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Robust global ocean cooling trend for the pre-industrial Common Era
Citation
McGregor, HV and Evans, MN and Goosse, H and Leduc, G and Martrat, B and Addison, JA and Mortyn, PG and Oppo, DW and Seidenkrantz, M-S and Sicre, M-A and Phipps, SJ and Selvaraj, K and Thirumalai, K and Filipsson, HL and Ersek, V, Robust global ocean cooling trend for the pre-industrial Common Era, Nature Geoscience, 8 pp. 671-678. ISSN 1752-0894 (2015) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited
DOI: doi:10.1038/NGEO2510
Abstract
The oceans mediate the response of global climate to natural and anthropogenic forcings. Yet for the past 2,000 years — a key
interval for understanding the present and future climate response to these forcings — global sea surface temperature changes
and the underlying driving mechanisms are poorly constrained. Here we present a global synthesis of sea surface temperatures
for the Common Era (ce) derived from 57 individual marine reconstructions that meet strict quality control criteria. We
observe a cooling trend from 1 to 1800 ce that is robust against explicit tests for potential biases in the reconstructions. Between
801 and 1800 ce, the surface cooling trend is qualitatively consistent with an independent synthesis of terrestrial temperature
reconstructions, and with a sea surface temperature composite derived from an ensemble of climate model simulations using
best estimates of past external radiative forcings. Climate simulations using single and cumulative forcings suggest that the
ocean surface cooling trend from 801 to 1800 ce is not primarily a response to orbital forcing but arises from a high frequency of
explosive volcanism. Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing
that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | palaeoclimate, oceans, Common Era, natural forcings, anthropogenic forcings, climate models, volcanoes |
| Research Division: | Earth Sciences |
| Research Group: | Physical geography and environmental geoscience |
| Research Field: | Palaeoclimatology |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards |
| Objective Group: | Understanding climate change |
| Objective Field: | Understanding climate change not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Phipps, SJ (Dr Steven Phipps) |
| ID Code: | 104738 |
| Year Published: | 2015 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 138 |
| Deposited By: | IMAS Research and Education Centre |
| Deposited On: | 2015-11-18 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-10-30 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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