Content Changes With a Dynamically Consistent Ocean State Estimate
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Yang Zhang↗
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A Prototype for Remote Monitoring of Ocean Heat Content Anomalies
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David S. Trossman↗
Distinctive Pattern of Global Warming in Ocean Heat Content
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Kevin E. Trenberth↗
Impacts of Stratospheric Ozone Recovery on Southern Ocean Temperature and Heat Budget
The impacts of stratospheric ozone recovery on Southern Ocean surface and interior temperature, heat content, heat uptake, and heat transport are investigated by contrasting two ensemble chemistry-climate model simulations in 2005–2099: one with fixed ozone depleting substances (ODSs) and another with decreasing ODSs. In our simulations ozone recovery significantly affects Southern Ocean temperature, with large latitudinal and vertical variations. Ozone recovery causes a dipole change of the full-depth ocean heat content (OHC) with an increase south of 60°S and a decrease between 45°S and 60°S. Integrated over latitudes south of 40°S, OHC decreases in response to ozone recovery. This ocean heat loss is shown to be driven by weakened poleward ocean heat transport (OHT) across 40°S, which is partly canceled by enhanced heat uptake. The weakening of poleward OHT into the Southern Ocean is caused by the ozone-induced equatorward shift of the meridional overturning circulation.
stratospheric ozone↗
Large scale surface heat fluxes
The heat flux through the ocean surface, Q, is the sum of the net radiation at the surface, the latent heat flux into the atmosphere, and the sensible heat flux into the atmosphere (all fluxes positive upwards). A review is presented of the geographical distribution of Q and its constituents, and the current accuracy of measuring Q by ground based measurements (both directly and by 'bulk formulae') is assessed. The relation of Q to changes of oceanic heat content, heat flux, and SST is examined and for each of these processes, the accuracy needed for Q is discussed. The needed accuracy for Q varies from process to process, varies geographically, and varies with the time and space scale considered.
Sarachik, E. S.↗
What Drives Upper-Ocean Temperature Variability in Coupled Climate Models and Observations?
Abstract A key question in climate modeling is to what extent sea surface temperature and upper-ocean heat content are driven passively by air–sea heat fluxes, as opposed to forcing by ocean dynamics. This paper investigates the question using a climate model at different resolutions, and observations, for monthly variability. At the grid scale in a high-resolution climate model with resolved mesoscale ocean eddies, ocean dynamics (i.e., ocean heat flux convergence) dominates upper 50 m heat content variability over most of the globe. For deeper depths of integration to 400 m, the heat content variability at the grid scale is almost totally controlled by ocean heat flux convergence. However, a strong dependence on spatial scale is found—for the upper 50 m of ocean, after smoothing the data to around 7°, air–sea heat fluxes, augmented by Ekman heat transports, dominate. For deeper depths of integration to 400 m, the transition scale becomes larger and is above 10° in western boundary currents. Comparison of climate model results with observations show that the small-scale influence of ocean intrinsic variability is well captured by the high-resolution model but is missing from a comparable model with parameterized ocean-eddy effects. In the deep tropics, ocean dynamics dominates in all cases and all scales. In the subtropical gyres at large scales, air–sea heat fluxes play the biggest role. In the midlatitudes, at large scales >10°, atmosphere-driven air–sea heat fluxes and Ekman heat transport variability are the dominant processes except in the western boundary currents for the 400 m heat content.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
The role of interannual ENSO events in decadal timescale transitions of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
