Tracking ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus.

Ocean heat uptake is observed to penetrate deep into the Atlantic and Southern Oceans during the recent hiatus of global warming. Here we show that the deep heat penetration in these two basins is not unique to the hiatus but is characteristic of anthropogenic warming and merely reflects the depth of the mean meridional overturning circulation in the basin. We find, however, that heat redistribution in the upper 350 m between the Pacific and Indian Oceans is closely tied to the surface warming hiatus. The Indian Ocean shows an anomalous warming below 50 m during hiatus events due to an enhanced heat transport by the Indonesian throughflow in response to the intensified trade winds in the equatorial Pacific. Thus, the Pacific and Indian Oceans are the key regions to track ocean heat uptake during the surface warming hiatus

Impact of ocean warm layer thickness on the intensity of hurricane Katrina in a regional coupled model

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 122 (2013): 19-32, doi:10.1007/s00703-013-0275-3.The effect of pre-storm subsurface thermal structure on the intensity of hurricane Katrina (2005) is examined using a regional coupled model. The Estimating Circulation and Climate of Ocean (ECCO) ocean state estimate is used to initialize the ocean component of the coupled model, and the source of deficiencies in the simulation of Katrina intensity is investigated in relation to the initial depth of 26°C isotherm (D26). The model underestimates the intensity of Katrina partly due to shallow D26 in ECCO. Sensitivity tests with various ECCO initial fields indicate that the correct relationship between intensity and D26 cannot be derived because D26 variability is underestimated in ECCO. A series of idealized experiments is carried out by modifying initial ECCO D26 to match the observed range. A more reasonable relationship between Katrina’s intensity and pre-storm D26 emerges: the intensity is much more sensitive to D26 than to sea surface temperature (SST). Ocean mixed layer process plays a critical role in modulating inner-core SSTs when D26 is deep, reducing mixed layer cooling and lowering the center pressure of the Katrina. Our result lends strong support to the notion that accurate initialization of pre-storm subsurface thermal structure in prediction models is critical for a skillful forecast of intensity of Katrina and likely other intense storms.HS and SPX thank the support from NSF, NOAA, NASA and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. HS acknowledges support from the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists at WHOI.2014-10-0

A Hierarchy of Idealized Monsoons in an Intermediate GCM

A hierarchy of idealized monsoons with increased degrees of complexity is built using an intermediate model with simplified physics and idealized land–sea geometry. This monsoon hierarchy helps formulate a basic understanding about the distribution of the surface equivalent potential temperature θ e, which proves to provide a general guide on the monsoon rainfall. The zonally uniform monsoon in the simplest aquaplanet simulations is explained by a linearized model of the meridional distribution of θ e, which is driven by the seasonally varying solar insolation and damped by both the monsoon overturning circulation and the local negative feedback. The heat capacities of the surface and the atmosphere give rise to an intrinsic time scale that causes the monsoon migration to lag behind the sun and reduces the monsoon extent and intensity. Monsoons with a zonally confined continent can be understood based on the zonally uniform monsoon by considering the ocean influence on the land through the westerly jet advection, which reduces the monsoon extent and induces zonal asymmetry. Monsoon responses to more realistic factors such as land geometry, albedo, and ocean heat flux are consistently predicted by their impacts on the surface θ e distribution. The soil moisture effect, however, does not fully fit into the surface θ e argument and provides additional control on monsoon rainfall by inducing regional circulation and rainfall patterns

Response and impact of equatorial ocean dynamics and tropical instability waves in the tropical Atlantic under global warming : a regional coupled downscaling study

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C03026, doi:10.1029/2010JC006670.A regional coupled model is used for a dynamic downscaling over the tropical Atlantic based on a global warming simulation carried out with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory CM2.1. The regional coupled model features a realistic representation of equatorial ocean dynamical processes such as the tropical instability waves (TIWs) that are not adequately simulated in many global coupled climate models. The coupled downscaling hence provides a unique opportunity to assess their response and impact in a changing climate. Under global warming, both global and regional models exhibit an increased (decreased) rainfall in the tropical northeast (South) Atlantic. Given this asymmetric change in mean state, the regional model produces the intensified near-surface cross-equatorial southerly wind and zonal currents. The equatorial cold tongue exhibits a reduced surface warming due to the enhanced upwelling. It is mainly associated with the increased vertical velocities driven by cross-equatorial wind, in contrast to the equatorial Pacific, where thermal stratification is suggested to be more important under global warming. The strengthened upwelling and zonal currents in turn amplify the dynamic instability of the equatorial ocean, thereby intensifying TIWs. The increased eddy heat flux significantly warms the equator and counters the effect of enhanced upwelling. Zonal eddy heat flux makes the largest contribution, suggesting a need for sustained monitoring of TIWs with spatially denser observational arrays in the equatorial oceans. Overall, results suggest that eddy heat flux is an important factor that may impact the mean state warming of equatorial oceans, as it does in the current climate.H.S. acknowledges the support from the NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists at WHOI. H.S. and S.‐P.X. are thankful for support from NOAA, NSF, and the Japan Agency for Marine‐Earth Science and Technology

Increasing occurrence of cold and warm extremes during the recent global warming slowdown.

