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  • American Meteorological Society  (3)
  • 1
    Publication Date: 2016-09-27
    Description: Equatorial Atlantic variability is dominated by the Atlantic Niño peaking during the boreal summer. Studies have shown robust links of the Atlantic Niño to fluctuations of the St. Helena subtropical anticyclone and Benguela Niño events. Furthermore, the occurrence of opposite sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the eastern equatorial and southwestern extratropical South Atlantic Ocean (SAO), also peaking in boreal summer, has recently been identified and termed the SAO dipole (SAOD). However, the extent to which and how the Atlantic Niño and SAOD are related remain unclear. Here, an analysis of historical observations reveals the Atlantic Niño as a possible intrinsic equatorial arm of the SAOD. Specifically, the observed sporadic equatorial warming characteristic of the Atlantic Niño (~0.4 K) is consistently linked to southwestern cooling (~−0.4 K) of the Atlantic Ocean during the boreal summer. Heat budget calculations show that the SAOD is largely driven by the surface net heat flux anomalies while ocean dynamics may be of secondary importance. Perturbations of the St. Helena anticyclone appear to be the dominant mechanism triggering the surface heat flux anomalies. A weakening of the anticyclone will tend to weaken the prevailing northeasterlies and enhance evaporative cooling over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. In the equatorial region, the southeast trade winds weaken, thereby suppressing evaporation and leading to net surface warming. Thus, it is hypothesized that the wind–evaporation–SST feedback may be responsible for the growth of the SAOD events linking southern extratropics and equatorial Atlantic variability via surface net heat flux anomalies.
    Print ISSN: 0894-8755
    Electronic ISSN: 1520-0442
    Topics: Geography , Geosciences , Physics
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2011-02-15
    Description: This paper demonstrates a causal link between the air–sea phenomenon referred to as the South Atlantic Ocean (SAO) dipole (SAOD) and the interannual variability of precipitation over West Africa during the boreal summer monsoon rainy season in which most of the annual rainfall is recorded using an array of observational datasets. Analyses show that positive precipitation anomalies exceeding 40 mm month−1 over most locations at the Guinea Coast are associated with the positive phase of the SAOD, which is characterized by warm sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the northeastern part of the SAO or the northeast pole (NEP)—that is, the Atlantic Niño sector—and cool SSTA in the southwestern part [southwest pole (SWP)] off the Argentina–Uruguay–Brazil coast. On the other hand, interannual variability in the Sahel is closely connected to the West African summer monsoon and the Atlantic Niño. The results of this study reveal that the well-known influence of the Atlantic Niño on Guinea Coast precipitation in the literature represents only a component of the ocean–atmosphere interactions in the SAO causing the precipitation anomalies. Indeed, correlation and composite analyses using Guinea Coast precipitation indices consistently yield significant links to both the NEP and SWP centers of action. The hypothesized physical mechanism through which the SAOD-type SST gradients could induce Guinea Coast precipitation anomalies is the Lindzen–Nigam process. During the positive phase of the SAOD, the imprint of SST gradients gives rise to divergence over the SWP linked to convergence and vigorous upward motion over the NEP thereby leading to enhancement of precipitation over the Guinea Coast.
    Print ISSN: 0894-8755
    Electronic ISSN: 1520-0442
    Topics: Geography , Geosciences , Physics
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2013-12-02
    Description: Climate variability in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropical regions is dominated by the SH annular mode (SAM). Future changes in the SAM could have a large influence on the climate over broad regions. In this paper, the authors utilized model simulations from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to examine projected future changes in the SAM during the austral summer [December–February (DJF)]. To start off, first, the ability of the models in reproducing the recently observed spatial and temporal variability was assessed. The 12 CMIP5 models examined were found to reproduce the SAM's spatial pattern reasonably well in terms of both the symmetrical and the asymmetric component. The CMIP5 models show an improvement over phase 3 of CMIP (CMIP3) in simulating the seesaw structure of the SAM and also give improvements in the recently observed positive SAM trend. However, only half the models appeared to be able to capture two major recent decadal SAM phases. Then, the future SAM trends and its sensitivity to greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations using simulations based on the representative concentration pathways 4.5 (RCP4.5) and 8.5 (RCP8.5) were explored. With RCP4.5, a very weak negative trend for this century is found. Conversely, with RCP8.5, a significant positive trend was projected, with a magnitude similar to the recently observed trend. Finally, model uncertainty in the future SAM projections was quantified by comparing projections from the individual CMIP5 models. The results imply the response of SH polar region stratospheric temperature to GHGs could be a significant controlling factor on the future evolution of the SAM.
    Print ISSN: 0894-8755
    Electronic ISSN: 1520-0442
    Topics: Geography , Geosciences , Physics
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