Mitigation-driven global heat imbalance in the late 21st century

Using coupled climate model simulations, here we fi nd that in response to a hypothesized reduction of greenhouse gases in the late 21st century, ocean heat uptake would signi fi cantly decline in all ocean basins except the North Atlantic, where a persistently weakened Atlantic meridional overturning circulation results in sustained heat uptake.

These prolonged circulation anomalies further lead to interbasin heat exchanges, characterized by a sustained heat export from the Atlantic to the Southern Ocean and a portion of heat transfer from the Southern Ocean to the Indo-Paci fi c. Due to ocean heat uptake decline and interbasin heat export, the Southern Ocean experiences the strongest decline in ocean heat storage therefore emerging as the primary heat exchanger, while heat changes in the Indo-Paci fi c basin are relatively limited.