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Ocean heat uptake and interbasin redistribution driven by anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases

Nature Geoscience volume 16, pages 695–703 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases have played important roles in modulating the storage and distribution of heat in oceans since the industrial age. Here we isolate and quantify the effects of both using coupled climate model simulations. We show that, relative to the pre-industrial ocean, the Southern Ocean imports heat from the Indo-Pacific Ocean but exports heat into the Atlantic Ocean in response to anthropogenic aerosols. Ocean heat uptake diminishes in the subpolar Atlantic. Alterations in ocean circulation and temperature have a weak compensation in contributing to interbasin heat exchange. Consequently, interbasin heat exchange contributes comparably to ocean heat uptake changes to modifying the stored heat in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific. The greenhouse-gas-associated changes are the opposite of the aerosol-associated changes. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases promote the ocean heat uptake in the subpolar Atlantic and allow the Southern Ocean to import heat from the Atlantic but export heat to the Indo-Pacific. The cause of this ocean heat redistribution is distinct from the aerosol-forcing scenario, seeing that ocean circulation effects are strongly offset by temperature shifts. Accordingly, interbasin heat exchange is much less important than ocean heat uptake changes for greenhouse-gas-associated ocean heat storage. Our results suggest that the aerosol-driven changes in ocean circulations and associated interbasin heat transports are more effective in altering oceanic heat distribution than those driven by globally increasing greenhouse gases.

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Fig. 1: Anthropogenic aerosol- and greenhouse-gas-driven changes in OHU and OHC trend.
Fig. 2: Anthropogenic aerosol- and greenhouse-gas-driven changes in oceanic heat budgets for individual basins.
Fig. 3: Anthropogenic aerosol- and greenhouse-gas-driven ocean temperature and MOC changes over individual basins.
Fig. 4: Decompositions of anthropogenic aerosol- and greenhouse-gas-driven interbasin heat exchanges.
Fig. 5: Anthropogenic aerosol- and greenhouse-gas-driven changes in basin-integrated oceanic heat budgets.
Fig. 6: Observed and simulated OHC changes.

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Data availability

CMIP5 model (except CESM1-CN) data are available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip5/, and CMIP6 data are available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/. The DePreSys data are available at https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/en/icdc/data/ocean/easy-init-ocean/depresys.html. The EN4 (version 4.2.2) data are available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/en4/index.html. The IAP data are available at http://www.ocean.iap.ac.cn/. The data from the research led by Ishii (version 7.3.1) are available at https://climate.mri-jma.go.jp/pub/ocean/ts/v7.3.1/temp/. The GECCO3 data are available at http://icdc.cen.uni-hamburg.de/en/gecco3.html. The ORAS4 data are available at https://icdc.cen.uni-hamburg.de/daten/reanalysis-ocean/easy-init-ocean/ecmwf-ocean-reanalysis-system-4-oras4.html.

Code availability

The source code of CESM1-CN is available at https://www.cesm.ucar.edu/. Figures are generated via the NCAR Command Language (NCL, Version 6.5.0) [Software]. (2018). Boulder, Colorado: UCAR/NCAR/CISL/TDD (https://doi.org/10.5065/D6WD3XH5).

The codes and processed data to generate Figs. 1–6 are available at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7939155).

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by grants to W.L. from US National Science Foundation (NSF) (AGS-2053121, OCE-2123422 and AGS-2237743). W.L. is also supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as a Research Fellow and US NSF grant (AGS-2153486). S.L. is supported by US NSF grant (OCE-2123422) awarded to W.L., R.J.A. is supported by US NSF grant (AGS-2153486) and J.-R.S. is supported by US NSF grant (OCE-2048336).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Shouwei Li, Wei Liu & Robert J. Allen

  2. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Jia-Rui Shi

  3. Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Laifang Li

  4. Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Laifang Li

  5. Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Laifang Li

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  1. Shouwei Li
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Contributions

S.L. performed the analysis and wrote the original draft of the paper. W.L. conceived the study and conducted the simulations with CESM1-CN. All authors contributed to interpreting the results and made substantial improvements to the paper.

