Publication Date:
2022-10-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 47(1), (2020): e2019GL085455, doi:10.1029/2019GL085455.
Description:
The meridional coherence, connectivity, and regional inhomogeneity in long‐term sea surface temperature (SST) variability over the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf and slope from 1982–2018 are investigated using observational data sets. A meridionally concurrent large SST warming trend is identified as the dominant signal over the length of the continental shelf and slope between Cape Hatteras in North Carolina and Cape Chidley, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The linear trends are 0.37 ± 0.06 and 0.39 ± 0.06 °C/decade for the shelf and slope regions, respectively. These meridionally averaged SST time series over the shelf and slope are consistent with each other and across multiple longer observational data sets with records dating back to 1900. The coherence between the long‐term meridionally averaged time series over the shelf and slope and basin‐wide averaged SST in the North Atlantic implies approximately two thirds of the warming trend during 1982–2018 may be attributed to natural climate variability and the rest to externally forced change including anthropogenic warming.
Description:
We are grateful to the Editor Dr. Kathleen Donohue and two anonymous reviewers. This work was supported by NOAA's Climate Program Office's Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program (NA19OAR4320074). We acknowledge our participation in MAPP's Marine Prediction Task Force. The data of NOAA OISST used in this study are available at NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.highres.html). The HadISST data set is available at Met Office, Hadley Centre (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/). The COBE SST and NOAA ERSST data sets are available at NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory's Physical Sciences Division (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.cobe.html; https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html). The near‐surface air temperature is available at Global Historical Climatology Network‐Monthly Database (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data‐access/land‐based‐station‐data/land‐based‐datasets/global‐historical‐climatology‐network‐monthly‐version‐4). The data of SSH are available at Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (http://marine.copernicus.eu/services‐portfolio/access‐to‐products/?option=com_csw&view=details&product_id=SEALEVEL_GLO_PHY_ L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_047).
Description:
2020-07-06
Keywords:
Sea surface temperature
;
Continental shelf
;
Continental slope
;
Long-term change
;
Northwest Atlantic
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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