The recent levelling of global mean temperatures after the late 1990s, the so-called global warming hiatus or slowdown, ignited a surge of scientific interest into natural global mean surface temperature variability, observed temperature biases, and climate communication, but many questions remain about how these findings relate to variations in more societally relevant temperature extremes. Here we show that both summertime warm and wintertime cold extreme occurrences increased over land during the so-called hiatus period, and that these increases occurred for distinct reasons. The increase in cold extremes is associated with an atmospheric circulation pattern resembling the warm Arctic-cold continents pattern, whereas the increase in warm extremes is tied to a pattern of sea surface temperatures resembling the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. These findings indicate that large-scale factors responsible for the most societally relevant temperature variations over continents are distinct from those of global mean surface temperature

Systematic Scatterometer Wind Errors Near Coastal Mountains.

Satellite scatterometers provide the only regular observations of surface wind vectors over vast swaths of the world oceans, including coastal regions, which are of great scientific and societal interest but still present challenges for remote sensing. Here we demonstrate systematic scatterometer wind errors near Hawaii's Big Island: Two counter-rotating lee vortices, which are clear in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set ship-based wind climatology and in aircraft observations, are absent in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Remote Sensing Systems scatterometer wind climatologies. We demonstrate similar errors in the representation of transient Catalina Eddy events in the Southern California Bight. These errors likely arise from the nonuniqueness of scatterometer wind observations, that is, an "ambiguity removal" is required during processing to select from multiple wind solutions to the geophysical model function. We discuss strategies to improve the ambiguity selection near coastal mountains, where small-scale wind reversals are common

Physical drivers of the summer 2019 North Pacific marine heatwave.

Summer 2019 observations show a rapid resurgence of the Blob-like warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies that produced devastating marine impacts in the Northeast Pacific during winter 2013/2014. Unlike the original Blob, Blob 2.0 peaked in the summer, a season when little is known about the physical drivers of such events. We show that Blob 2.0 primarily results from a prolonged weakening of the North Pacific High-Pressure System. This reduces surface winds and decreases evaporative cooling and wind-driven upper ocean mixing. Warmer ocean conditions then reduce low-cloud fraction, reinforcing the marine heatwave through a positive low-cloud feedback. Using an atmospheric model forced with observed SSTs, we also find that remote SST forcing from the central equatorial and, surprisingly, the subtropical North Pacific Ocean contribute to the weakened North Pacific High. Our multi-faceted analysis sheds light on the physical drivers governing the intensity and longevity of summertime North Pacific marine heatwaves

Baiu Rainband Termination in Atmospheric and Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Models

The baiu rainband is a summer rainband stretching from eastern China through Japan toward the northwestern Pacific. The climatological termination of the baiu rainband is investigated using the Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis (JRA-25), a stand-alone atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) forced with observed sea surface temperature (SST) and an atmosphere-ocean GCM (AOGCM). The baiu rainband over the North Pacific abruptly shifts northward and weakens substantially in early July in the atmospheric GCM (AGCM), too early compared to observations (late July). The midtroposphere westerly jet and its thermal advection explain this meridional shift of the baiu rainband, but the ocean surface evaporation modulates the precipitation intensity. In AGCM, deep convection in the subtropical northwestern Pacific sets in prematurely, displacing the westerly jet northward over the cold ocean surface earlier than in observations. The suppressed surface evaporation over the cold ocean suppresses precipitation even though the midtropospheric warm advection and vertically integrated moisture convergence are similar to those before the westerly jet's northward shift. As a result, the baiu rainband abruptly weakens after the northward shift in JRA-25 and AGCM. In AOGCM, cold SST biases in the subtropics inhibit deep convection, delaying the poleward excursion of the westerly jet. As a result, the upward motion induced by both the strong westerly jet and the rainband persist over the northwestern Pacific through summer in the AOGCM. Theresults indicate that the westerly jet and the ocean evaporation underneath are important for the baiu rainband, the latter suggesting an oceanic effect on this important phenomenon

Coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics of the 2017 extreme coastal El Niño.

In March 2017, sea surface temperatures off Peru rose above 28 °C, causing torrential rains that affected the lives of millions of people. This coastal warming is highly unusual in that it took place with a weak La Niña state. Observations and ocean model experiments show that the downwelling Kelvin waves caused by strong westerly wind events over the equatorial Pacific, together with anomalous northerly coastal winds, are important. Atmospheric model experiments further show the anomalous coastal winds are forced by the coastal warming. Taken together, these results indicate a positive feedback off Peru between the coastal warming, atmospheric deep convection, and the coastal winds. These coupled processes provide predictability. Indeed, initialized on as early as 1 February 2017, seasonal prediction models captured the extreme rainfall event. Climate model projections indicate that the frequency of extreme coastal El Niño will increase under global warming

Northwestern Pacific typhoon intensity controlled by changes in ocean temperatures.

Dominant climatic factors controlling the lifetime peak intensity of typhoons are determined from six decades of Pacific typhoon data. We find that upper ocean temperatures in the low-latitude northwestern Pacific (LLNWP) and sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific control the seasonal average lifetime peak intensity by setting the rate and duration of typhoon intensification, respectively. An anomalously strong LLNWP upper ocean warming has favored increased intensification rates and led to unprecedentedly high average typhoon intensity during the recent global warming hiatus period, despite a reduction in intensification duration tied to the central equatorial Pacific surface cooling. Continued LLNWP upper ocean warming as predicted under a moderate [that is, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5] climate change scenario is expected to further increase the average typhoon intensity by an additional 14% by 2100