scholarly journals Mechanisms of Fast Walker Circulation Responses to CO2 Forcing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kezhou Lu ◽  
Jie He ◽  
Boniface Fosu ◽  
Maria A.A. Rugenstein
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kezhou Lu ◽  
Jie He ◽  
Boniface O Fosu ◽  
Maria A.A. Rugenstein

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (22) ◽  
pp. 8728-8742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie He ◽  
Brian J. Soden

Abstract There is a lack of consensus on the physical mechanisms that drive the anthropogenic weakening of tropical circulation. This study investigates the relative roles of direct CO2 forcing, mean SST warming, and the pattern of SST change on the weakening of the tropical circulation using an ensemble of AMIP and aquaplanet simulations. In terms of the mean weakening of the tropical circulation, the SST warming dominates over the direct CO2 forcing through its control over the tropical mean hydrological cycle and tropospheric stratification. In terms of the spatial pattern of circulation weakening, however, the three forcing agents are all important contributors, especially over the ocean. The increasing CO2 weakens convection over ocean directly by stabilizing the lower troposphere and indirectly via the land–sea warming contrast. The mean SST warming drives strong weakening over the centers and edges of convective zones. The pattern of SST warming plays a crucial role on the spatial pattern of circulation weakening over the tropical Pacific. The anthropogenic weakening of the Walker circulation is mostly driven by the mean SST warming. Increasing CO2 strengthens the Walker circulation through its indirect effect on land–sea warming contrast. Changes in the upper-level velocity potential indicate that the pattern of SST warming does not weaken the Walker circulation despite being “El Niño–like.” A weakening caused by the mean SST warming also dominates changes in the Hadley circulation in the AMIP simulations. However, this weakening is not simulated in the Southern Hemisphere in coupled simulations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeng Luo ◽  
Junsheng Nie ◽  
Annelisa Ehret Moe ◽  
Richard V. Heermance ◽  
Carmala Garzione ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadir Jeevanjee ◽  
Jacob Seeley ◽  
David Paynter ◽  
Stephan Fueglistaler

2021 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Shasha Shang ◽  
Gaofeng Zhu ◽  
Jianhui Wei ◽  
Yan Li ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractPrecipitation in the Three-River Headwater (TRH) region has undergone significant changes as a result of global warming, which can affect water resources in downstream regions of Asia. However, the underlying mechanisms of the precipitation variability during the cold season (October to April), are still not fully understood. In this study, the daily China gridded precipitation product of CN05.1 as well as the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis are used to investigate the characteristics of the cold season precipitation variability over the TRH region and associated atmospheric mechanisms. The cold season precipitation shows an increasing trend (5.5 mm decade-1) from 1961 to 2014, with a dry-to-wet shift in around the late 1980s. The results indicate that the increased precipitation is associated with the enhanced easterly anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and enhanced southeasterly water vapor transport. The enhanced Walker circulations, caused by the gradients of sea surface temperature between the equatorial central-eastern Pacific and Indo-western Pacific in tropical oceans, resulted in strengthened easterly anomalies over the TP and the westward expansion of the anticyclone in the western North Pacific. Meanwhile, the changed Walker circulation is accompanied by a strengthened local Hadley circulation which leads to enhanced meridional water vapor transport from tropical oceans and the South China Sea toward the TRH region. Furthermore, the strengthened East Asia Subtropical Westerly jet may contribute to the enhanced divergence at upper level and anomalous ascending motion above the TRH region leading to more precipitation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 2541-2556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm J. Roberts ◽  
A. Clayton ◽  
M.-E. Demory ◽  
J. Donners ◽  
P. L. Vidale ◽  
...  

Abstract Results are presented from a matrix of coupled model integrations, using atmosphere resolutions of 135 and 90 km, and ocean resolutions of 1° and 1/3°, to study the impact of resolution on simulated climate. The mean state of the tropical Pacific is found to be improved in the models with a higher ocean resolution. Such an improved mean state arises from the development of tropical instability waves, which are poorly resolved at low resolution; these waves reduce the equatorial cold tongue bias. The improved ocean state also allows for a better simulation of the atmospheric Walker circulation. Several sensitivity studies have been performed to further understand the processes involved in the different component models. Significantly decreasing the horizontal momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the lower-resolution ocean has benefits for the mean tropical Pacific climate, but decreases model stability. Increasing the momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the higher-resolution ocean degrades the simulation toward that of the lower-resolution ocean. These results suggest that enhanced ocean model resolution can have important benefits for the climatology of both the atmosphere and ocean components of the coupled model, and that some of these benefits may be achievable at lower ocean resolution, if the model formulation allows.


2019 ◽  
Vol 507 ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Zhongfang Liu ◽  
Zhimin Jian ◽  
Christopher J. Poulsen ◽  
Liang Zhao

1996 ◽  
Vol 101 (D1) ◽  
pp. 1961-1974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald E. Newell ◽  
Yong Zhu ◽  
Edward V. Browell ◽  
William G. Read ◽  
Joe W. Waters

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 693-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Giannakis ◽  
Joanna Slawinska

The coupled atmosphere–ocean variability of the Indo-Pacific domain on seasonal to multidecadal time scales is investigated in CCSM4 and in observations through nonlinear Laplacian spectral analysis (NLSA). It is found that ENSO modes and combination modes of ENSO with the annual cycle exhibit a seasonally synchronized southward shift of equatorial surface zonal winds and thermocline adjustment consistent with terminating El Niño and La Niña events. The surface winds associated with these modes also generate teleconnections between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, leading to SST anomalies characteristic of the Indian Ocean dipole. The family of NLSA ENSO modes is used to study El Niño–La Niña asymmetries, and it is found that a group of secondary ENSO modes with more rapidly decorrelating temporal patterns contributes significantly to positively skewed SST and zonal wind statistics. Besides ENSO, fundamental and combination modes representing the tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO) are found to be consistent with mechanisms for seasonally synchronized biennial variability of the Asian–Australian monsoon and Walker circulation. On longer time scales, a multidecadal pattern referred to as the west Pacific multidecadal mode (WPMM) is established to significantly modulate ENSO and TBO activity, with periods of negative SST anomalies in the western tropical Pacific favoring stronger ENSO and TBO variability. This behavior is attributed to the fact that cold WPMM phases feature anomalous decadal westerlies in the tropical central Pacific, as well as an anomalously flat zonal thermocline profile in the equatorial Pacific. Moreover, the WPMM is found to correlate significantly with decadal precipitation over Australia.


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