EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Changes in the air-sea fluxes of heat and freshwater are expected as a result of anthropogenic climate change. However, these changes are likely to be small and very difficult to detect with currently available surface flux datasets. Several studies have analysed the increase in observed ocean heat...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.655.2773 http://www.mccip.org.uk/media/6840/mccip201011_airseaflux.pdf |
| Summary: | Changes in the air-sea fluxes of heat and freshwater are expected as a result of anthropogenic climate change. However, these changes are likely to be small and very difficult to detect with currently available surface flux datasets. Several studies have analysed the increase in observed ocean heat content over the past 50 years and place a limit of about 0.5 W m-2 on the increase in surface heat flux to the ocean over this time period both globally and for the North Atlantic. Given the high level of uncertainty in available flux datasets no formal attempt has yet been made to detect this signal. A similar situation holds for the surface freshwater flux, for which there are additional problems arising from the difficulty in obtaining reliable long term estimates of precipitation. Some progress towards detecting changes in the hydrological cycle has been made using salinity as an integral measure of variations in the net evaporation. Obtaining reliable predictions of future changes in the air-sea heat and freshwater fluxes in the UK marine environment is difficult as the anthropogenic signal is small and may be strongly influenced by changes due to natural variability in the climate system. |
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