Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006

Roemmich, Dean; Church, John A.; Gilson, John; Monselesan, Didier; Sutton, Philip; Wijffels, Susan E.

doi:10.1038/nclimate2513

Cited by 434 publications

(491 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…1-from [72]). As expected, the global warming rate shows its strongest magnitude in the first few hundred meters of the water column and the interannual variability above 500 m shows pronounced changes that control the global temperature variations at the air-sea interface [60]. Those upper OHC changes reflects in large part the ElNiño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its influence on the horizontal tilt of the equatorial thermocline in the Pacific.…”

Section: The Unabated Heating Of the Upper Ocean The Global Picture Dsupporting

confidence: 52%

Observational Advances in Estimates of Oceanic Heating

Desbruyères

McDonagh

King

2016

Curr Clim Change Rep

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Since the early twenty-first century, improvements in understanding climate variability resulted from the growth of the ocean observing system. The potential for a closure of the Earth's energy budget has emerged with the unprecedented coverage of Argo profiling floats, which now provide a decade (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) of invaluable information on ocean heat content changes above 2000 m. The expertise gained from Argo and repeat hydrography sections motivated the extension of the array toward the ocean bottom, which will progressively reveal the poorly known deep ocean and reduce the uncertainty of its presumed 10-15 % contribution to the 2006-2015 global ocean warming trend of 0.65-0.80 W m −2 . The sustainability and synergy of various observing systems helped to corroborate numerical models and decipher the internal variability of distinct ocean basins. Due to unique observations of the circulation in the North Atlantic, particular attention is paid to heat content changes and their relationship to dynamic variability in that region.

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Section: The Unabated Heating Of the Upper Ocean The Global Picture Dsupporting

confidence: 52%

Observational Advances in Estimates of Oceanic Heating

Desbruyères

McDonagh

King

2016

Curr Clim Change Rep

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“…This larger ratio raises concern about the use of the model results for adjusting the observational estimates, as suggested by Durack et al [61]. One of the mapping techniques used in Roemmich et al [63] also directly addressed the mapping deficiencies in the tropical Asian archipelago identified in von Schuckmann et al [58] [64] demonstrated agreement between regional ocean-mass trends determined from GRACE data and the difference between altimeter sea level observations and ocean steric sea level change.…”

Section: Sea Level Contributions Steric Sea Level Changementioning

confidence: 97%

“…In contrast, the observational estimates ranged from about 35 [62] to about 50 % [49], suggesting that historical ocean heat content estimates may be biased low by various amounts because of lack of data in the Southern Hemisphere. Based on Argo data from 2006 to 2014, Roemmich et al [63] found an even larger ratio of Southern to Northern Hemisphere ocean heat uptake (67 to 98 %) possibly as a result of greater negative aerosol forcing in the Northern Hemisphere and/or ocean heat uptake processes. This larger ratio raises concern about the use of the model results for adjusting the observational estimates, as suggested by Durack et al [61].…”

Section: Sea Level Contributions Steric Sea Level Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Clark

Church

Gregory

et al. 2015

Curr Clim Change Rep

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Considerable progress has been made in understanding the present and future regional and global sea level in the 2 years since the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here, we evaluate how the new results affect the AR5's assessment of (i) historical sea level rise, including attribution of that rise and implications for the sea level budget, (ii) projections of the components and of total global mean sea level (GMSL), and (iii) projections of regional variability and emergence of the anthropogenic signal. In each of these cases, new work largely provides additional evidence in support of the AR5 assessment, providing greater confidence in those findings. Recent analyses confirm the twentieth century sea level rise, with some analyses showing a slightly smaller rate before 1990 and some a slightly larger value than reported in the AR5. There is now more evidence of an acceleration in the rate of rise. Ongoing ocean heat uptake and associated thermal expansion have continued since 2000, and are consistent with ocean thermal expansion reported in the AR5. A significant amount of heat is being stored deeper in the water column, with a larger rate of heat uptake since 2000 compared to the previous decades and with the largest storage in the Southern Ocean. The first formal detection studies for ocean thermal expansion and glacier mass loss since the AR5 have confirmed the AR5 finding of a significant anthropogenic contribution to sea level rise over the last 50 years. New projections of glacier loss from two regions suggest smaller contributions to GMSL rise from these regions than in studies assessed by the AR5; additional regional studies are required to further assess whether there are broader implications of these results. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased surface melting, and from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased ice discharge, has accelerated. The largest estimates of acceleration in mass loss from the two ice sheets for 2003-2013 equal or exceed the acceleration of GMSL rise calculated from the satellite altimeter sea level record over the longer period of 1993-2014. However, when increased mass gain in land water storage and parts of East Antarctica, and decreased mass loss from glaciers in Alaska and some other regions are taken into account, the net acceleration in the ocean mass gain is consistent with the satellite altimeter record. New studies suggest that a marine ice sheet instability (MISI) may have been initiated in parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), but that it will affect only a limited number of ice streams in the twenty-first century. New projections of mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets by 2100, including a contribution from parts of WAIS undergoing unstable retreat, suggest a contribution that falls largely within the likely range (i.e., two thirds probability) of the AR5. These new results increase confidence in the AR5 likel...

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“…Continued use of fossil fuels into the 21st century is predicted to lead to atmospheric CO 2 levels > 900 ppm by 2100 (under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5; Meinshausen et al, 2011), though the precise level is highly dependent on the emission scenario (Pachauri et al, 2014). These rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations have led to an increase in global average temperatures of ~ 0.2°C decade -1 , much of which has been absorbed by the oceans, whilst the oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO 2 has led to major changes in surface ocean pH (Levitus et al, 2000(Levitus et al, , 2005Feely et al, 2008;Hoegh-Guldberg and Bruno, 2010;Mora et al, 2013;Roemmich et al, 2015). The deep sea has experienced dramatic changes in physical and chemical variables in the geological past.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems

Sweetman

Thurber

Smith

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

282

297

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The deep sea encompasses the largest ecosystems on Earth. Although poorly known, deep seafloor ecosystems provide services that are vitally important to the entire ocean and biosphere. Rising atmospheric greenhouse gases are bringing about significant changes in the environmental properties of the ocean realm in terms of water column oxygenation, temperature, pH and food supply, with concomitant impacts on deep-sea ecosystems. Projections suggest that abyssal (3000-6000 m) ocean temperatures could increase by 1°C over the next 84 years, while abyssal seafloor habitats under areas of deep-water formation may experience reductions in water column oxygen concentrations by as much as 0.03 mL L -1 by 2100. Bathyal depths (200-3000 m) worldwide will undergo the most significant reductions in pH in all oceans by the year 2100 (0.29 to 0.37 pH units). O 2 concentrations will also decline in the bathyal NE Pacific and Southern Oceans, with losses up to 3.7% or more, especially at intermediate depths. Another important environmental parameter, the flux of particulate organic matter to the seafloor, is likely to decline significantly in most oceans, most notably in the abyssal and bathyal Indian Ocean where it is predicted to decrease by 40-55% by the end of the century. Unfortunately, how these major changes will affect deep-seafloor ecosystems is, in some cases, very poorly understood. In this paper, we provide a detailed overview of the impacts of these changing environmental parameters on deep-seafloor ecosystems that will most likely be seen by 2100 in continental margin, abyssal and polar settings. We also consider how these changes may combine with other anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing, mineral mining, oil and gas extraction) to further impact deep-seafloor ecosystems and discuss the possible societal implications.

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Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006

Cited by 434 publications

References 38 publications

Observational Advances in Estimates of Oceanic Heating

Observational Advances in Estimates of Oceanic Heating

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems

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