Speaker: Dr. Maurice F. Huguenin, Visiting scientist at WHOI & Postdoc at UNSW Sydney

Title: Processes and dynamics of global to regional ocean heat uptake and variability

Abstract: In this seminar, I will present key results from two of my recent publications. In these projects, I have investigated ocean warming and its changes over the last 50 years using the global ocean sea-ice model ACCESS-OM2. I will highlight how changes in surface winds and thermal properties have each driven about 50% of the anomalous ocean warming since the 1970s. This warming has occurred mostly in the Southern Ocean because of its uninterrupted westerly wind belt that sustains cool sea surface temperatures and efficient heat uptake from the atmosphere. On the one hand, this buffers the worst impacts of climate change but also has huge impacts on global sea levels and the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Next, I will present evidence how El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the world’s most dominant interannual climate mode, impacts West Antarctic subsurface shelf water temperatures due to its atmospheric link to the Amundsen Sea. This has implications for interpreting basal melting of ice shelves on interannual to decadal time scales in West Antarctica.