A study by the Australian scientific agency (CSIRO) proves that future increases in the intensity of The boy could accelerate widespread irreversible melting of Antarctica.
The results, published in Nature Climate Change, use climate models to show how an increase in El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability leads to less warming near the surface, but accelerates warming of deeper ocean waters.
ENSO is a key factor in climate variability, since both its warm phase, The boysuch as its coldest phase, La Niña, influence weather conditions around the world, including Australia.
Wenju Cai, lead author of this study and a world expert on the relationship between climate change and ENSO, said the research was a critical step in better understanding how climate change will affect Antarctica.
“Climate change is expected to increase the magnitude of ENSO, causing both The boy as The girl stronger, Dr. Cai said in a statement.
“This new research shows that The boy stronger can accelerate the warming of the deep waters of the Antarctic shelf, causing ice shelves and ice sheets to melt faster.”
“Our modeling also revealed that warming around the edges of floating sea ice slows down during this process, slowing the melting of sea ice near the surface.
“Models with higher ENSO variability show less upwelling of deeper, warmer water, causing slower warming of the ocean surface,” he explained.
The associated winds around Antarctica are the mechanism driving this result.
When ENSO variability increases, the intensification of westerly winds across the shelf slows down. As a result, the upwelling of warm water around Antarctica cannot increase as much.
The research team examined 31 climate models that participated in Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) under historical forcings and a high emissions scenario.
Ariaan Purich, study co-author Securing Antarctica yes Environmental Future; from Monash University, states that the effects of increased ENSO variability go beyond extreme weather hazards and affect changes in Antarctic sea ice and ice shelves and sheets.
“This could have broad implications for the global climate system, so further understanding how ENSO will respond to climate change is a critical area of climate research,” said Dr. Purich.
“We still have a lot to understand about the processes that influence platform temperatures, and this finding is an important piece of the puzzle,” he added.
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