MODELING SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURE RISE RESULTING FROM INCREASING ATMOSPHERIC CARBON-DIOXIDE CONCENTRATIONS

Concern over the role of the oceans in a warming world, likely to result from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, has prompted analysis using simple models. Results from two recent, independent studies using a simple box-diffusion model suggest that over the last 130 years, observations and models are not in disagreement. Although a diffusive deep ocean was indeed included in this simplistic model, it is suggested here that the resulting ocean model offers an oversimplistic view of the oceanic contribution to the overall global atmosphere-ocean climate system and that it is necessary to add a convective capability to the water column. Using this approach it is suggested that, on a timescale of a century, the sea surface temperature increase is likely to be less by a factor of at least 3 than that previously forecast.