The recent acceleration of ocean heat content is exaggerated due to the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation happening on top of the long -
term ocean warming trend.
Volcanic eruptions and El Niño events are identified as sharp cooling events punctuating a long -
term ocean warming trend, while heating continues during the recent upper - ocean - warming hiatus, but the heat is absorbed in the deeper ocean.
However, he adds, the long -
term ocean warming should raise the baseline of hurricane activity.
However, detection of a change in air — sea fluxes responsible for the long -
term ocean warming remains beyond the ability of currently available surface flux data sets.»
«However, the long -
term ocean warming made this [flooding] event three times as likely as it would have been without the warming.»
Caroline Ummenhofer of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and her colleagues wanted to know how much of the blame laid with that year's La Niña — and how much was caused by longer -
term ocean warming.
Not exact matches
This year, the Atlantic was
warmer than average — Klotzbach says August through October will likely rank third or fourth in
terms of highest tropical Atlantic
Ocean temperatures.
While natural patterns of certain atmospheric and
ocean conditions are already known to influence Greenland melt, the study highlights the importance of a long -
term warming trend to account for the unprecedented west Greenland melt rates in recent years.
«The beauty of this study is that easily acquired measures of reef complexity and depth provide a means of predicting long
term consequences of
ocean warming events,» Dr Wilson says.
There are three main time scales to consider when it comes to
warming: annual temperature variation from factors like
warming in the Pacific
Ocean during El Niño years, decadal temperature swings and long -
term temperature increases from global
warming.
The coverage of living corals on Australia's Great Barrier Reef could decline to less than 10 percent if
ocean warming continues, according to a new study that explores the short - and long -
term consequences of environmental changes to the reef.
The long -
term geological record reveals an early Cenozoic
warm climate that supported smaller polar ecosystems, few coral - algal reefs, expanded shallow - water platforms, longer food chains with less energy for top predators, and a less oxygenated
ocean than today.
However, certain areas in the
oceans could be unusually
warm and skew the overall long -
term average temperature results of some of those prior studies, Shuman says.
«
Warm summers could weaken
ocean circulation: Long -
term observations reveal the influence of increased surface freshening on convection in the subpolar North Atlantic.»
Phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which
warm or cool the tropical Pacific
Ocean, can contribute to short -
term variations in global average temperature.
The research, published in Nature Communications, examined preserved fossil remains of coccolithophores from a period of climate
warming and
ocean acidification that occurred around 56 million years ago — the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)-- and provides a much - needed long -
term perspective of coccolithophore response to
ocean acidification.
A detailed, long -
term ocean temperature record derived from corals on Christmas Island in Kiribati and other islands in the tropical Pacific shows that the extreme warmth of recent El Niño events reflects not just the natural
ocean - atmosphere cycle but a new factor: global
warming caused by human activity.
So the report notes that the current «pause» in new global average temperature records since 1998 — a year that saw the second strongest El Nino on record and shattered
warming records — does not reflect the long -
term trend and may be explained by the
oceans absorbing the majority of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases as well as the cooling contributions of volcanic eruptions.
Most people in the general public now know the
term, and they have a vague idea that it is some kind of pattern in the Pacific
Ocean that means the U.S. will have a
warm winter... or snowy winter... or hot summer — or something.
«The information will be a critical complement to future long -
term projections of sea level rise, which depend on melting ice and
warming oceans.»
«This kind of study discusses the natural cycle and could help define the likely positive feedbacks we can expect in the long -
term future, [for example] as temperatures
warm, the
ocean will want to give up more CO2, or rather absorb less,» says climatologist Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies.
With the sun continuing to heat the
ocean water at the tropical latitudes regardless of ice cap conditions up north, it would seem that the presence of an ice cap would result in a
warmer ocean over the long
term, with the converse also being true.
Observations of upper
ocean heat show some short
term cooling but measurements to greater depths (down to 2000 metres) show a steady
warming trend: However, the
ocean cooling myth does seem to be widespread so I'll shortly update this page to clarify the issue.
Unlike the Arctic, there is no long -
term submarine record of ice thickness — but with the
warming Southern
Ocean, it seems likely that that has been going on as well.
The open
ocean around the atoll was 2 degrees Celsius
warmer than usual, but a short -
term change in weather conditions pushed temperatures on top of the reef to 6 degrees Celsius above normal.
However, if one downweights these two events (either by eliminating or, as in Cane et al» 97, using a «robust» trend), then an argument can be made for a long -
term pattern which is in some respects more «La Nina» - like, i.e. little
warming in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific, and far more
warming in the western equatorial Pacific and Indian
oceans, associated with a strengthening, not weakening, of the negative equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient.
So, while the
oceans are a heat sink in the short -
term,
warmer oceans are a source of climate gases in the long -
term.
