Articles | Volume 15, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1675-2023
Data description article
 | 
17 Apr 2023
Data description article |  | 17 Apr 2023

Heat stored in the Earth system 1960–2020: where does the energy go?

Karina von Schuckmann, Audrey Minière, Flora Gues, Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Gottfried Kirchengast, Susheel Adusumilli, Fiammetta Straneo, Michaël Ablain, Richard P. Allan, Paul M. Barker, Hugo Beltrami, Alejandro Blazquez, Tim Boyer, Lijing Cheng, John Church, Damien Desbruyeres, Han Dolman, Catia M. Domingues, Almudena García-García, Donata Giglio, John E. Gilson, Maximilian Gorfer, Leopold Haimberger, Maria Z. Hakuba, Stefan Hendricks, Shigeki Hosoda, Gregory C. Johnson, Rachel Killick, Brian King, Nicolas Kolodziejczyk, Anton Korosov, Gerhard Krinner, Mikael Kuusela, Felix W. Landerer, Moritz Langer, Thomas Lavergne, Isobel Lawrence, Yuehua Li, John Lyman, Florence Marti, Ben Marzeion, Michael Mayer, Andrew H. MacDougall, Trevor McDougall, Didier Paolo Monselesan, Jan Nitzbon, Inès Otosaka, Jian Peng, Sarah Purkey, Dean Roemmich, Kanako Sato, Katsunari Sato, Abhishek Savita, Axel Schweiger, Andrew Shepherd, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Leon Simons, Donald A. Slater, Thomas Slater, Andrea K. Steiner, Toshio Suga, Tanguy Szekely, Wim Thiery, Mary-Louise Timmermans, Inne Vanderkelen, Susan E. Wjiffels, Tonghua Wu, and Michael Zemp

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Cited articles

Abraham, J., Cheng, L., Mann, M. E., Trenberth, K., and von Schuckmann, K.: The ocean response to climate change guides both adaptation and mitigation efforts, Atmos. Ocean. Sci. Lett., 15, 100221, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aosl.2022.100221, 2022. 
Abram, N., Gattuso, J.-P., Prakash, A., Cheng, L., Chidichimo, M. P., Crate, S., Enomoto, H., Garschagen, M., Gruber, N., Harper, S., Holland, E., Kudela, R. M., Rice, J., Steffen, K., and von Schuckmann, K.: Framing and Context of the Report. In: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, edited by: Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D. C., Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría A., Nicolai, M., Okem, A., Petzold, J., Rama, B., and Weyer, N. M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 73–129, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.003, 2019. 
Adusumilli, S., Fricker, H. A., Medley, B., Padman, L., and Siegfried, M. R.: Interannual variations in meltwater input to the Southern Ocean from Antarctic ice shelves, Nat. Geosci., 13, 616–620, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0616-z, 2020. 
Adusumilli, S., Straneo, F., Hendricks, S., Korosov, A., Lavergne, T., Lawrence, I., Marzeion, B., Otosaka, I., Schweiger, A., Shepherd, A., Slater, D. A., Slater, T., Timmermanns, M.-L., and Zemp, M.: GCOS EHI 1960–2020 Cryosphere Heat Content, World Data Center for Climate (WDCC) at DKRZ [data set], https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_1960-2020_CrHC, 2022. 
Short summary
Earth's climate is out of energy balance, and this study quantifies how much heat has consequently accumulated over the past decades (ocean: 89 %, land: 6 %, cryosphere: 4 %, atmosphere: 1 %). Since 1971, this accumulated heat reached record values at an increasing pace. The Earth heat inventory provides a comprehensive view on the status and expectation of global warming, and we call for an implementation of this global climate indicator into the Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake.
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