(In) consistency of air/sea heat flux estimates,ocean heat uptake anomalies and top of atmosphere radiation budgets

This paper introduces the consistency between top of atmosphere(TOA) imbalances and ocean heat uptake,and the inconsistency between ocean heat uptake estimates and flux climatologies,and then gives some recommendations and outlook.

Ocean Response to a Climate Change Heat-Flux Perturbation in an Ocean Model and Its Corresponding Coupled Model

State-of-the-art coupled general circulation models(CGCMs)are used to predict ocean heat uptake(OHU)and sealevel change under global warming.However,the projections of different models vary,resulting in high uncertainty.Much of the inter-model spread is driven by responses to surface heat perturbations.This study mainly focuses on the response of the ocean to a surface heat flux perturbation F,as prescribed by the Flux-Anomaly-Forced Model Intercomparison Project(FAFMIP).The results of ocean model were compared with those of a CGCM with the same ocean component.On the global scale,the changes in global mean temperature,ocean heat content(OHC),and steric sea level(SSL)simulated in the OGCM are generally consistent with CGCM simulations.Differences in changes in ocean temperature,OHC,and SSL between the two models primarily occur in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans(AA)and the Southern Ocean(SO)basins.In addition to the differences in surface heat flux anomalies between the two models,differences in heat exchange between basins also play an important role in the inconsistencies in ocean climate changes in the AA and SO basins.These discrepancies are largely due to both the larger initial value and the greater weakening change of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation(AMOC)in CGCM.The greater weakening of the AMOC in the CGCM is associated with the atmosphere–ocean feedback and the lack of a restoring salinity boundary condition.Furthermore,differences in surface salinity boundary conditions between the two models contribute to discrepancies in SSL changes.

The impact of oceanic processes on the transient climate response: a tidal forcing experiment

In this study, the impact of oceanic processes on the sensitivity of transient climate change is investigated using two sets of coupled experiments with and without tidal forcing, which are termed ExpTide and ExpControl,respectively. After introducing tidal forcing, the transient climate response(TCR) decreases from 2.32 K to 1.90 K,and the surface air temperature warming at high latitudes decreases by 29%. Large ocean heat uptake efficiency and heat storage can explain the low TCR in ExpTide. Approximately 21% more heat is stored in the ocean in ExpTide(1.10×10^24 J) than in ExpControl(0.91×10^24 J). Most of the large ocean warming occurs in the upper 1 000 m between 60°S and 60°N, primarily in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. This ocean warming is closely related to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(AMOC). The initial transport at mid-and high latitudes and the decline in the AMOC observed in ExpTide are both larger than those observed in ExpControl. The spatial structures of AMOC are also different with and without tidal forcing in present experiments. The AMOC in ExpTide has a large northward extension. We also investigated the relationship between AMOC and TCR suggested by previous studies using the present experiments.

CAS-ESM2.0 Model Datasets for the CMIP6 Flux-Anomaly-Forced Model Intercomparison Project (FAFMIP)

The second version of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Earth System Model(CAS-ESM2.0)is participating in the Flux-Anomaly-Forced Model Intercomparison Project(FAFMIP)experiments in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project(CMIP6).The purpose of FAFMIP is to understand and reduce the uncertainty of ocean climate changes in response to increased CO2 forcing in atmosphere-ocean general circulation models(AOGCMs),including the simulations of ocean heat content(OHC)change,ocean circulation change,and sea level rise due to thermal expansion.FAFMIP experiments(including faf-heat,faf-stress,faf-water,faf-all,faf-passiveheat,faf-heat-NA50pct and faf-heat-NA0pct)have been conducted.All of the experiments were integrated over a 70-year period and the corresponding data have been uploaded to the Earth System Grid Federation data server for CMIP6 users to download.This paper describes the experimental design and model datasets and evaluates the preliminary results of CAS-ESM2.0 simulations of ocean climate changes in the FAFMIP experiments.The simulations of the changes in global ocean temperature,Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(AMOC),OHC,and dynamic sea level(DSL),are all reasonably reproduced.

Response of ocean climate to different heat-flux perturbations over the North Atlantic in FAFMIP

The diversity of surface-flux perturbations,especially for heat-flux perturbations,notably leads to uncertainties surrounding the responses of ocean climate under global warming scenarios projected by climate/Earth system models.However,when imposing heat-flux perturbations on the models,strong feedback persists between the atmosphere and the ocean,resulting in nearly doubled heat-flux perturbation over the North Atlantic(NA).Herein,quantitative evaluation of the influences of magnitude change of heat-flux perturbations over the NA on the changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(AMOC),ocean heat uptake(OHU)and dynamic sea level(DSL)has been conducted by analysis of eight coupled model responses to the heat-flux perturbation experiments in the Flux-Anomaly-Forced Model Inter-comparison Project.It has been demonstrated that the magnitude of the AMOC change is extremely sensitive to the magnitude change of imposed NA heat-flux perturbation,and the weakening amplitude of the AMOC is nearly halved as the imposed heat-flux perturbation F is halved over the NA.The most remarkable responses of both DSL and OHU to the magnitude changes of NA heat-flux perturbation have been primarily found in the Atlantic and Arctic basins,especially for the NA region.Both the added ocean heat uptake(OHUa)and redistributed ocean heat uptake(OHUr)play key roles in OHU changes among the various NA heat-flux perturbation experiments.The magnitude change of NA-mean OHUa is almost linearly related to the imposed NA heat-flux perturbation,while the magnitude change of NA-mean OHUr,which is primarily caused by AMOC change and redistributed heat flux,is not proportional to the imposed NA heat-flux perturbation.There is a nearly linear relationship between the magnitude of AMOC change and the OHUr in tropical regions,including the regions in the low-latitude South Atlantic,the tropical Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.