IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v11y2021i10d10.1038_s41558-021-01151-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Projected ocean warming constrained by the ocean observational record

Author

Listed:
  • Kewei Lyu

    (Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere)

  • Xuebin Zhang

    (Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere)

  • John A. Church

    (University of New South Wales)

Abstract

The ocean absorbs most of the excess heat from anthropogenic climate change, causing global ocean warming and sea-level rise with a series of consequences for human society and marine ecosystems. While there have been ongoing efforts to address large uncertainties in future projections, to date the projected ocean warming has not been constrained by the historical observations. Here, we show that the observed ocean warming over the well-sampled Argo period (2005–2019) can constrain projections of future ocean warming and that the upper-tail projections from latest climate models with high climate sensitivities are unrealistically large. By 2081–2100, under the high-emission scenario, the upper 2,000 m of the ocean is likely (>66% probability) to warm by 1,546–2,170 ZJ relative to 2005–2019, corresponding to 17–26 cm sea-level rise from thermal expansion. Further narrowing uncertainties requires maintenance of the ocean observing system to extend the observational record.

Suggested Citation

  • Kewei Lyu & Xuebin Zhang & John A. Church, 2021. "Projected ocean warming constrained by the ocean observational record," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(10), pages 834-839, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01151-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01151-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01151-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41558-021-01151-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01151-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.