Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration
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Material Information

Title:
Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration
Series Title:
Science Magazine Volume 345
Creator:
Xianyao Chen
Ka-Kit Tung
Affiliation:
Ocean University -- Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography
University of Washington -- Department of Applied Mathematics
Publisher:
American Association of the Advancement of Science
Publication Date:
Language:
English

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
climate change
global warming
greenhouse gases

Notes

Abstract:
A vacillating global heat sink at intermediate ocean depths is associated with different climate regimes of surface warming under anthropogenic forcing: The latter part of the 20th century saw rapid global warming as more heat stayed near the surface. In the 21st century, surface warming slowed as more heat moved into deeper oceans. In situ and reanalyzed data are used to trace the pathways of ocean heat uptake. In addition to the shallow La Niña–like patterns in the Pacific that were the previous focus, we found that the slowdown is mainly caused by heat transported to deeper layers in the Atlantic and the Southern oceans, initiated by a recurrent salinity anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic. Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years.

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Source Institution:
Florida International University
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