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Deep-ocean contribution to sea level and energy budget not detectable over the past decade

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 1031–1035 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

As the dominant reservoir of heat uptake in the climate system, the world’s oceans provide a critical measure of global climate change. Here, we infer deep-ocean warming in the context of global sea-level rise and Earth’s energy budget between January 2005 and December 2013. Direct measurements of ocean warming above 2,000 m depth explain about 32% of the observed annual rate of global mean sea-level rise. Over the entire water column, independent estimates of ocean warming yield a contribution of 0.77 ± 0.28 mm yr−1 in sea-level rise and agree with the upper-ocean estimate to within the estimated uncertainties. Accounting for additional possible systematic uncertainties, the deep ocean (below 2,000 m) contributes −0.13 ± 0.72 mm yr−1 to global sea-level rise and −0.08 ± 0.43 W m−2 to Earth’s energy balance. The net warming of the ocean implies an energy imbalance for the Earth of 0.64 ± 0.44 W m−2 from 2005 to 2013.

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Figure 1: Global mean sea-level variations.
Figure 2: Global mean steric sea-level change contributions from different layers of the ocean.
Figure 3: Ocean heat content change above 2,000 m depth.

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Acknowledgements

W.L. was supported by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) carried out by JPL, Caltech and is now supported by UCLA-JIFRESSE. The temperature and salinity data were collected and made freely available by the International Argo Program and the national programs that contribute to it. (www.argo.ucsd.edu, http://argo.jcommops.org). The Argo Program is part of the Global Ocean Observing System. The research of J.K.W., F.W.L. and I.F. was carried out at JPL, Caltech under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109, USA

    W. Llovel, J. K. Willis, F. W. Landerer & I. Fukumori

  2. University of California Los Angeles, Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering (UCLA-JIFRESSE), Los Angeles, California 90024, USA

    W. Llovel

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Contributions

W.L. and J.K.W. conceived the study. W.L. conducted the calculations and led the writing of the manuscript. F.W.L. computed the ocean mass time series inferred by GRACE data. All authors contributed to the analysis and participated in its discussion.

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Correspondence to W. Llovel.

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Llovel, W., Willis, J., Landerer, F. et al. Deep-ocean contribution to sea level and energy budget not detectable over the past decade. Nature Clim Change 4, 1031–1035 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2387

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