Ocean conditions along the U.S. West Coast influence fisheries, marine ecosystems, and coastal economies. These conditions vary across the Northeast Pacific, from the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska to the California Current System, which presents challenges for regional ocean modeling. In this study, the authors describe the development of the NEP10k, designed specifically for this region. Read More…
GFDL Research Highlights - Ocean Mixing
Despite being the second-smallest ocean on Earth, the Southern Ocean plays an outsized role in absorbing heat and carbon generated from human activities, accounting for over 40% of the planet’s oceanic carbon uptake and 67%–98% of the global ocean heat uptake. As the climate warms, however, changes to the Southern Ocean’s circulation – caused by stronger, more southerly winds and increased meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet – could affect its heat and carbon absorption abilities, which in turn would have significant consequences for global temperatures and sea level rise. Read More…
Sea level rise (SLR) is one of the most severe consequences of a warming climate, causing dangerous flooding and threatening lives and infrastructure in low-lying coastal regions. This study investigated the potential physical drivers responsible for the observed acceleration of SLR after 2010 along the U.S. Southeast Coast. Using observations and climate models, the authors show that the rapid increase in the rate of SLR along the Southeast Coast after 2010 is due in part to multidecadal buoyancy-driven Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) variations, along with heat transport convergence from wind-driven ocean circulation changes. Read More…
September 13th, 2018 - Role of Ocean Model Formulation in Climate Response Uncertainty
Oceanic heat uptake (OHU) is a significant source of uncertainty in both the transient and equilibrium response to increasing the planetary radiative forcing. OHU differs among climate models and is related in part to their representation of vertical and lateral mixing. Read More…