Improved estimates of ocean heat content from 1960 to 2015
Chinese Academy of Sciences · Institute of Atmospheric Physics · +4 more institutions
Abstract
Earth's energy imbalance (EEI) drives the ongoing global warming and can best be assessed across the historical record (that is, since 1960) from ocean heat content (OHC) changes. An accurate assessment of OHC is a challenge, mainly because of insufficient and irregular data coverage. We provide updated OHC estimates with the goal of minimizing associated sampling error. We performed a subsample test, in which subsets of data during the data-rich Argo era are colocated with locations of earlier ocean observations, to quantify this error. Our results provide a new OHC estimate with an unbiased mean sampling error and with variability on decadal and multidecadal time scales (signal) that can be reliably…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 38.84
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 65
Authors
6- LCLijing ChengCorresponding
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics
- KEKevin E. Trenberth
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
- JFJohn Fasullo
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
- TBTim Boyer
NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
- JAJohn Abraham
University of St. Thomas - Minnesota
Topics & keywords
- Argo
- Environmental science
- Sampling (signal processing)
- Climatology
- Ocean heat content
- Subtropics
- Effects of global warming on oceans
- Global warming
- Life below water