• DOI:10.1126/science.1188703
• Corpus ID: 17104764

Simulated Rapid Warming of Abyssal North Pacific Waters

@article{Masuda2010SimulatedRW,
  title={Simulated Rapid Warming of Abyssal North Pacific Waters},
  author={Shuhei Masuda and Toshiyuki Awaji and Nozomi Sugiura and J. P. Matthews and Takahiro Toyoda and Yoshimi Kawai and Toshimasa Doi and Shinya Kouketsu and Hiromichi Igarashi and Katsuro Katsumata and Hiroshi Uchida and T Akeshi Kawano and Masao Fukasawa},
  journal={Science},
  year={2010},
  volume={329},
  pages={319 - 322}
}

• S. Masuda, T. Awaji, +10 authors M. Fukasawa
• Published 16 July 2010
• Environmental Science
• Science

Warming the Deep The coldest ocean waters are located at the bottoms of the major ocean basins, and, because it takes a long time for water to sink from the surface to these regions, they are relatively isolated from the warming trends that are now occurring at shallower depths. However, warming in these deep waters has recently been observed, sooner than anticipated. Masuda et al. (p. 319, published online 24 June) performed computer simulations of ocean circulation and found that internal waves are able to transport heat rapidly from the surface waters around Antarctica to the bottom of the North Pacific, which can occur within four decades, rather than the centuries that conventional mechanisms have suggested. Computer simulations suggest a possible reason for the warming of North Pacific bottom water during the past four decades. Recent observational surveys have shown significant oceanic bottom-water warming. However, the mechanisms causing such warming remain poorly understood, and their time scales are uncertain. Here, we report computer simulations that reveal a fast teleconnection between changes in the surface air-sea heat flux off the Adélie Coast of Antarctica and the bottom-water warming in the North Pacific. In contrast to conventional estimates of a multicentennial time scale, this link is established over only four decades through the action of internal waves. Changes in the heat content of the deep ocean are thus far more sensitive to the air-sea thermal interchanges than previously considered. Our findings require a reassessment of the role of the Southern Ocean in determining the impact of atmospheric warming on deep oceanic waters.