The build-up of decadal timescale upper ocean heat content in the off-equatorial western tropical Pacific can provide necessary conditions for interannual El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events to contribute to decadal timescale transitions of tropical Pacific SSTs to the opposite phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). This can be viewed as a corollary to subseasonal westerly wind burst events contributing to El Niño interannual timescale transitions. In this work, a long pre-industrial control run with CESM1 is analyzed to show that there is a greater chance of ENSO activity to contribute to an IPO transition when off-equatorial western Pacific Ocean heat content reaches either a maximum (for El Niño to contribute to a transition to positive IPO) or minimum (for La Niña to contribute to a transition to negative IPO) as seen in observations. If above a necessary ocean heat content threshold, the convergence associated with westerly anomaly near-equatorial surface winds associated with El Niño activity can draw that heat content equatorward to sustain anomalously warm western and central Pacific SSTs. These are associated with positive precipitation and convective heating anomalies, a Gill-type response and wind stress curl anomalies that continue to feed warm water into the near-equatorial western Pacific. These conditions then sustain the decadal-timescale transition to positive IPO (with the opposite sign for transition to negative IPO). Associated central equatorial Pacific convective heating anomalies produce SLP and wind stress anomalies in the North and South Pacific that can excite westward-propagating off-equatorial oceanic Rossby waves to contribute to the western Pacific thermocline depth and consequent heat content anomalies.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Transportation Energy: A Comparison Including and Excluding Upstream Energy
Thirty-eight editions of the Transportation Energy Data Book (Data Book) have been published since the report began in 1976. It was designed as a desk-top reference of statistics and information that characterize transportation activity. The most recent Data Book, edition 38, has 226 tables and 70 figures in the body of the report, with an additional 51 tables in appendices. One of the most-often used tables in the Data Book is referred to by the authors as “the big energy table.” It has transportation energy use in British thermal units (Btu) by mode and fuel type. The data are compiled from about 20 different sources and combined to create a detailed picture of transportation energy use. From the first edition to edition 35 of the Data Book, electricity use in the big energy table was converted from the original kilowatt-hours (kWh) to Btu using the net generation heat rate for fossil fuels. In those days, electricity was used mainly by transit rail. As electricity began to be used in the highway modes with consumer sales of electric vehicles, that process was revisited. Since energy use in the Data Book’s big energy table for all other fuels did not include the upstream energy to create the fuel, it seemed inconsistent to include upstream energy for generation of electricity. Beginning with edition 36, electricity use for the big energy table was converted from kilowatt hours to Btu using the heat content of electricity. Using heat content instead of net generation reduced electricity use data by about two-thirds. Feedback in recent years on the change in process for electricity led to an investigation of the differences in transportation energy use when adding estimates of upstream energy use to all the fuels used in transportation. This report documents the result of that effort.
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
Probe measures characteristics of hot gas stream
Shielded, tubular flow calorimeter operated by valve position measures characteristics of a hot gas stream of unknown composition. Measurements of mass flow density and total heat content per unit mass, total heat content per unit mass only, and pitot pressure are made.
Source record↗
A model El Nino-Southern Oscillation
A coupled atmosphere-ocean model is developed and used to study the ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation) phenomenon. With no anomalous external forcing, the coupled model reproduces certain key features of the observed phenomenon, including the recurrence of warm events at irregular intervals with a preference for three to four years. It is shown that the mean sea surface temperature, wind and ocean current fields determine the characteristic spatial structure of ENSO anomalies. The tendency for phase-locking of anomalies is explained in terms of a variation in coupling strength associated with the annual cycle in the mean fields. Sensitivity studies reveal that both the amplitude and the time scale of the oscillation are sensitive to several parameters that affect the strength of the atmosphere-ocean coupling. Stronger coupling implies larger oscillations with a longer timescale. A critical element of the model oscillation is the variability in the equatorial heat content of the upper ocean. Equatorial heat content increases prior to warm events and decreases sharply during the events. A theory for this variability and the associated transitions between non-El Nino and El Nino states is presented. Implications of the model results for the prediction of El Nino events are discussed.
