Tag : Deepens

California: Since the industrial era, anthropogenic aerosols and greenhouse gases, or GHGs, have played a role in regulating the storage and dispersion of heat in oceans. A team led by the University of California, Riverside has discovered that anthropogenic aerosols and GHGs have played distinct roles in shaping the pattern of heat uptake, redistribution, and storage in the world's oceans. This was done by isolating and quantifying the effects of both forcers using coupled climate model simulations. The researchers found aerosol-driven changes in ocean circulation and associated interbasin heat transport are more effective in altering oceanic heat distribution than those driven by globally increasing GHGs. "A better understanding of the effects of individual anthropogenic forcings on oceanic heat redistribution and its implications for regional sea level change will help develop climate mitigation strategies," said Wei Liu, an assistant professor of climate change and sustainability in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, who led the study published yesterday in Nature Geoscience. Anthropogenic aerosols and GHGs have been suggested as main drivers of climate change. The team's results advance the understanding of their effects. Anthropogenic GHGs have increased steadily during the "historical period," from around 1850 to the near-present. Anthropogenic aerosols, on the other hand, first increased during this period, but then started to decline starting in the 1980s due to air quality legislation in some parts of the world. The researchers primarily used the following coupled climate model simulations that were run over the historical period: HIST-AER -- models are driven solely by human-induced aerosol changes during the hi ...