Impacts of ocean wave‐dependent momentum flux on global ocean climate

Abstract

Accurate knowledge of air‐sea fluxes of momentum, heat, and carbon are central to fully understanding the evolution of the climate system. The role of ocean surface waves has been largely overlooked in global climate models despite the growing body of work elucidating the influence of ocean wave state on air‐sea fluxes. Here we account for the impact of ocean surface waves on global ocean climate using a global ocean model through implementation of wave‐dependent momentum fluxes. Wave‐dependent momentum fluxes improve the simulation of observed ocean heat content (OHC) through increasing the trend in OHC over the last three decades. Specifically, the larger increase in OHC is attributable to increased net heat flux in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). These results highlight the important role of accounting for wave‐dependent momentum transfer in terms of both simulating future climate and understanding changes over the recent historical period.