Anthropogenic Aerosols Offsetting Ocean Warming Less Efficiently Since the 1980s

Greenhouse gases and aerosols play a major role in controlling global climate change. Greenhouse gases drive a radiative imbalance which warms the ocean, while aerosols cool the ocean. Since 1980, the effective radiation felt by the planet due to anthropogenic aerosols has leveled off, global ocean cooling due to aerosols has decelerated, and greenhouse gas-driven ocean warming has accelerated. We explore the deceleration of aerosol-driven ocean cooling by quantifying a time- and spatially varying ocean heat uptake efficiency, defined as the change in the rate of global ocean heat storage per degree of cooling surface temperature. In aerosol-only simulations, ocean heat uptake efficiency has decreased by 43 +/- 14% since 1980. The tropics and sub-tropics have driven this decrease, while the coldest fraction of the ocean continues to sustain cooling and high ocean heat uptake efficiency. Our results identify a growing trend toward less efficient ocean cooling due to aerosols. The composition of the atmosphere has a major impact on our climate. Greenhouse gases warm the planet, while aerosols (i.e., suspensions of particles in the atmosphere) cool the planet, and most of this change is absorbed by the oceans. Since 1980, the rate of cooling of the planet due to aerosols has plateaued. In the past few decades, the ocean has begun to equilibrate to this change, and this work explores where and when this equilibration has occurred in the ocean based on global climate models. To understand this change, we use an "ocean heat uptake efficiency" metric which describes how much additional heat builds up in the ocean for a given degree of surface temperature gain (or loss). We find that the ocean is cooling more slowly given a degree of surface cooling due to aerosols compared to the pre-1980s. This change is largely driven by the tropics and sub-tropics, where the ocean has stopped cooling in response to aerosol-driven negative surface temperatures. Polar and sub-polar regions, however, continue to cool due to aerosols. These changes are occurring alongside accelerating greenhouse gas-driven warming, suggesting that the relative role of aerosols in cooling our climate is weakening. Since 1980, aerosol-driven ocean cooling has decelerated substantially, alongside a drop in ocean heat uptake efficiencyThe drop in ocean heat uptake efficiency is limited to the tropics, which may have equilibrated to ongoing aerosol-driven radiative forcingAir-sea fluxes into the coldest fraction of the ocean continue to offset greenhouse gas-driven ocean warming