Enhancing impacts of mesoscale eddies on Southern Ocean temperature variability and extremes.

ABSTRACT: As a major sink of anthropogenic heat and carbon, the Southern Ocean experienced pronounced warming with increasing extreme temperature events over the past decades. Mesoscale eddies that strongly influence the uptake, redistribution, and storage of heat in the ocean are expected to play important roles in these changes, yet observational evidence remains limited. Here, we employ a comprehensive analysis of over 500,000 historical hydrographic profile measurements combined with satellite-based eddy observations to show enhanced thermal eddy imprints in the Southern Ocean. Our observations reveal that anticyclonic (cyclonic) eddies are responsible for nearly half of the subsurface high (low)-temperature extremes detected, although only 10% of the profiles are located in eddy interiors. Over

SUBMITTER: He Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10523448 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature