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Acceleration of the ocean warming from 1961 to 2022 unveiled by large-ensemble reanalyses

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  • Andrea Storto

    (National Research Council (CNR))

  • Chunxue Yang

    (National Research Council (CNR))

Abstract

Long-term changes in ocean heat content (OHC) represent a fundamental global warming indicator and are mostly caused by anthropogenic climate-altering gas emissions. OHC increases heavily threaten the marine environment, therefore, reconstructing OHC before the well-instrumented period (i.e., before the Argo floats deployment in the mid-2000s) is crucial to understanding the multi-decadal climate change in the ocean. Here, we shed light on ocean warming and its uncertainty for the 1961-2022 period through a large ensemble reanalysis system that spans the major sources of uncertainties. Results indicate a 62-year warming of 0.43 ± 0.08 W m−2, and a statistically significant acceleration rate equal to 0.15 ± 0.04 W m−2 dec−1, locally peaking at high latitudes. The 11.6% of the global ocean area reaches the maximum yearly OHC in 2022, almost doubling any previous year. At the regional scale, major OHC uncertainty is found in the Tropics; at the global scale, the uncertainty represents about 40% and 15% of the OHC variability, respectively before and after the mid-2000s. The uncertainty of regional trends is mostly affected by observation calibration (especially at high latitudes), and sea surface temperature data uncertainty (especially at low latitudes).

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Storto & Chunxue Yang, 2024. "Acceleration of the ocean warming from 1961 to 2022 unveiled by large-ensemble reanalyses," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-44749-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44749-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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