PC41A:
Ocean Heat and Carbon Uptake and Storage: Observations, Mechanisms, and Feedbacks I


Session ID#: 9279

Session Description:
Heat and CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and ocean is a major control on Earth’s climate. Climbing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, along with associated radiative impacts, perturbs the ocean state and circulation. These physical changes in the ocean generally feedback positively on atmospheric CO2 levels by reducing ocean carbon uptake. However, the uptake of heat alters the circulation in ways that may feedback negatively (i.e. a stabilizing feedback) or positively on atmospheric warming trends. The sign and strength of these feedbacks depends on the complex interplay between physical and biogeochemical processes in the ocean and their interaction with atmospheric dynamics and radiative feedbacks. Recent advances in observational and modeling capabilities have deepened our understanding of these relevant processes. However the exact mechanisms governing the magnitude and regional distribution of heat and carbon uptake and storage remain poorly understood. This session seeks new and evolving insights into modeling and observational efforts that investigate all aspects of the ocean’s role in anthropogenic CO2 and heat uptake, storage and transport including the role of large-scale overturning circulation, water mass formation, ocean-ice-atmosphere, mixing, mesoscale and biogeochemical processes. We invite contributions that investigate ocean heat and carbon uptake, storage and transport on regional to global scales.
Primary Chair:  Thomas L Froelicher, Universtity of Bern, Climate and Environmental Physics, Bern, Switzerland
Chairs:  Jaime B Palter, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, Sarah Purkey, Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York, NY, United States and Adele K Morrison, Australian National University, Research School of Earth Sciences, Canberra, Australia
Moderators:  Thomas L Froelicher, Universtity of Bern, Climate and Environmental Physics, Bern, Switzerland, Jaime B Palter, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, Adele K Morrison, Australian National University, Research School of Earth Sciences, Canberra, Australia and Sarah Purkey, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  Thomas L Froelicher, Universtity of Bern, Climate and Environmental Physics, Bern, Switzerland and Jaime B Palter, McGill University, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Montreal, QC, Canada
Index Terms:

1626 Global climate models [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1635 Oceans [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4532 General circulation [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4806 Carbon cycling [OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL]
Co-Sponsor(s):
  • A - Air-sea Interactions and Upper Ocean Processes
  • B - Biogeochemistry and Nutrients
  • PO - Physical Oceanography/Ocean Circulation

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

PC41A-01
Climate sensitivity to ocean sequestration of heat and carbon (89391)
Richard G Williams, University of Liverpool, Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, Liverpool, United Kingdom, Philip Goodwin, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO14, United Kingdom, Vassil Roussenov, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom and Laurent Bopp, LSCE Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif-Sur-Yvette Cedex, France
PC41A-02
Diagnosing global ocean content changes in historically forced CMIP simulations (93394)
Peter J Gleckler1, Paul James Durack1, Ronald J Stouffer2, Gregory C Johnson3 and Chris E Forest4, (1)Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, United States, (2)NOAA, GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (3)NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA, United States, (4)Pennsylvania State University Main Campus, University Park, PA, United States
PC41A-03
Warming of the Global Ocean: Spatial Structure and Water-mass Trends (87859)
Sirpa M A Hakkinen, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Peter B Rhines, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States and Denise Worthen, IMSG, College Park, MD, United States
PC41A-04
Impacts on Ocean Heat from Transient Mesoscale Eddies in a Hierarchy of Climate Models (67639)
Stephen Matthew Griffies1, Michael Winton1, Whit Anderson2, Rusty Benson1, Thomas L Delworth1, Carolina O. Dufour3, John P Dunne4, Paul Goddard5, Adele K Morrison6, Anthony John Rosati4, Andrew Thorne Wittenberg4, Jianjun Yin7 and Rong Zhang4, (1)Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (2)NOAA/GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (3)Princeton University, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton, NJ, United States, (4)NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (5)University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States, (6)Princeton University, AOS Program, Princeton, NJ, United States, (7)The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
PC41A-05
Mechanisms of Southern Ocean heat uptake and transport in a global eddying climate model (89736)
Adele K Morrison1, Stephen Matthew Griffies2, Michael Winton3, Jorge L Sarmiento4 and Whit Anderson3, (1)Princeton University, AOS Program, Princeton, NJ, United States, (2)Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, (3)NOAA/GFDL, Princeton, NJ, United States, (4)Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
PC41A-06
What the mean overturning circulation tells us about transient ocean heat uptake: Introducing Ocean Heat Uptake Potential (89444)
Jan David Zika, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
PC41A-07
Quantifying the impact of wind-stress and heat flux variability on simulated and observed ocean heat uptake (90945)
Markus Huber and Laure Zanna, University of Oxford, Dept of Physics, Oxford, United Kingdom
PC41A-08
Interhemispheric Asymmetry of Warming in an Eddy Permitting Coupled Sector Model (89418)
David Karel Hutchinson1, Matthew H England2, Andrew M. Hogg3 and Kate Snow3, (1)University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, (2)University of New South Wales, Climate Change Research Centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia, (3)Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
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