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Detection of an observed 135 year ocean temperature change from limited data
Author(s) -
Hobbs William R.,
Willis Joshua K.
Publication year - 2013
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/grl.50370
Subject(s) - argo , coupled model intercomparison project , climatology , global warming , environmental science , climate change , hydrography , effects of global warming on oceans , global change , effects of global warming , global temperature , climate model , atmospheric sciences , oceanography , geology
Recent work comparing historical hydrographic data with modern Argo observations shows a long‐term change in the global ocean temperature. The magnitude of this change is greater than estimates of late 20 th century warming, and implies a century‐scale change in the global oceans. Using global coupled climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 suite of simulations, we assess to what extent this observed temperature difference can be attributed to a genuine long‐term warming trend. After accounting for natural variability and sampling errors, we find convincing evidence that there has indeed been a century‐scale anthropogenic warming of the global ocean up to the present day, and a strong possibility of anthropogenic warming from 1873 to 1955. The estimated 1873–1955 ocean warming implies a net top‐of‐atmosphere energy imbalance of 0.1 ± 0.06 Wm –2 , and a thermosteric global mean sea level rise of 0.50 ± 0.2 mma –1 .