Abstract

Watermass-based frameworks can be leveraged to yield valuable insights into ocean dynamics and climate change. Typically, ocean properties are tracked along surfaces of constant temperature, salinity, or density. This quasi-Lagrangian framing isolates the climate change signal and the relative roles of surface fluxes and mixing on ocean changes. However, traditional watermass-based frameworks are not climate-invariant, that is, results vary based on the overall climatic state of the given model or observational product being analysed, and on the trends in the scalar surfaces upon which analysis occurs. In this talk, I present a new type of watermass framework, which tracks oceanic changes on surfaces of constant tracer-percentile. In both one- and two-dimensional analyses, this tracer-percentile framework enables a clean comparison between observations and climate models, and unlocks new findings about ocean heat and freshwater content change.

Overall, I demonstrate the superior ability of the tracer-percentile framework to isolate the long-term climate change signal, and propose its use in broader atmospheric and/or climate-based studies.

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