scholarly journals Modeling aerosol effects on shallow cumulus convection under various meteorological conditions observed over the Indian Ocean and implications for development of mass-flux parameterizations for climate models

2008 ◽  
Vol 113 (D20) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailong Wang ◽  
Greg M. McFarquhar
2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (17) ◽  
pp. 6649-6659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Weller ◽  
Wenju Cai

Abstract An assessment of how well climate models simulate the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) is undertaken using 20 coupled models that have partaken in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Compared with models in phase 3 (CMIP3), no substantial improvement is evident in the simulation of the IOD pattern and/or amplitude during austral spring [September–November (SON)]. The majority of models in CMIP5 generate a larger variance of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Sumatra–Java upwelling region and an IOD amplitude that is far greater than is observed. Although the relationship between precipitation and tropical Indian Ocean SSTs is well simulated, future projections of SON rainfall changes over IOD-influenced regions are intrinsically linked to the IOD amplitude and its rainfall teleconnection in the model present-day climate. The diversity of the simulated IOD amplitudes in models in CMIP5 (and CMIP3), which tend to be overly large, results in a wide range of future modeled SON rainfall trends over IOD-influenced regions. The results herein highlight the importance of realistically simulating the present-day IOD properties and suggest that caution should be exercised in interpreting climate projections in the IOD-affected regions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 129 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Caputi ◽  
S. de Lestang ◽  
M. Feng ◽  
A. Pearce

Previous studies have demonstrated that one area of greatest increase in surface sea temperatures (SST) (0.02°C per year) in the Indian Ocean over the last 50 years occurs off the lower west coast of Australia, an area dominated by the Leeuwin Current. The present paper examines water temperature trends at several coastal sites since the early 1970s: two rock lobster puerulus monitoring sites in shallow water (<5 m); four sites from a monitoring program onboard rock lobster vessels that provide bottom water temperature (<36 m); and an environmental monitoring site at Rottnest (0–50 m depth). Two global SST datasets are also examined. These data show that there was a strong seasonal variation in the historic increases in temperature off the lower west coast of Australia, with most of the increases (0.02–0.035°C per year) only focussed on 4–6 months over the austral autumn–winter with little or no increase (<0.01°C per year) apparent in the austral spring–summer period. These increases are also apparent after taking into account the interannual variation in the strength of the Leeuwin Current. The warming trend results in a change to the seasonal temperature cycle over the decades, with a delay in the peak in the temperature cycle during autumn between the 1950s and 2000s of ~10–20 days. A delay in the timing of the minimum temperature is also apparent at Rottnest from August–September to October. This seasonal variation in water temperature increases and its effect on the annual temperature cycle should be examined in climate models because it provides the potential to better understand the specific processes through which climate change and global warming are affecting this region of the Indian Ocean. It also provides an opportunity to further test the climate models to see whether this aspect is predicted in the future projections of how increases will be manifest. Any seasonal variation in water temperature increase has important implications for fisheries and the marine ecosystem because it may affect many aspects of the annual life cycle such as timing of growth, moulting, mating, spawning and recruitment, which have to be taken into account in the stock assessment and management of fisheries.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (19) ◽  
pp. 5046-5071 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenju Cai ◽  
Arnold Sullivan ◽  
Tim Cowan

Abstract The present study assesses the ability of climate models to simulate rainfall teleconnections with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD). An assessment is provided on 24 climate models that constitute phase 3 of the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (WCRP CMIP3), used in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The strength of the ENSO–rainfall teleconnection, defined as the correlation between rainfall and Niño-3.4, is overwhelmingly controlled by the amplitude of ENSO signals relative to stochastic noise, highlighting the importance of realistically simulating this parameter. Because ENSO influences arise from the movement of convergence zones from their mean positions, the well-known equatorial Pacific climatological sea surface temperature (SST) and ENSO cold tongue anomaly biases lead to systematic errors. The climatological SSTs, which are far too cold along the Pacific equator, lead to a complete “nonresponse to ENSO” along the central and/or eastern equatorial Pacific in the majority of models. ENSO anomalies are also too equatorially confined and extend too far west, with linkages to a weakness in the teleconnection with Hawaii boreal winter rainfall and an inducement of a teleconnection with rainfall over west Papua New Guinea in austral summer. Another consequence of the ENSO cold tongue bias is that the majority of models produce too strong a coherence between SST anomalies in the west, central, and eastern equatorial Pacific. Consequently, the models’ ability in terms of producing differences in the impacts by ENSO from those by ENSO Modoki is reduced. Similarly, the IOD–rainfall teleconnection strengthens with an intensification of the IOD relative to the stochastic noise. A significant relationship exists between intermodel variations of IOD–ENSO coherence and intermodel variations of the ENSO amplitude in a small subset of models in which the ENSO anomaly structure and ENSO signal transmission to the Indian Ocean are better simulated. However, using all but one model (defined as an outlier) there is no systematic linkage between ENSO amplitude and IOD–ENSO coherence. Indeed, the majority of models produce an ENSO–IOD coherence lower than the observed, supporting the notion that the Indian Ocean has the ability to generate independent variability and that ENSO is not the only trigger of the IOD. Although models with a stronger IOD amplitude and rainfall teleconnection tend to have a greater ENSO amplitude, there is no causal relationship; instead this feature reflects a commensurate strength of the Bjerknes feedback in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.


