Work

Recent hiatus caused by decadal shift in Indo-Pacific heating

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Recent modeling studies have proposed different scenarios to explain the slowdown in surface temperature warming in the most recent decade. Some of these studies seem to support the idea of internal variability and/or rearrangement of heat between the surface and the ocean interior. Others suggest that radiative forcing might also play a role. Our examination of observational data over the past two decades shows some significant differences when compared to model results from reanalyses and provides the most definitive explanation of how the heat was redistributed. We find that cooling in the top 100-meter layer of the Pacific Ocean was mainly compensated for by warming in the 100- to 300-meter layer of the Indian and Pacific Oceans in the past decade since 2003.

Source: Science

DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa4521

Authors: Veronica Nieves, Josh K. Willis, William C. Patzert

Institutions: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of California, Los Angeles, California Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Climate variability and models

Subfield: Global and Planetary Change

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Jet Propulsion Laboratory