Sea-surface temperature co-variability in the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans and its connections with the atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 663-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Fauchereau ◽  
S. Trzaska ◽  
Y. Richard ◽  
P. Roucou ◽  
P. Camberlin

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 887-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Mathiot ◽  
H. Goosse ◽  
X. Crosta ◽  
B. Stenni ◽  
M. Braida ◽  
...  

Abstract. From 10 to 8 ka BP (thousand years before present), paleoclimate records show an atmospheric and oceanic cooling in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. During this interval, temperatures estimated from proxy data decrease by 0.8 °C over Antarctica and 1.2 °C over the Southern Ocean. In order to study the causes of this cooling, simulations covering the early Holocene have been performed with the climate model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM constrained to follow the signal recorded in climate proxies using a data assimilation method based on a particle filtering approach. The selected proxies represent oceanic and atmospheric surface temperature in the Southern Hemisphere derived from terrestrial, marine and glaciological records. Two mechanisms previously suggested to explain the 10–8 ka BP cooling pattern are investigated using the data assimilation approach in our model. The first hypothesis is a change in atmospheric circulation, and the second one is a cooling of the sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean, driven in our experimental setup by the impact of an increased West Antarctic melting rate on ocean circulation. For the atmosphere hypothesis, the climate state obtained by data assimilation produces a modification of the meridional atmospheric circulation leading to a 0.5 °C Antarctic cooling from 10 to 8 ka BP compared to the simulation without data assimilation, without congruent cooling of the atmospheric and sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean. For the ocean hypothesis, the increased West Antarctic freshwater flux constrainted by data assimilation (+100 mSv from 10 to 8 ka BP) leads to an oceanic cooling of 0.7 °C and a strengthening of Southern Hemisphere westerlies (+6%). Thus, according to our experiments, the observed cooling in Antarctic and the Southern Ocean proxy records can only be reconciled with the reconstructions by the combination of a modified atmospheric circulation and an enhanced freshwater flux.



2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (14) ◽  
pp. 3734-3747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andréa S. Taschetto ◽  
Alex Sen Gupta ◽  
Harry H. Hendon ◽  
Caroline C. Ummenhofer ◽  
Matthew H. England

Abstract This study investigates the impact of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies on the atmospheric circulation of the Southern Hemisphere during El Niño events, with a focus on Australian climate. During El Niño episodes, the tropical Indian Ocean exhibits two types of SST response: a uniform “basinwide warming” and a dipole mode—the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD). While the impacts of the IOD on climate have been extensively studied, the effects of the basinwide warming, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, have received less attention. The interannual basinwide warming response has important implications for Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation because 1) it accounts for a greater portion of the Indian Ocean monthly SST variance than the IOD pattern and 2) its maximum amplitude occurs during austral summer to early autumn, when large parts of Australia, South America, and Africa experience their monsoon. Using observations and numerical experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model forced with historical SST from 1949 to 2005 over different tropical domains, the authors show that the basinwide warming leads to a Gill–Matsuno-type response that reinforces the anomalies caused by changes in the Pacific as part of El Niño. In particular, the basinwide warming drives strong subsidence over Australia, prolonging the dry conditions during January–March, when El Niño–related SST starts to decay. In addition to the anomalous circulation in the tropics, the basinwide warming excites a pair of barotropic anomalies in the Indian Ocean extratropics that induces an anomalous anticyclone in the Great Australian Bight.



2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 5545-5581
Author(s):  
P. Mathiot ◽  
H. Goosse ◽  
X. Crosta ◽  
B. Stenni ◽  
M. Braida ◽  
...  