Zebiak, Stephen E.↗
Decadal Prediction Skill in the GEOS-5 Forecast System
A suite of decadal predictions has been conducted with the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office's (GMAO's) GEOS-5 Atmosphere-Ocean general circulation model. The hind casts are initialized every December 1st from 1959 to 2010, following the CMIP5 experimental protocol for decadal predictions. The initial conditions are from a multivariate ensemble optimal interpolation ocean and sea-ice reanalysis, and from GMAO's atmospheric reanalysis, the modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications. The mean forecast skill of a three-member-ensemble is compared to that of an experiment without initialization but also forced with observed greenhouse gases. The results show that initialization increases the forecast skill of North Atlantic sea surface temperature compared to the uninitialized runs, with the increase in skill maintained for almost a decade over the subtropical and mid-latitude Atlantic. On the other hand, the initialization reduces the skill in predicting the warming trend over some regions outside the Atlantic. The annual-mean Atlantic meridional overturning circulation index, which is defined here as the maximum of the zonally-integrated overturning stream function at mid-latitude, is predictable up to a 4-year lead time, consistent with the predictable signal in upper ocean heat content over the North Atlantic. While the 6- to 9-year forecast skill measured by mean squared skill score shows 50 percent improvement in the upper ocean heat content over the subtropical and mid-latitude Atlantic, prediction skill is relatively low in the sub-polar gyre. This low skill is due in part to features in the spatial pattern of the dominant simulated decadal mode in upper ocean heat content over this region that differ from observations. An analysis of the large-scale temperature budget shows that this is the result of a model bias, implying that realistic simulation of the climatological fields is crucial for skillful decadal forecasts.
Decadal Prediction↗
Warming of the Global Ocean: Spatial Structure and Water-Mass Trends
This study investigates the multidecadal warming and interannual-to-decadal heat content changes in the upper ocean (0-700 m), focusing on vertical and horizontal patterns of variability. These results support a nearly monotonic warming over much of the World Ocean, with a shift toward Southern Hemisphere warming during the well-observed past decade. This is based on objectively analyzed gridded observational datasets and on a modeled state estimate. Besides the surface warming, a warming climate also has a subsurface effect manifesting as a strong deepening of the midthermocline isopycnals, which can be diagnosed directly from hydrographic data. This deepening appears to be a result of heat entering via subduction and spreading laterally from the high-latitude ventilation regions of subtropical mode waters. The basin-average multidecadal warming mainly expands the subtropical mode water volume, with weak changes in the temperature-salinity (u-S) relationship (known as ''spice'' variability). However, the spice contribution to the heat content can be locally large, for example in Southern Hemisphere. Multidecadal isopycnal sinking has been strongest over the southern basins and weaker elsewhere with the exception of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current/subtropical recirculation gyre. At interannual to decadal time scales, wind-driven sinking and shoaling of density surfaces still dominate ocean heat content changes, while the contribution from temperature changes along density surfaces tends to decrease as time scales shorten.
Global Ocean↗
On a simplified solution of climate-carbon dynamics in idealized flat10MIP simulations
Abstract. Idealized experiments with coupled climate-carbon Earth system models (ESMs) provide a basis for understanding the response of the carbon cycle to external forcing and for quantifying climate-carbon feedbacks. Here, we analyze globally-averaged results from idealized esm-flat10 experiments and show that most models exhibit a quasi-linear relationship between cumulative carbon uptake on land and in the ocean during a period of constant fossil fuel emissions of 10 Pg C yr−1. We hypothesize that this relationship does not depend on emission pathways. Further, as a simplification, we quantify the relationship between cumulative ocean carbon uptake and changes in ocean heat content using a linear approximation. In this way, changes in oceanic heat content and atmospheric CO2 concentration become interdependent variables, reducing the coupled temperature-CO2 system to just one differential equation. The equation can be solved analytically or numerically for the atmospheric CO2 concentration as a function of fossil fuel emissions. This approach leads to a simplified description of global carbon and climate dynamics, which could be used for applications beyond existing analytical frameworks.
