Southern Ocean warming due to human influence

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L19701, doi:10.1029/2006GL027247, 2006

John C. Fyfe

Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

I show that the latest series of climate models reproduce the observed mid-depth Southern Ocean warming since the 1950s if they include time-varying changes in anthropogenic greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcanic aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere. The remarkable agreement between observations and state-of-the art climate models suggests significant human influence on Southern Ocean temperatures. I also show that climate models that do not include volcanic aerosols produce mid-depth Southern Ocean warming that is nearly double that produced by climate models that do include volcanic aerosols. This implies that the full effect of human-induced warming of the Southern Ocean may yet to be realized.

Received 15 June 2006; accepted 5 September 2006; published 4 October 2006.

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