Inconsistent Subsurface and Deeper Ocean Warming Signals During Recent Global Warming and Hiatus

Abstract Ocean heat content (OHC) evolutions calculated from the data sets (WOA, MyOcean, ORAS4, and SODA) were examined at different depth ranges in this study. According to the OHC changes, the subsurface and deeper ocean (SDO, 300–2000 m) heat content rapidly increased over the world's ocean basins during 1998–2013, indicating significant warming in the SDO during the recent global surface warming hiatus. Almost all the ocean basins warmed up, but with various contributions to the global SDO warming tied to the recent hiatus. The role of the Indian Ocean is particularly important as it has accounted for about 30% of global SDO heat uptake during the hiatus. The combined use of multiple data sets can reveal inconsistencies in SDO warming analysis results, and improve our understanding of the role of the SDO in the recent hiatus. The heat uptake in global SDO during the hiatus was about 2.37, 5.44, 3.75, and 2.44 × 1022 joules with trends of 0.40, 0.70, 0.77, and 0.48 W m−2 according to WOA, MyOcean, ORAS4, and SODA respectively, presenting obviously inconsistent SDO warming signals. MyOcean shows OHC overestimates in different ocean basins, while ORAS4 presents more reliable SDO OHC analysis. In general, the global SDO has sequestered a significant amount of heat—about 3.50 × 1022 joules with trends of 0.59 W m−2 on average among the four data sets—during the recent hiatus, demonstrating widespread and significant warming signals in the global SDO. There remain substantial uncertainties and discrepancies, however (especially in the PO and SO), in the available SDO warming information due to insufficient subsurface observation coverage and variations in the data set generation techniques used among different researchers.