title: Tracking ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus.
abstract: Ocean heat uptake is observed to penetrate deep into the Atlantic and Southern Oceans during the recent hiatus of global warming. Here we show that the deep heat penetration in these two basins is not unique to the hiatus but is characteristic of anthropogenic warming and merely reflects the depth of the mean meridional overturning circulation in the basin. We find, however, that heat redistribution in the upper 350 m between the Pacific and Indian Oceans is closely tied to the surface warming hiatus. The Indian Ocean shows an anomalous warming below 50 m during hiatus events due to an enhanced heat transport by the Indonesian throughflow in response to the intensified trade winds in the equatorial Pacific. Thus, the Pacific and Indian Oceans are the key regions to track ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus.
authors.affiliation: Climate, Atmospheric Sciences, and Physical Oceanography (CASPO), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Climate, Atmospheric Sciences, and Physical Oceanography (CASPO), Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
authors.forename: Shang-Ping
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd, Richland, Washington 99354, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lu