ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Physical Oceanography
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1644717
This article is part of the Research TopicPhysical Processes in the Southern Ocean: Dynamics, Interactions, and Climate ChangeView all 5 articles
Reduction in Ocean Heat Loss in Antarctic Dense Water Formation Regions from 1980 to 2024 Using ERA5
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- 2Universite Grenoble Alpes, Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France
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This study uses ERA5 output to investigate long-term trends and interannual variability in surface heat fluxes across the main Antarctic dense-water formation regions in Antarctica—Weddell Sea, Ross Sea, Prydz Bay, and Ad´elie Coast– over the period 1980–2024. We compute the net ocean heat budget (OHB) as the combined effect of radiative, turbulent, and conductive fluxes, focusing on the austral autumn and winter months (March–October), when ocean–atmosphere exchange is most active in promoting dense water formation. The analysis reveals a consistent reduction in oceanic heat loss across all regions, particularly pronounced after the mid-2010s, with the largest decline observed in the Weddell Sea (32%). These reductions are primarily linked to declining sensible heat fluxes associated with notable increases in 2-m air temperature (up to 0.2°C per decade), thereby weakening thermal gradients and turbulent heat exchanges. Sea surface temperature and sea ice concentration showed minimal interannual variability, underscoring atmospheric forcing as the primary driver of observed trends.
Keywords: surface heat fluxes, ERA5, Southern Ocean, dense water mass formation, coastal polynias
Received: 10 Jun 2025; Accepted: 23 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Machín and Olivé Abelló. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Francisco Machín, francisco.machin@ulpgc.es
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