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...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Couldrey, MP, Gregory, JM, Boeira Dias, F, Dobrohotoff, P, Domingues, CM, Garuba, O, Griffies, SM, Haak, H, Hu, A, Ishii, M, Jungclaus, J, Kohl, AT, Marsland, SJ, Ojha, S, Saenko, OA, Savita, A, Shao, A, Stammer, D, Suzuki, T, Todd, A, Zanna, L
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer-Verlag 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/1/143558%20-%20What%20causes%20the%20spread%20of%20model%20projections%20of%20ocean.pdf
id ftunivtasmania:oai:eprints.utas.edu.au:36604
record_format openpolar
spelling ftunivtasmania:oai:eprints.utas.edu.au:36604 2023-05-15T14:59:52+02:00 What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing? Couldrey, MP Gregory, JM Boeira Dias, F Dobrohotoff, P Domingues, CM Garuba, O Griffies, SM Haak, H Hu, A Ishii, M Jungclaus, J Kohl, AT Marsland, SJ Ojha, S Saenko, OA Savita, A Shao, A Stammer, D Suzuki, T Todd, A Zanna, L 2020 application/pdf https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/ https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/1/143558%20-%20What%20causes%20the%20spread%20of%20model%20projections%20of%20ocean.pdf en eng Springer-Verlag https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/1/143558%20-%20What%20causes%20the%20spread%20of%20model%20projections%20of%20ocean.pdf Couldrey, MP, Gregory, JM, Boeira Dias, F, Dobrohotoff, P, Domingues, CM orcid:0000-0001-5100-4595 , Garuba, O, Griffies, SM, Haak, H, Hu, A, Ishii, M, Jungclaus, J, Kohl, AT orcid:0000-0003-2909-3741 , Marsland, SJ orcid:0000-0002-5664-5276 , Ojha, S, Saenko, OA, Savita, A, Shao, A, Stammer, D, Suzuki, T, Todd, A and Zanna, L 2020 , 'What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing?' , Climate Dynamics, vol. 56, no. 1-2 , pp. 155-187 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4>. sea-level rise ocean heat uptake climate change climate modeling Article PeerReviewed 2020 ftunivtasmania 2022-11-14T23:16:58Z 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change North Atlantic Southern Ocean University of Tasmania: UTas ePrints Arctic Southern Ocean
institution Open Polar
collection University of Tasmania: UTas ePrints
op_collection_id ftunivtasmania
language English
topic sea-level rise
ocean heat uptake
climate change
climate modeling
spellingShingle sea-level rise
ocean heat uptake
climate change
climate modeling
Couldrey, MP
Gregory, JM
Boeira Dias, F
Dobrohotoff, P
Domingues, CM
Garuba, O
Griffies, SM
Haak, H
Hu, A
Ishii, M
Jungclaus, J
Kohl, AT
Marsland, SJ
Ojha, S
Saenko, OA
Savita, A
Shao, A
Stammer, D
Suzuki, T
Todd, A
Zanna, L
What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing?
topic_facet sea-level rise
ocean heat uptake
climate change
climate modeling
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.
format Article in Journal/Newspaper
author Couldrey, MP
Gregory, JM
Boeira Dias, F
Dobrohotoff, P
Domingues, CM
Garuba, O
Griffies, SM
Haak, H
Hu, A
Ishii, M
Jungclaus, J
Kohl, AT
Marsland, SJ
Ojha, S
Saenko, OA
Savita, A
Shao, A
Stammer, D
Suzuki, T
Todd, A
Zanna, L
author_facet Couldrey, MP
Gregory, JM
Boeira Dias, F
Dobrohotoff, P
Domingues, CM
Garuba, O
Griffies, SM
Haak, H
Hu, A
Ishii, M
Jungclaus, J
Kohl, AT
Marsland, SJ
Ojha, S
Saenko, OA
Savita, A
Shao, A
Stammer, D
Suzuki, T
Todd, A
Zanna, L
author_sort Couldrey, MP
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?
publisher Springer-Verlag
publishDate 2020
url https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/1/143558%20-%20What%20causes%20the%20spread%20of%20model%20projections%20of%20ocean.pdf
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 https://eprints.utas.edu.au/36604/1/143558%20-%20What%20causes%20the%20spread%20of%20model%20projections%20of%20ocean.pdf
Couldrey, MP, Gregory, JM, Boeira Dias, F, Dobrohotoff, P, Domingues, CM orcid:0000-0001-5100-4595 , Garuba, O, Griffies, SM, Haak, H, Hu, A, Ishii, M, Jungclaus, J, Kohl, AT orcid:0000-0003-2909-3741 , Marsland, SJ orcid:0000-0002-5664-5276 , Ojha, S, Saenko, OA, Savita, A, Shao, A, Stammer, D, Suzuki, T, Todd, A and Zanna, L 2020 , 'What causes the spread of model projections of ocean dynamic sea-level change in response to greenhouse gas forcing?' , Climate Dynamics, vol. 56, no. 1-2 , pp. 155-187 , doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05471-4>.
_version_ 1766331983748661248