Identification

Title

On potential causes for an underestimated global ocean heat content trend in CMIP3 models

Abstract

Trends in global oceanic heat content (OHC) over the late 20th century as simulated by climate models that incorporate all radiative forcing factors are smaller than the observed, but the causes are not clear. Given the cooling effect associated with increasing anthropogenic aerosols and natural forcing (i.e., volcanic aerosols), we examine their respective roles in the simulated global OHC trend and the associated ocean temperature structure, using targeted experiments from two models, designed to separate the individual impacts of these forcing components. We show that it is more likely that the indirect effect of aerosols, not volcanic aerosols alone, is the reason for the bulk of weaker modelled OHC trends. Further, anthropogenic aerosols are essential for simulating the structure of the observed temperature changes, including a concentrated cooling in the Southern Hemisphere subtropical latitudes, consistent with a more stable global Conveyer, a greater strengthening of the subtropical gyre circulation, and a stronger Southern Annular Mode trend in targeted experiments with anthropogenic aerosol forcing.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7c24xpw

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-09-14T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact