Redistribution of ocean heat and heat uptake under global warming in a climate model

The distribution of future sea level change under global warming may be linked to ocean dynamic processes, in particular to the redistribution of ocean heat and the heat uptake. Recent studies using medium-resolution (about 1degree x 1degree ocean and T42 atmosphere) models show some common features For example, in the southern ocean, local sea level rise is larger than global average in the northern region and smaller than the average in the southern region. Some of the studies focus on the mechanisms that determine the regional sea level response of the models. However, it is not clear what ocean processes are dominant to change these regional sea level changes. In this study, some experiments are carried out using climate model MIROC (Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate) to separate the dominant processes of the ocean heat redistribution. The results indicate that the anomalous wind forcing play important role in the Southern ocean and the Indian Ocean under global warming. On the other hand, the anomalous surface heat flux is dominant to redistribution of sea level rise in the North Atlantic. The anomalous heat flux also suppresses the wind induced heat redistribution in the southern ocean.