PC12A:
Toward a 1.5°C World: Mechanisms of Ocean Sensitivity and Reversibility I


Session ID#: 37820

Session Description:
The ocean plays a key role in modulating the response of the Earth system to anthropogenic climate change through the uptake, transport, and storage of excess heat and carbon. In order to inform the development of feasible mitigation scenarios that are consistent with the COP21 Agreement targets of limiting global temperature rise to less than 1.5 to 2 C above preindustrial levels, it is important to understand processes relevant to the ocean’s role in sequestering heat and carbon and work toward quantifying and reducing their uncertainties. It is increasingly likely that without substantial near-term reductions in carbon emissions, the world will experience “overshoot” scenarios where the COP21 temperature targets are temporarily exceeded. Ultimately, achieving these targets may necessitate subsequent negative emissions though geoengineering measures. It is important to understand what changes to the ocean will occur under such scenarios, their reversibility, and their timescales. Based on observations and modeling efforts, this session explores mechanisms of uptake, transport, and storage of heat and carbon as they relate to ocean sensitivity and reversibility under different mitigation scenarios aimed at limiting global warming.
Primary Chair:  John P Krasting, NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
Co-chairs:  Ivy Frenger, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany, Andrew Lenton, CSIRO Hobart, Hobart, TAS, Australia and Kirsten Zickfeld, Simon Fraser University, Department of Geography, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Moderators:  Ivy Frenger, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany and John P Krasting, NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  Ivy Frenger, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany and John P Krasting, NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
Index Terms:

1630 Impacts of global change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1635 Oceans [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4255 Numerical modeling [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
4273 Physical and biogeochemical interactions [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL]
Cross-Topics:
  • AI - Air-Sea Interactions
  • BN - Biogeochemistry and Nutrients
  • OC - Ocean Change: Acidification and Hypoxia
  • OM - Ocean Modeling

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Antarctic Intermediate Water Formation by Cabbeling, and its Relation to Anthropogenic Carbon Transport. (304193)
Sjoerd Groeskamp, University of New South Wales, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Sydney, Australia, Ryan Abernathey, Columbia University of New York, Palisades, NY, United States and Andreas Klocker, Research Fellow, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Tasmania, Australia
Re-evaluating ocean ventilation in observations and models (324874)
Paul James Durack1, Peter J Gleckler1, Eric Guilyardi2 and Thomas P Guilderson3, (1)Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, United States, (2)LOCEAN-IPSL, Paris, France, (3)LLNL, Livermore, CA, United States
Dependence of surface warming due to carbon emissions on ocean ventilation: Experiments using idealised ocean models (302047)
Anna Katavouta, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom, Ric Williams, Liverpool University, School of Environmental Sciences, Liverpool, United Kingdom and Philip Goodwin, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO14, United Kingdom
On the effect of ocean mixing on the reversibility of ocean thermal expansion (321122)
Dana Ehlert, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany and Kirsten Zickfeld, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
How do ocean circulation perturbations influence climate and sea level under overshoot and stabilization pathways to 1.5K global warming? (320161)
Jaime B Palter1, Thomas L Froelicher2, David Paynter3 and Jasmin G John3, (1)University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, Narragansett, RI, United States, (2)Princeton Univ, Princeton, NJ, United States, (3)Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
Exploring the reversibility of ocean impacts in scenarios that temporarily exceed the 2°C and 1.5°C climate target (320234)
Xinru Li1, Kirsten Zickfeld2 and Karen Elizabeth Kohfeld2, (1)Simon Fraser University, Geography, Burnaby, BC, Canada, (2)Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada
Assessing Carbon Dioxide Removal Through Global and Regional Ocean Alkalization Low Emission Pathways. (309886)
Andrew Lenton, CSIRO Hobart, Hobart, TAS, Australia, Richard Matear, CSIRO, Oceans & Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia, David P Keller, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Kiel, Germany, Vivian Scott, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh,, Edinburgh, United Kingdom and Naomi E Vaughan, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

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