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Disentangling anthropogenic and dynamic contributions to recent ocean warming
Jiheun Lee1,2, Rémi Tailleux1, Till Kuhlbrodt1,2
1Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
NPJ Climate and Atmospheric Science
|April 29, 2025
Summary
Ocean warming is driven by human-caused heat gain and natural heat redistribution. A new framework separates these, identifying human warming as a key oceanic fingerprint and linking heat uptake to sea-level rise.
Area of Science:
- Oceanography
- Climate Science
- Earth System Science
Background:
- The ocean absorbs over 90% of excess radiative heat, making it crucial for understanding global warming.
- Ocean warming is influenced by both direct heat absorption and internal heat redistribution processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a novel framework for decomposing ocean temperature changes.
- To distinguish between anthropogenic surface heat gain and dynamical heat redistribution.
- To link ocean heat uptake to sea-level changes.
Main Methods:
- Decomposition of temperature changes into 'spice' and 'heave' components.
- Further division of 'heave' into 'passive' (net warming) and 'dynamic' (redistribution) contributions.
- Analysis of observations and climate models to validate the framework.
Main Results:
- Passive heave accurately represents anthropogenic warming subducted along isopycnals.
- Passive heave is identified as a key oceanic fingerprint of anthropogenic climate change.
- Dynamic heave shows significant spatial heterogeneity and discrepancies between models and observations.
Conclusions:
- The novel framework successfully distinguishes anthropogenic warming from dynamical heat redistribution.
- Passive heave is a reliable indicator of human-induced ocean warming and drives global thermosteric sea-level rise.
- Dynamic heave contributes to regional sea-level changes and highlights model-observation discrepancies.
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