Abstract. Paleoclimate records show an atmospheric and oceanic cooling in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere from 10 to 8 ka BP. In order to study the causes of this cooling, simulations covering the early Holocene period have been performed with the climate model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM constrained to follow the signal recorded in climate proxies using a data assimilation method based on a particle filtering. The selected proxies represent oceanic and atmospheric surface temperature in the Southern Hemisphere derived from terrestrial, marine and glaciological records. Using our modeling framework, two mechanisms potentially explaining the 10–8 ka BP cooling pattern are investigated. The first hypothesis is a change in atmospheric circulation. The state obtained by data assimilation displays a modification of the meridional atmospheric circulation around Antarctica, producing a 0.6 °C drop in atmospheric temperatures over Antarctica from 10 to 8 ka BP without congruent cooling of the atmospheric and sea-surface temperature in the Southern Ocean. The second hypothesis is a cooling of the sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean, simulated here as the response to a higher West Antarctic Ice Sheet melting rate. Using data assimilation, we constrain the fresh water flux to increase by 100 mSv from 10 to 8 ka BP. This perturbation leads to an oceanic cooling of 0.5 °C and a strengthening of Southern Hemisphere westerlies (+6%). However, the observed cooling in Antarctic and the Southern Ocean proxy records can only be reconciled with the combination of a modified atmospheric circulation and an enhanced freshwater flux.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah A. Fahad ◽  
Natalie J. Burls

AbstractSouthern hemisphere subtropical anticyclones are projected to change in a warmer climate during both austral summer and winter. A recent study of CMIP 5 & 6 projections found a combination of local diabatic heating changes and static-stability-induced changes in baroclinic eddy growth as the dominant drivers. Yet the underlying mechanisms forcing these changes still remain uninvestigated. This study aims to enhance our mechanistic understanding of what drives these Southern Hemisphere anticyclones changes during both seasons. Using an AGCM, we decompose the response to CO2-induced warming into two components: (1) the fast atmospheric response to direct CO2 radiative forcing, and (2) the slow atmospheric response due to indirect sea surface temperature warming. Additionally, we isolate the influence of tropical diabatic heating with AGCM added heating experiments. As a complement to our numerical AGCM experiments, we analyze the Atmospheric and Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project experiments. Results from sensitivity experiments show that slow subtropical sea surface temperature warming primarily forces the projected changes in subtropical anticyclones through baroclinicity change. Fast CO2 atmospheric radiative forcing on the other hand plays a secondary role, with the most notable exception being the South Atlantic subtropical anticyclone in austral winter, where it opposes the forcing by sea surface temperature changes resulting in a muted net response. Lastly, we find that tropical diabatic heating changes only significantly influence Southern Hemisphere subtropical anticyclone changes through tropospheric wind shear changes during austral winter.



2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (22) ◽  
pp. 7675-7695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Jiang ◽  
Tianjun Zhou

Abstract Multidecadal variations in the global land monsoon were observed during the twentieth century, with an overall increasing trend from 1901 to 1955 that was followed by a decreasing trend up to 1990, but the mechanisms governing the above changes remain inconclusive. Based on the outputs of two atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) forced by historical sea surface temperature (SST) covering the twentieth century, supplemented with AGCM simulations forced by idealized SST anomalies representing different conditions of the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific, evidence shows that the observed changes can be partly reproduced, particularly over the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon (NHSM) domain, demonstrating the modulation of decadal SST changes on the long-term variations in monsoon precipitation. Moisture budget analysis is performed to understand the interdecadal changes in monsoon precipitation, and the dynamic term associated with atmospheric circulation changes is found to be prominent, while the contribution of the thermodynamic term associated with humidity changes can lead to coincident wetting over the NHSM domain. The increase (decrease) in NHSM land precipitation during 1901–55 (1956–90) is associated with the strengthening (weakening) of NHSM circulation and Walker circulation. The multidecadal scale changes in atmospheric circulation are driven by SST anomalies over the North Atlantic and the Pacific. A warmer North Atlantic together with a colder eastern tropical Pacific and a warmer western subtropical Pacific can lead to a strengthened meridional gradient in mid-to-upper-tropospheric thickness and strengthened trade winds, which transport more water vapor into monsoon regions, leading to an increase in monsoon precipitation.



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