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The dependence of transient climate sensitivity and radiative feedbacks on the spatial pattern of ocean heat uptake
Author(s) -
Rose Brian E. J.,
Armour Kyle C.,
Battisti David S.,
Feldl Nicole,
Koll Daniel D. B.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2013gl058955
Subject(s) - climatology , environmental science , climate sensitivity , shortwave , latitude , atmospheric sciences , forcing (mathematics) , climate model , radiative forcing , shortwave radiation , middle latitudes , climate change , radiative transfer , geology , oceanography , physics , radiation , quantum mechanics , geodesy
The effect of ocean heat uptake (OHU) on transient global warming is studied in a multimodel framework. Simple heat sinks are prescribed in shallow aquaplanet ocean mixed layers underlying atmospheric general circulation models independently and combined with CO 2 forcing. Sinks are localized to either tropical or high latitudes, representing distinct modes of OHU found in coupled simulations. Tropical OHU produces modest cooling at all latitudes, offsetting only a fraction of CO 2 warming. High‐latitude OHU produces three times more global mean cooling in a strongly polar‐amplified pattern. Global sensitivities in each scenario are set primarily by large differences in local shortwave cloud feedbacks, robust across models. Differences in atmospheric energy transport set the pattern of temperature change. Results imply that global and regional warming rates depend sensitively on regional ocean processes setting the OHU pattern, and that equilibrium climate sensitivity cannot be reliably estimated from transient observations.