Identification

Title

Decadal thermal variability of the upper Southern Ocean: Zonal asymmetry

Abstract

As the major sink of anthropogenic heat, the Southern Ocean has shown quasi -symmetric, deep -reaching warming since the mid -twentieth century. In comparison, the shorter -term heat storage pattern of the Southern Ocean is more complex and has notable impacts on regional climate and marine ecosystems. By analyzing observational datasets and climate model simulations, this study reveals that the Southern Ocean exhibits prominent decadal ( . 8 years) variability extending to ; 700-m depth and is characterized by out -of -phase changes in the Paci fi c and Atlantic - Indian Ocean sectors. Changes in the Paci fi c sector are larger in magnitude than those in the Atlantic - Indian Ocean sectors and dominate the total heat storage of the Southern Ocean on decadal time scales. Instead of heat uptake through surface heat fl uxes, these asymmetric variations arise primarily from wind -driven heat redistribution. Pacemaker and preindustrial simulations of the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) suggest that these variations in Southern Ocean winds arise primarily from natural variability of the tropical Paci fi c, as represented by the interdecadal Paci fi c oscillation (IPO). Through atmospheric teleconnection, the positive phase of the IPO gives rise to higher -than -normal sea level pressure and anticyclonic wind anomalies in the 50 degrees - 70 degrees S band of the Paci fi c sector. These winds lead to warming of 0 - 700 m by driving the convergence of warm water. The opposite processes, involving cyclonic winds and upper -layer divergence, occur in the Atlantic - Indian Ocean sector. These fi ndings aid our understanding of the time -varying heat storage of the Southern Ocean and provide useful implications on initialized decadal climate prediction.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7sb49zh

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

2024-06-01T00:00:00Z

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