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Changes in ocean vertical heat transport with global warming
Author(s) -
Zika Jan D.,
Laliberté Frédéric,
Mudryk Lawrence R.,
Sijp Willem P.,
Nurser A. J. G.
Publication year - 2015
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 - 10.1002/2015gl064156
Subject(s) - downwelling , effects of global warming on oceans , climatology , upwelling , global warming , environmental science , ocean heat content , deep ocean water , ocean current , oceanography , deep sea , thermohaline circulation , ocean general circulation model , forcing (mathematics) , southern hemisphere , climate change , sea surface temperature , lead (geology) , geology , general circulation model , geomorphology
Heat transport between the surface and deep ocean strongly influences transient climate change. Mechanisms setting this transport are investigated using coupled climate models and by projecting ocean circulation into the temperature‐depth diagram. In this diagram, a “cold cell” cools the deep ocean through the downwelling of Antarctic waters and upwelling of warmer waters and is balanced by warming due to a “warm cell,” coincident with the interhemispheric overturning and previously linked to wind and haline forcing. With anthropogenic warming, the cold cell collapses while the warm cell continues to warm the deep ocean. Simulations with increasingly strong warm cells, set by their mean Southern Hemisphere winds, exhibit increasing deep‐ocean warming in response to the same anthropogenic forcing. It is argued that the partition between components of the circulation which cool and warm the deep ocean in the preindustrial climate is a key determinant of ocean vertical heat transport with global warming.