New Science paper: Despite CO2 buildup, decades-long ocean cycle still a prime driver of short-term climate fluctuations -- caused half of the rapid warming in late 20th century and driving recent pause - which should continue for awhile. sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/897 This is an area with a lot of unmanufactured scientific disagreement, though. Abstract: ~~ A vacillating global heat sink at intermediate ocean depths is associated with different climate regimes of surface warming under anthropogenic forcing: The latter part of the 20th century saw rapid global warming as more heat stayed near the surface. In the 21st century, surface warming slowed as more heat moved into deeper oceans. In situ and reanalyzed data are used to trace the pathways of ocean heat uptake. In addition to the shallow La Niña–like patterns in the Pacific that were the previous focus, we found that the slowdown is mainly caused by heat transported to deeper layers in the Atlantic and the Southern oceans, initiated by a recurrent salinity anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic. Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 14:18:19 +0000
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