What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing?
Sea levels of different atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) respond to climate change forcing in different ways, representing a crucial uncertainty in climate change research. We isolate the role of the ocean dynamics in setting the spatial pattern of dynamic sea-level (ζ) change by...
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Online Access: | http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770158 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1770158 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 |
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ftosti:oai:osti.gov:1770158 2023-07-30T04:01:33+02:00 What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? Couldrey, Matthew P. Gregory, Jonathan M. Boeira Dias, Fabio Dobrohotoff, Peter Domingues, Catia M. Garuba, Oluwayemi Griffies, Stephen M. Haak, Helmuth Hu, Aixue Ishii, Masayoshi Jungclaus, Johann Köhl, Armin Marsland, Simon J. Ojha, Sayantani Saenko, Oleg A. Savita, Abhishek Shao, Andrew Stammer, Detlef Suzuki, Tatsuo Todd, Alexander Zanna, Laure 2022-11-11 application/pdf http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770158 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1770158 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 unknown http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770158 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1770158 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 doi:10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2022 ftosti https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 2023-07-11T10:01:52Z Sea levels of different atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) respond to climate change forcing in different ways, representing a crucial uncertainty in climate change research. We isolate the role of the ocean dynamics in setting the spatial pattern of dynamic sea-level (ζ) change by forcing several AOGCMs with prescribed identical heat, momentum (wind) and freshwater flux perturbations. This method produces a (ζ) projection spread comparable in magnitude to the spread that results from greenhouse gas forcing, indicating that the differences in ocean model formulation are the cause, rather than diversity in surface flux change. The heat flux change drives most of the global pattern of (ζ) change, while the momentum and water flux changes cause locally confined features. North Atlantic heat uptake causes large temperature and salinity driven density changes, altering local ocean transport and (ζ). The spread between AOGCMs here is caused largely by differences in their regional transport adjustment, which redistributes heat that was already in the ocean prior to perturbation. The geographic details of the (ζ) change in the North Atlantic are diverse across models, but the underlying dynamic change is similar. In contrast, the heat absorbed by the Southern Ocean does not strongly alter the vertically coherent circulation. The Arctic (ζ) change is dissimilar across models, owing to differences in passive heat uptake and circulation change. Only the Arctic is strongly affected by nonlinear interactions between the three air-sea flux changes, and these are model specific. Other/Unknown Material Arctic Climate change North Atlantic Southern Ocean SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) Arctic Southern Ocean Climate Dynamics 56 1-2 155 187 |
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Open Polar |
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SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) |
op_collection_id |
ftosti |
language |
unknown |
topic |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
spellingShingle |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Couldrey, Matthew P. Gregory, Jonathan M. Boeira Dias, Fabio Dobrohotoff, Peter Domingues, Catia M. Garuba, Oluwayemi Griffies, Stephen M. Haak, Helmuth Hu, Aixue Ishii, Masayoshi Jungclaus, Johann Köhl, Armin Marsland, Simon J. Ojha, Sayantani Saenko, Oleg A. Savita, Abhishek Shao, Andrew Stammer, Detlef Suzuki, Tatsuo Todd, Alexander Zanna, Laure What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
topic_facet |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
description |
Sea levels of different atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) respond to climate change forcing in different ways, representing a crucial uncertainty in climate change research. We isolate the role of the ocean dynamics in setting the spatial pattern of dynamic sea-level (ζ) change by forcing several AOGCMs with prescribed identical heat, momentum (wind) and freshwater flux perturbations. This method produces a (ζ) projection spread comparable in magnitude to the spread that results from greenhouse gas forcing, indicating that the differences in ocean model formulation are the cause, rather than diversity in surface flux change. The heat flux change drives most of the global pattern of (ζ) change, while the momentum and water flux changes cause locally confined features. North Atlantic heat uptake causes large temperature and salinity driven density changes, altering local ocean transport and (ζ). The spread between AOGCMs here is caused largely by differences in their regional transport adjustment, which redistributes heat that was already in the ocean prior to perturbation. The geographic details of the (ζ) change in the North Atlantic are diverse across models, but the underlying dynamic change is similar. In contrast, the heat absorbed by the Southern Ocean does not strongly alter the vertically coherent circulation. The Arctic (ζ) change is dissimilar across models, owing to differences in passive heat uptake and circulation change. Only the Arctic is strongly affected by nonlinear interactions between the three air-sea flux changes, and these are model specific. |
author |
Couldrey, Matthew P. Gregory, Jonathan M. Boeira Dias, Fabio Dobrohotoff, Peter Domingues, Catia M. Garuba, Oluwayemi Griffies, Stephen M. Haak, Helmuth Hu, Aixue Ishii, Masayoshi Jungclaus, Johann Köhl, Armin Marsland, Simon J. Ojha, Sayantani Saenko, Oleg A. Savita, Abhishek Shao, Andrew Stammer, Detlef Suzuki, Tatsuo Todd, Alexander Zanna, Laure |
author_facet |
Couldrey, Matthew P. Gregory, Jonathan M. Boeira Dias, Fabio Dobrohotoff, Peter Domingues, Catia M. Garuba, Oluwayemi Griffies, Stephen M. Haak, Helmuth Hu, Aixue Ishii, Masayoshi Jungclaus, Johann Köhl, Armin Marsland, Simon J. Ojha, Sayantani Saenko, Oleg A. Savita, Abhishek Shao, Andrew Stammer, Detlef Suzuki, Tatsuo Todd, Alexander Zanna, Laure |
author_sort |
Couldrey, Matthew P. |
title |
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
title_short |
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
title_full |
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
title_fullStr |
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
title_full_unstemmed |
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
title_sort |
what causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770158 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1770158 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 |
geographic |
Arctic Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Southern Ocean |
genre |
Arctic Climate change North Atlantic Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change North Atlantic Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1770158 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1770158 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 doi:10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 |
container_title |
Climate Dynamics |
container_volume |
56 |
container_issue |
1-2 |
container_start_page |
155 |
op_container_end_page |
187 |
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1772812332956647424 |