Ocean heating will increase rainfall in east Asia, study suggests

A Rutgers researcher is a co-author of a study that suggests that the East Asian monsoon season will likely get wetter as a result of upper ocean warming in the equatorial Pacific, a crucial oceanographic region in Earth’s climate system.

Tropical storm intensification, which derives its energy from the ocean’s surface, has been linked to recent increases in ocean heat content, where energy is absorbed by the seas.

But the relationship between ocean warming and rainfall on land is less certain.

An investigation examining this connection was published in the journal Nature.

Our research suggests that variations in ocean thermal structure influence how moisture and latent heat are transported and what happens to them once they reach land, according to Yair Rosenthal, a professor of marine and coastal sciences at the School of Art and Sciences and School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University.

According to Rosenthal, variations in the latitudinal temperature gradient—the difference in sea surface temperature between low and high latitudes—control not just how energy is absorbed by the equatorial upper ocean but also how winds transport ocean moisture to land.

The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool is a region where sea surface temperatures remain above 82°F year-round.

The study, led by Zhimin Jian of Tongji University in China, found that increases in monsoonal rain in eastern China over the past 360,000 years correlated with increases in the heat content of the region.

This correlation is likely due to the enhanced transport of moisture and latent heat absorbed in the water vapor from the ocean to the continent.

According to the study, fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit, which happen roughly every 23,000 years and alter the distribution of incoming solar energy at each latitude, cause changes in the top ocean’s heat content.

The scientists rebuilt how the upper ocean thermal structure obtains its heat and energy by utilizing two foraminifera species, calcareous marine creatures, one of which is a surface dweller and the other of which lives about 200 meters below the sea surface.

They compared their findings to simulations of climate models and reconstructions of the monsoonal precipitation in eastern China during the same time frame.

According to the researchers, the linkage of ocean heat content and monsoon variations, which are both synchronized by insolation changes at astronomical timescales, is essential for controlling the global hydroclimate.

Source: Rutgers University

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