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Correspondence to Wei Liu.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Damien Irving and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor(s): James Super, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Anthropogenic aerosol and greenhouse gas driven changes in North Atlantic SST trend and net surface heat flux.

(a,c,e) Changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in annual mean SST trend (color shading in K/decade) and net surface heat flux (contours in W/m2, with a contour interval of 3 W/m2, zero contours thickened, positive solid and negative dashed, positive downward) in the North Atlantic during 1861–2005 for the multi-model means of the HIST-AER simulations with (a) the 9-model ensemble, (c) 11 CMIP5 models and (e) 11 CMIP6 models. (b,d,f) As in (a,c,e) but for the multi-model means of the HIST-GHG simulations.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Anthropogenic aerosol and greenhouse gas driven zonal wind changes.

Changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in annually and zonally averaged zonal winds (color shading in m/s) during 1861–2005 for the multi-model means of the (a) HIST-AER and (b) HIST-GHG simulations for the 9-model ensemble. The multi-model mean preindustrial climatology of annually and zonally averaged zonal winds (contours with an interval of 4 m/s, zero contours thickened, solid positive and dashed negative) is superimposed on either panel.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Anthropogenic aerosol and greenhouse gas driven Southern Ocean MOC changes.

Changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in annual mean (a) Eulerian-mean, (c) eddy-induced and (e) residual MOCs (color shading in Sv, 1 Sv = 106 m3/s) in the Southern Ocean during 1861–2005 for the multi-model mean of the HIST-AER simulation with CESM1-CN, GISS-E2-1-G, HadGEM3-GC31-LL and NorESM2-LM, since the variable of eddy-induced MOC is available only in these four models within the 9-model ensemble. (b,d,f) As in (a,c,e) but for the HIST-GHG simulation. Annual mean MOC climatology from preindustrial control run in each ocean basin is shown in each panel (contours in Sv, with a contour interval of 5 Sv, zero contours thickened, solid positive and dashed negative).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Aerosol and greenhouse gas driven OHU changes in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.

(a,c,e) Changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in annual mean global OHU during 1861–2005 (color shading in W/m2) for the multi-model means of the HIST-AER simulations with (a) 11 CMIP5 models and (c) 11 CMIP6 models as well as (e) the difference between the two (c-a). (b,d,f) As in (a,c,e) but for the HIST-GHG simulations.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Zonal mean aerosol and greenhouse gas driven OHU and OHC trend changes in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.

(a,b) Changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in annual mean zonally integrated OHU during 1861–2005 in the HIST-AER (multi-model mean, blue; inter-model spread, light blue) and HIST-GHG (multi-model mean, red; inter-model spread, light red) simulations and the sum of both changes (multi-model mean, black; inter-model spread, gray) with (a) 11 CMIP5 models and (b) 11 CMIP6 models. (c,d) As in (a,b) but for changes in annual mean zonally integrated full-depth OHC trend.

Extended Data Fig. 6 Aerosol and greenhouse gas driven OHC trend changes in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.

As in Extended Data Fig. 4 but for changes in the trend of annual mean full-depth integrated OHC during 1861–2005.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Future aerosol and greenhouse gas driven OHU and OHC trend changes.

(a,c,e) Annual mean changes (relative to the preindustrial time) in global OHU during 2021–2100 (color shading in W/m2) for the multi-model mean of the 4-model ensemble (a) SSP245, (c) SSP245-AER and (e) SSP245-GHG simulations. (b,d,f) As in (a,c,e) for the changes in the full-depth integrated annual mean OHC trend during 2021–2100.

Extended Data Table 1 Climate models and their preindustrial and historical single and all forcing simulations
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Climate models and their SSP245 single and all forcing simulations
Full size table

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Li, S., Liu, W., Allen, R.J. et al. Ocean heat uptake and interbasin redistribution driven by anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases. Nat. Geosci. 16, 695–703 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01219-x

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