On the Multi-Decadal Oscillation of the Heat Content of the World Ocean

Abstract

Multi-decade rhythmicity is one of the most important features of the dynamics of the modern climate. The rhythm of 1940–1999 was a two-phase structure in which the initial phase (1940–1974) was essentially continental, and the final phase (1975–1999) was relatively wet. The transition of the climate from the continental phase to the humid one in the mid-70s of the twentieth century was “sudden” and recognized as a climate shift. A certain globality and quasi-synchronicity of multi-decade climate changes is realized with the participation of planetary thermodynamic structures both in the ocean and in the atmosphere of two the most important components of the climate system. The presence of a Global atmospheric oscillation was discovered and studied in detail. This paper offers the first attempt to consider the content and features of the planetary multi-decadal oscillation of the heat content of the World Ocean. The analysis of ocean oscillation is based on the results of numerical simulation of the World Ocean water circulation in the period from 1948 to 2007 using the model of the Marchuk Institute of Numerical Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences. The differences in the average water temperature fields in the upper 1200-meter layer, calculated for two opposite phases of the oscillation, revealed the main features of its structure.