Interannual and Spatial Variability of Global Ocean Heat/Freshwater Content Identified from GTSPP

Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program (GTSPP) is a cooperative international project since 1990. The GTSPP handles all temperature and salinity profile data including XBT, CTDs, thermistor chain data, and Argo observations. Near-real time gridded (T, S) dataset was established from GTSPP since 1990 with horizontal resolution of (1o×1o) and temporal increment of 1 month using the recently developed optimal spectral decomposition (OSD) method. With this new monthly varying gridded dataset, the upper ocean (surface to 300 m depth) heat content OHC300 and freshwater content FWC300 were calculated at each horizontal grid point. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was conducted on the temporally varying global 2D OHC300 anomaly relative to its seasonal variation. A new phenomenon, global ocean tripole, was discovered. The EOF-1 mode (44.2% variance) represents the classical El Nino/La Nina phenomenon. The EOF-2 mode (14.6%) represents the Indian Ocean Dipole mode and the El Nino Modoki. Its features and connection to climate variability is also discussed. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was conducted on the temporally varying global 2D FWC300 anomaly relative to its seasonal variation. The EOF-1 mode (73.7% variance) represents near global-scale variability with the largest anomaly appearing in the Indian Ocean near southeast of Africa. The first principal component (PC1) shows decadal variability. The temporal-spatial variability represented by the EOF-1 mode shows rapid increasing of global FWC300 from 1999 to 2005 and sustaining the high values after 2005. Interpretations of the observational results to recent global warming will also be presented.