Regional Interdecadal Variability in Bias-Corrected Ocean Temperature Data

Abstract

Regional interdecadal variability, on subbasin to basin scales, is shown to be a robust feature of the post?World War II (WWII) historical temperature record, even after a recently proposed bias correction to XBT fall rates is applied. This study shows that the previously reported strong regional variability is generally unaffected by this correction, even though the interdecadal variability in the most recently published estimates of global ocean heat content is much reduced after a correction is applied. Following methods used in previous trend analysis work, estimates of interdecadal trends are calculated for individual regions of the global ocean where there are sufficient data. Spatial maps of temperature trends for the surface and three subsurface depths (50, 100, and 300 m) are presented, with both bias-corrected and uncorrected data trends at 100 and 300 m shown for comparison. In the upper two depths and at the surface, interdecadal variability is shown to be present and strong in most of the analysis regions. At 100 m, the differences between trends based on bias-corrected versus uncorrected data are small, and barely distinguishable for much of the ocean analyzed. There are more differences at 300 m between the two data treatments, but large-scale patterns are still present in the bias-corrected trends, especially where the trends are stronger. Given the sampling issues discussed in previous works, the presence of strong interdecadal variability on smaller scales raises concerns that global interdecadal variability in the historical record still may not be properly resolved.