The rate of ocean heat uptake depends on the mechanisms that transport heat between the surface and the ocean interior. A recent study found that the vertical heat transport driven by motions with scales smaller than 0.5° (submesoscales) and frequencies smaller than 1 day⁻¹ is upward. This transport competes with the other major components of the global heat transport, namely, the downward heat transport explained by the large‐scale wind‐driven vertical circulation and vertical diffusion at small scales and the upward heat transport associated with mesoscale eddies (50‐ to 300‐km size). The contribution from motions with small spatial scales (<0.5°) and frequencies larger than 1 day⁻¹, including internal gravity waves, has never been explicitly estimated. This study investigates this high‐frequency (subdaily) submesoscale contribution to the global heat transport. The major result of this study, based on the analysis of a high‐resolution ocean model, is that including this high‐frequency contribution surprisingly doubles the upward heat transport due to submesoscales in winter in the global ocean. This contribution typically concerns depths down to 200–500 m and can have a magnitude of up to 500 W m⁻² in terms of wintertime heat fluxes at 40‐m depth, which causes a significant upward heat transport of ~7 PW when integrated over the global ocean. Thus, such submesoscale heat transport, which is not resolved by climate models, impacts the heat uptake in the global ocean. The mechanisms involved in these results still need to be understood, which should be the scope of future work.

中文翻译：

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高频亚中尺度运动增强了全球海洋向上的垂直热传输

海洋吸收热量的速度取决于在表面和海洋内部之间传递热量的机制。最近的一项研究发现，由尺度小于0.5°（亚中尺度）和频率小于1天^-1的运动驱动的垂直传热向上。这种传热与全球传热的其他主要组成部分竞争，即向下传热是由大规模风驱动的垂直环流和小规模的垂直扩散所解释，而向上传热则与中尺度涡流有关（50- 300公里）。空间比例小（<0.5°）和频率大于1天^-1的运动的贡献包括内部引力波在内，从未得到明确估计。这项研究调查了这种高频（次日）亚中尺度对全球热传输的贡献。基于对高分辨率海洋模型的分析，这项研究的主要结果是，由于全球冬季冬季的亚中尺度，包括这种高频贡献令人惊讶地使向上的热传输增加了一倍。这种贡献通常涉及到200-500 m的深度，并且幅度可能高达500 W m ^-2就冬季40米深处的热通量而言，当整合到全球海洋上时，会导致约7 PW的显着向上热传输。因此，这种气候模式无法解决的亚中尺度热传输会影响全球海洋的热吸收。这些结果涉及的机制仍然需要理解，这应该是未来工作的范围。