Abstract
The Agulhas Region gains more heat during the global surface warming slowdown than acceleration period. Yet, mechanisms that cause excessive heat accumulation in this region remain largely unknown. We investigate the underlying physical processes and examine their influence on ocean heat changes in the last three decades. Heave is found to drive the increasing ocean heat content in the last three decades whereas elevated heat accumulation rate in slowdown compared than acceleration period is mainly attributed to spice. During the acceleration period, pure heaving of Subtropical Mode Water induced by wind stress change and pure warming caused by heat flux, leading to a strong heave component and relatively weak spice, drive the increases in ocean heat content. During the slowdown period, increasing salinity strengthens the spice, resulting in a higher heat accumulation rate compared to the acceleration period.
Highlights
Anthropogenic CO2 emission continuously increases greenhouse gases (GHG) and contributes to elevated heat content in the earth system
Our results demonstrated heave component is more dominant in the Agulhas Region and identified the difference in warming mechanisms between the global surface warming acceleration and slowdown period
Agulhas Region (AR) covers most of the Greater Agulhas System, located in the domain delimited by 10°E to 35°E and 36°S to 45°S11, including the south end of the Agulhas Current, the retroflection, the Return Current and its adjacent subtropical front
Summary
Anthropogenic CO2 emission continuously increases greenhouse gases (GHG) and contributes to elevated heat content in the earth system. Our results demonstrated heave component is more dominant in the Agulhas Region and identified the difference in warming mechanisms between the global surface warming acceleration and slowdown period. To obtain a general trend of heat content changes induced by heave and spice, Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) is applied to all the three signals (total OHC, heave, and spice) (Fig. S3), decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMF) with different time scales[16].
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