(1) The
warm sea surface temperatures are not just some short -
term anomaly but are part of a long -
term observed
warming trend, in which
ocean temperatures off the US east coast are
warming faster than global average temperatures.
By combining the
ocean heating rates, TOA observations (figure 4) and other energy storage
terms (land, atmosphere
warming and ice melt), the authors calculated Earth's energy imbalance from January 2001 - December 2010 to be 0.5 (± 0.43) W / m2.
The findings have important implications in
terms of planning for sea level rise, as ever - growing coastal communities might have to plan for even higher
ocean levels in a
warmer future.
Ocean surfaces have
warmed considerably over the last few years, and since
oceans cover roughly tw0 - thirds of the globe's area, it is reasonable to examine how sea surface temperature evolution has played into the short -
term evolution of GMST.
If more of the heat from global
warming is going into the
ocean, does that reduce the amount of surface
warming (both transiently and long -
term) that we should expect from doubling CO2?
By building a sonic database, scientists can track long -
term changes to reefs and respond to any sudden shifts, such as big coral bleaching events that can occur when
ocean waters suddenly
warm.
The long -
term warming of the planet, as well as an exceptionally strong El Niño, led to numerous climate records in 2015, including milestones for global temperatures, carbon dioxide levels and
ocean heat, according to the World Meteorological Organization's annual State of the Climate Report.
It is in this ever - present mechanism that
oceans are able to undergo long -
term warming (or cooling).
Mr. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor
warming trends in the deep
ocean and other aspects of the short -
term variations that always occur, together with the long -
term human - induced
warming trend.
At the same time, increasing depth and duration of drought, along with
warmer temperatures enabling the spread of pine beetles has increased the flammability of this forest region — http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n9/full/nclimate1293.html http://www.vancouversun.com/fires+through+tinder+pine+beetle+killed+forests/10047293/story.html Can climate models give different TCR and ECS with different timing / extent of when or how much boreal forest burns, and how the soot generated alters the date of an ice free Arctic
Ocean or the rate of Greenland ice melt and its influence on long
term dynamics of the AMOC transport of heat?
Despite being only 0.1 to 1 mm thick on average, this skin layer is the major player in the long -
term warming of the
oceans.
The main point is that just as surface temperatures has experienced periods of short
term cooling during long
term global
warming, similarly the
ocean shows short
term variability during a long
term warming trend.
The second is a short -
term period of
warmer surface waters in the Pacific
Ocean (called an El Niño).
In any year, temperatures around the world can be nudged up or down by short -
term factors like volcanic eruptions or El Ninos, when
warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific
Ocean.
Buffalo City, as East London is charmingly known, not only lies on one of the most sublime coastlines of the world - think
warm Indian
Ocean waters and sub-tropical weather that allow visitors to enjoy the climate all year round - it also basks gloriously between the Nahoon River in the north and the Buffalo River to the south of the city, and the phrase «unspoilt beaches» was
termed with East London's beaches in mind.
Given how much yelling takes place on the Internet, talk radio, and elsewhere over short -
term cool and hot spells in relation to global
warming, I wanted to find out whether anyone had generated a decent decades - long graph of global temperature trends accounting for, and erasing, the short -
term up - and - down flickers from the cyclical shift in the tropical Pacific
Ocean known as the El Niño — Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, cycle.
A very consistent understanding is thus emerging of the coupled
ocean and atmosphere dynamics that have caused the recent decadal - scale departure from the longer -
term global
warming trend.
Ice - sheet responses to decadal - scale
ocean forcing appear to be less important, possibly indicating that the future response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet will be governed more by long -
term anthropogenic
warming combined with multi-centennial natural variability than by annual or decadal climate oscillations.»
Given that the cryosphere and
oceans are far better long -
term indicators of changes in Earth's energy balance than the much more «noisy» troposphere, for anyone to suggest that the
warming of the Earth system has slowed or stopped over the past 10 years, means they are purposely ignoring the far bigger heat sinks of the cryrosphere and
oceans, or they simply want to spout nonsense.
In general, the regions of expanding
warming upwelling water in the Indian
Ocean, North Pacific, or wherever they are, must create slight bulges in the surface, and the regions of shrinking, cooling, sinking water in the Arctic must create slight depressions in the sea surface (again, I mean in a very low pass sense — obviously storms, tides, etc, create all kinds of short -
terms signals obscuring this).
In either case, we see no evidence of any long
term warming trend, in either the atmosphere or the
ocean.
Long -
term effects of
warming and
ocean acidification are modified by seasonal variation in species responses and environmental conditions
However, if one downweights these two events (either by eliminating or, as in Cane et al» 97, using a «robust» trend), then an argument can be made for a long -
term pattern which is in some respects more «La Nina» - like, i.e. little
warming in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific, and far more
warming in the western equatorial Pacific and Indian
oceans, associated with a strengthening, not weakening, of the negative equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient.