Fig. 4: Southern and northern ocean contributions to global uptake compared for heat and carbon.
From: Asymmetries in the Southern Ocean contribution to global heat and carbon uptake
a,b, Individual model responses for the percentages of global heat versus global carbon uptake occurring over the Southern Ocean (a) or northern ocean (b) for recent historical period 2005–2014 (circles) and for future projections for the period 2091–2100 following the SSP2-4.5 scenario (stars). c,d, Model-mean, time-varying contributions for the percentages of global heat versus global carbon uptake occurring over the Southern Ocean (c) and the northern oceans (d), which are colour coded in time from year 1900 (blue) onwards to year 2100 (yellow). Diagnostics are based on 11 CMIP6 models for the historical period and 7 CMIP6 models for the future period to 2100. The Southern Ocean historically provides a larger contribution to global heat uptake compared with carbon uptake, whereas its contributions to global heat and carbon uptake become more comparable to future projections following SSP2-4.5.