Brovkin, Victor↗
Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean
We observe a net loss of 3.2 (+/- 1.1) x 1022 J of heat from the upper ocean between 2003 and 2005. Using a broad array of in situ ocean measurements, we present annual estimates of global upper-ocean heat content anomaly from 1993 through 2005. Including the recent downturn, the average warming rate for the entire 13-year period is 0.33 +/- 0.23 W/m2 (of the Earth's total surface area). A new estimate of sampling error in the heat content record suggests that both the recent and previous global cooling events are significant and unlikely to be artifacts of inadequate ocean sampling.
global cooling↗
Prospects for altimetry and scatterometry in the 90's
Current NASA plans for altimetry and scatterometry of the oceans using spaceborne instrumentation are outlined. The data of interest covers geostrophic and wind-driven circulation, heat content, the horizontal heat flux of the ocean, and the interactions between atmosphere and ocean and ocean and climate. A proposed TOPEX satellite is to be launched in 1991, carrying a radar altimeter to measure the ocean surface topography. Employing dual-wavelength operation would furnish ionospheric correction data. Multibeam instruments could also be flown on the multiple-instrument polar orbiting platforms comprising the Earth Observation System. A microwave radar scatterometer, which functions on the basis of Bragg scattering of microwave energy off of wavelets, would operate at various view angles and furnish wind speeds accurate to 1.5 m/sec and directions accurate to 20 deg.
Townsend, W. F.↗
Southern Ocean Heat Storage, Reemergence, and Winter Sea Ice Decline Induced by Summertime Winds
The observational record shows a substantial 40-yr upward trend in summertime westerly winds over the Southern Ocean, as characterized by the southern annular mode (SAM) index. Enhanced summertime westerly winds have been linked to cold summertime sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Previous studies have suggested that Ekman transport or upwelling is responsible for this seasonal cooling. Here, another process is presented in which enhanced vertical mixing, driven by summertime wind anomalies, moves heat downward, cooling the sea surface and simultaneously warming the subsurface waters. The anomalously cold SSTs draw heat from the atmosphere into the ocean, leading to increased depth-integrated ocean heat content. The subsurface heat is returned to the surface mixed layer during the autumn and winter as the mixed layer deepens, leading to anomalously warm SSTs and potentially reducing sea ice cover. Observational analyses and numerical experiments support our proposed mechanism, showing that enhanced vertical mixing produces subsurface warming and cools the surface mixed layer. Nevertheless, the dominant driver of surface cooling remains uncertain; the relative importance of advective and mixing contributions to the surface cooling is model dependent. Modeling results suggest that sea ice volume is more sensitive to summertime winds than sea ice extent, implying that enhanced summertime westerly winds may lead to thinner sea ice in the following winter, if not lesser ice extent. Thus, strong summertime winds could precondition the sea ice cover for a rapid retreat in the following melt season.
Southern Ocean↗
Whole planet cooling and the radiogenic heat source contents of the earth and moon
Thermal evolution models based on subsolidus whole mantle convection which indicate that the surface heat flows of the earth and the moon do not necessarily provide good measures of the total amounts of radioactives in these bodies have been constructed. These models assume an initially hot state, but with a wide variety of choices for the parameters characterizing the rheology and convective vigor. All models are constrained to be consistent with present-day surface heat fluxes, and many of the terrestrial models are consistent with the mantle viscosities indicated by postglacial rebound. In the lunar models, heat generation is typically only 70-80% of the surface heat flow, even with allowance for the strong near-surface enhancement of radioactives. Despite the simplicity of these models, the persistence of a significant difference between heat generation and heat output indicates that this difference is real and should be incorporated in geochemical modeling of planets.
Schubert, G.↗
Enhanced predictability of Eastern North Pacific Tropical cyclone activity using the ENSO Longitude Index
Past studies have indicated that El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) plays a major role in the interannual variability of Eastern Pacific hurricane activity. The primary mechanism being the eastward displacement of the warm pool during an El Nino, which carries warm water into that basin thereby creating favorable oceanic conditions. Despite this, the question of whether an accurate knowledge of ENSO enhances seasonal predictabiity of Eastern Pacific hurricanes has not been addressed specifically. In this study, we show that unlike traditional indices of ENSO, the ENSO Longitude Index (ELI) is able to predict Eastern Pacific hurricane activity at significant lead times. By capturing changes in the location of deep convection and associated thermocline processes more accurately, ELI explains the most variability in the upper-ocean heat content in the main development region of the Eastern Pacific basin compared to other ENSO indices. These results have substantial implications for operational seasonal forecasts of Eastern Pacific hurricanes.
Balaguru, Karthik↗