TY - JOUR
T1 - Southern Ocean warming and its climatic impacts
AU - Cai, Wenju
AU - Gao, Libao
AU - Luo, Yiyong
AU - Li, Xichen
AU - Zheng, Xiaotong
AU - Zhang, Xuebin
AU - Cheng, Xuhua
AU - Jia, Fan
AU - Purich, Ariaan
AU - Santoso, Agus
AU - Du, Yan
AU - Holland, David M.
AU - Shi, Jia Rui
AU - Xiang, Baoqiang
AU - Xie, Shang Ping
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Science China Press
PY - 2023/5/15
Y1 - 2023/5/15
N2 - The Southern Ocean has warmed substantially, and up to early 21st century, Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion and increasing atmospheric CO2 have conspired to intensify Southern Ocean warming. Despite a projected ozone recovery, fluxes to the Southern Ocean of radiative heat and freshwater from enhanced precipitation and melting sea ice, ice shelves, and ice sheets are expected to increase, as is a Southern Ocean westerly poleward intensification. The warming has far-reaching climatic implications for melt of Antarctic ice shelf and ice sheet, sea level rise, and remote circulations such as the intertropical convergence zone and tropical ocean-atmosphere circulations, which affect extreme weathers, agriculture, and ecosystems. The surface warm and freshwater anomalies are advected northward by the mean circulation and deposited into the ocean interior with a zonal-mean maximum at ∼45°S. The increased momentum and buoyancy fluxes enhance the Southern Ocean circulation and water mass transformation, further increasing the heat uptake. Complex processes that operate but poorly understood include interactive ice shelves and ice sheets, oceanic eddies, tropical-polar interactions, and impact of the Southern Ocean response on the climate change forcing itself; in particular, limited observations and low resolution of climate models hinder rapid progress. Thus, projection of Southern Ocean warming will likely remain uncertain, but recent community effort has laid a solid foundation for substantial progress.
AB - The Southern Ocean has warmed substantially, and up to early 21st century, Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion and increasing atmospheric CO2 have conspired to intensify Southern Ocean warming. Despite a projected ozone recovery, fluxes to the Southern Ocean of radiative heat and freshwater from enhanced precipitation and melting sea ice, ice shelves, and ice sheets are expected to increase, as is a Southern Ocean westerly poleward intensification. The warming has far-reaching climatic implications for melt of Antarctic ice shelf and ice sheet, sea level rise, and remote circulations such as the intertropical convergence zone and tropical ocean-atmosphere circulations, which affect extreme weathers, agriculture, and ecosystems. The surface warm and freshwater anomalies are advected northward by the mean circulation and deposited into the ocean interior with a zonal-mean maximum at ∼45°S. The increased momentum and buoyancy fluxes enhance the Southern Ocean circulation and water mass transformation, further increasing the heat uptake. Complex processes that operate but poorly understood include interactive ice shelves and ice sheets, oceanic eddies, tropical-polar interactions, and impact of the Southern Ocean response on the climate change forcing itself; in particular, limited observations and low resolution of climate models hinder rapid progress. Thus, projection of Southern Ocean warming will likely remain uncertain, but recent community effort has laid a solid foundation for substantial progress.
KW - Circulation change
KW - Greenhouse warming
KW - Southern Ocean warming
KW - Westerly winds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153085383&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85153085383&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scib.2023.03.049
DO - 10.1016/j.scib.2023.03.049
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85153085383
SN - 2095-9273
VL - 68
SP - 946
EP - 960
JO - Science Bulletin
JF - Science Bulletin
IS - 9
ER -