• Medientyp: E-Artikel
  • Titel: Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources
  • Beteiligte: Trenberth, Kevin E.; Fasullo, John T.; von Schuckmann, Karina; Cheng, Lijing
  • Erschienen: American Meteorological Society, 2016
  • Erschienen in: Journal of Climate
  • Sprache: Englisch
  • DOI: 10.1175/jcli-d-16-0339.1
  • ISSN: 0894-8755; 1520-0442
  • Schlagwörter: Atmospheric Science
  • Entstehung:
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  • Beschreibung: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The current Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) can best be estimated from changes in ocean heat content (OHC), complemented by top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation measurements and an assessment of the small non-ocean components. Sustained observations from the Argo array of autonomous profiling floats enable near-global estimates of OHC since 2005, which reveal considerable cancellation of variations in the upper 300 m. An analysis of the monthly contributions to EEI from non-ocean components (land and ice) using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble reveals standard deviations of 0.3–0.4 W m−2 (global); largest values occur in August, but values are below 0.75 W m−2 greater than 95% of the time. Global standard deviations of EEI of 0.64 W m−2 based on top-of-atmosphere observations therefore substantially constrain ocean contributions, given by the tendencies of OHC. Instead, monthly standard deviations of many Argo-based OHC tendencies are 6–13 W m−2, and nonphysical fluctuations are clearly evident. It is shown that an ocean reanalysis with multivariate dynamical data assimilation features much better agreement with TOA radiation, and 44% of the vertically integrated short-term OHC trend for 2005–14 of 0.8 ± 0.2 W m−2 (globally) occurs below 700-m depth. Largest warming occurs from 20° to 50°S, especially over the southern oceans, and near 40°N in all ocean analyses. The EEI is estimated to be 0.9 ± 0.3 W m−2 for 2005–14.</jats:p>
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