Sensitivity of Observationally Based Estimates of Ocean Heat Content and Thermal Expansion to Vertical Interpolation Schemes

Changes in ocean heat content are a critical element of climate change, with the oceans containing about 90% of the excess heat stored in the climate system and 60% in the upper 700 db. Estimates of these changes are sensitive to horizontal mapping of the sparse historical data and errors in eXpendable BathyThermograph data. Here we show that they are also sensitive to the vertical interpolation of sparsely sampled data through the water column. We estimate, using carefully constructed vertical interpolation methods with high-quality hydrographic (bottle and CTD) data, the observationally based upper ocean heat content increase (thermosteric sea level rise) from 1956 to 2020 is 285 Zeta Joules (0.55 mm yr(-1)), 14% (14%) larger than estimates relying on simple but biased linear interpolation schemes. The underestimates have a clear spatial pattern with their maximum near 15 degrees N and 12 degrees S, around the maxima in the curvature of the temperature-depth profile.

Automated summary

Changes in ocean heat content are sensitive to the vertical interpolation of sparsely sampled data and estimates relying on simple linear interpolation schemes underestimate the increase in upper ocean heat content. Using high-quality hydrographic data and carefully constructed methods, this study finds a 14% larger increase in observationally based upper ocean heat content compared to previous estimates.