2004 ◽  
Vol 130 (604) ◽  
pp. 3365-3383 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.M.M. Soares ◽  
P.M.A. Miranda ◽  
A.P. Siebesma ◽  
J. Teixeira

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1971-1983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Dong ◽  
Michael J. McPhaden

Abstract Both the Indian and Pacific Oceans exhibit prominent decadal time scale variations in sea surface temperature (SST), linked dynamically via atmospheric and oceanic processes. However, the relationship between SST in these two basins underwent a dramatic transformation beginning around 1985. Prior to that, SST variations associated with the Indian Ocean basin mode (IOB) and the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO) were positively correlated, whereas afterward they were much less clearly synchronized. Evidence is presented from both observations and coupled state-of-the-art climate models that enhanced external forcing, particularly from increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases, was the principal cause of this changed relationship. Using coupled climate model experiments, it is shown that without external forcing, the evolution of the IOB would be strongly forced by variations in the IPO. However, with strong external forcing, the dynamical linkage between the IOB and the IPO weakens so that the negative phase IPO after 2000 is unable to force a negative phase IOB-induced cooling of the Indian Ocean. This changed relationship in the IOB and IPO led to unique SST patterns in the Indo-Pacific region after 2000, which favored exceptionally strong easterly trade winds over the tropical Pacific Ocean and a pronounced global warming hiatus in the first decade of the twenty-first century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (11) ◽  
pp. E1891-E1913 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Beal ◽  
J. Vialard ◽  
M. K. Roxy ◽  
J. Li ◽  
M. Andres ◽  
...  

AbstractThe Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), established in 2006, is a multinational network of sustained oceanic measurements that underpin understanding and forecasting of weather and climate for the Indian Ocean region and beyond. Almost one-third of humanity lives around the Indian Ocean, many in countries dependent on fisheries and rain-fed agriculture that are vulnerable to climate variability and extremes. The Indian Ocean alone has absorbed a quarter of the global oceanic heat uptake over the last two decades and the fate of this heat and its impact on future change is unknown. Climate models project accelerating sea level rise, more frequent extremes in monsoon rainfall, and decreasing oceanic productivity. In view of these new scientific challenges, a 3-yr international review of the IndOOS by more than 60 scientific experts now highlights the need for an enhanced observing network that can better meet societal challenges, and provide more reliable forecasts. Here we present core findings from this review, including the need for 1) chemical, biological, and ecosystem measurements alongside physical parameters; 2) expansion into the western tropics to improve understanding of the monsoon circulation; 3) better-resolved upper ocean processes to improve understanding of air–sea coupling and yield better subseasonal to seasonal predictions; and 4) expansion into key coastal regions and the deep ocean to better constrain the basinwide energy budget. These goals will require new agreements and partnerships with and among Indian Ocean rim countries, creating opportunities for them to enhance their monitoring and forecasting capacity as part of IndOOS-2.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annalisa Cherchi ◽  
Pascal Terray ◽  
Satyaban Bishoyi Ratna ◽  
Virna Meccia ◽  
Sooraj K.P.

&lt;p&gt;The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is one of the dominant modes of variability of the tropical Indian Ocean and it has been suggested to have a crucial role in the teleconnection between the Indian summer monsoon and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The main ideas at the base of the influence of the IOD on the ENSO-monsoon teleconnection include the possibility that it may strengthen summer rainfall over India, as well as the opposite, and also that it may produce a remote forcing on ENSO itself. The Indian Ocean has been experiencing a warming, larger than any other basins, since the 1950s. During these decades, the summer monsoon rainfall over India decreased and the frequency of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events increased. In the future the IOD is projected to further increase in frequency and amplitude with mean conditions mimicking the characteristics of its positive phase. Still, state of the art global climate models have large biases in representing IOD and monsoon mean state and variability, with potential consequences for properties and related teleconnections projected in the future. This works collects a review study of the influence of the IOD on the ISM and its relationship with ENSO, as well as new results on IOD projections comparing CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.&lt;/p&gt;


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2564-2583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Cowan ◽  
Wenju Cai ◽  
Benjamin Ng ◽  
Matthew England

Abstract The tropical Indian Ocean has experienced a faster warming rate in the west than in the east over the twentieth century. The warming pattern resembles a positive Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) that is well captured by climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), forced with the two main anthropogenic forcings, long-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs), and aerosols. However, much less is known about how GHGs and aerosols influence the IOD asymmetry, including the negative sea surface temperature (SST) skewness in the east IOD pole (IODE). Here, it is shown that the IODE SST negative skewness is more enhanced by aerosols than by GHGs using single-factor forcing experiments from 10 CMIP5 models. Aerosols induce a greater mean zonal thermocline gradient along the tropical Indian Ocean than that forced by GHGs, whereby the thermocline is deeper in the east relative to the west. This generates strong asymmetry in the SST response to thermocline anomalies between warm and cool IODE phases in the aerosol-only experiments, enhancing the negative IODE SST skewness. Other feedback processes involving zonal wind, precipitation, and evaporation cannot solely explain the enhanced SST skewness by aerosols. An interexperiment comparison in one model with strong skewness confirms that the mean zonal thermocline gradient across the Indian Ocean determines the magnitude of the SST–thermocline asymmetry, which in turn controls the SST skewness strength. The findings suggest that as aerosol emissions decline and GHGs increase, this will likely contribute to a future weakening of the IODE SST skewness.


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