Science Source

Human-induced global ocean warming on multidecadal timescales

States that large-scale increases in upper-ocean temperatures are evident in observational records
States that several studies have used well-established detection and attribution methods to demonstrate that the observed basin-scale temperature changes are consistent with model responses to anthropogenic forcing and inconsistent with model-based estimates of natural variability; these studies relied on a single observational data set and employed results from only one or two model
Examines the causes of ocean warming using improved observational estimates, together with results from a large multimodel archive of externally forced and unforced simulation
The study's detection and attribution analysis systematically examines the sensitivity of results to a variety of model and data-processing choices
When global mean changes are included, the study consistently obtains a positive identification (at the 1% significance level) of an anthropogenic fingerprint in observed upper-ocean temperature changes, thereby substantially strengthening existing detection and attribution evidence