Sprecher
Beschreibung
The Southern Ocean provides dominant contributions to global ocean heat and carbon uptake, which is widely interpreted as resulting from its unique upwelling and circulation. Here we show a large asymmetry in these contributions, with the Southern Ocean accounting for 83%±33% of global heat uptake versus 43%±3% of global ocean carbon uptake over the historical period in state-of-the-art climate models. Using single-radiative forcing experiments, we explore why there is this asymmetry in heat and carbon uptake. In future projections, such as the shared socio-economic pathway SSP2-4.5, the Southern Ocean contributions to global heat and carbon uptake become more comparable, 52%±5% and 47%±4% respectively. Hence, the past is not a reliable indicator of the future, with the northern oceans becoming important for heat uptake while the Southern Ocean remains important for both heat and carbon uptake.
