ALBERT

Description: The optimal anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) pattern for forcing North American drought is identified through atmospheric general circulation model integrations in which the response of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) is determined for each of 43 prescribed localized SST anomaly “patches” in a regular array over the tropical oceans. The robustness and relevance of the optimal pattern are established through the consistency of results obtained using two different models, and also by the good correspondence of the projection time series of historical tropical SST anomaly fields on the optimal pattern with the time series of the simulated PDSI in separate model integrations with prescribed time-varying observed global SST fields for 1920–2005. It is noteworthy that this optimal drought forcing pattern differs markedly in the Pacific Ocean from the dominant SST pattern associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and also shows a large sensitivity of North American drought to Indian and Atlantic Ocean SSTs.

Description: Regional extratropical tropospheric variability in the North Pacific and eastern Europe is well correlated with variability in the Northern Hemisphere wintertime stratospheric polar vortex in both the ECMWF reanalysis record and in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model. To explain this correlation, the link between stratospheric vertical Eliassen–Palm flux variability and tropospheric variability is analyzed. Simple reasoning shows that variability in the North Pacific and eastern Europe can deepen or flatten the wintertime tropospheric stationary waves, and in particular its wavenumber-1 and -2 components, thus providing a physical explanation for the correlation between these regions and vortex weakening. These two pathways begin to weaken the upper stratospheric vortex nearly immediately, with a peak influence apparent after a lag of some 20 days. The influence then appears to propagate downward in time, as expected from wave–mean flow interaction theory. These patterns are influenced by ENSO and October Eurasian snow cover. Perturbations in the vortex induced by the two regions add linearly. These two patterns and the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) are linearly related to 40% of polar vortex variability during winter in the reanalysis record.

Description: The spatiotemporal characteristics of the winter-to-winter recurrence (WWR) of sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) are comprehensively studied through lag correlation analysis. On this basis the relationships between the SSTA WWR and the WWR of the atmospheric circulation anomalies, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and SSTA interdecadal variability are also investigated. Results show that the SSTA WWR occurs over most parts of the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, but the spatiotemporal distributions of the SSTA WWR are distinctly different in these two oceans. Analyses indicate that the spatiotemporal distribution of the SSTA WWR in the North Atlantic Ocean is consistent with the spatial distribution of the seasonal cycle of its mixed layer depth (MLD), whereas that in the North Pacific Ocean, particularly the recurrence timing, cannot be fully explained by the change in the MLD between winter and summer in some regions. In addition, the atmospheric circulation anomalies also exhibit the WWR at the mid–high latitude of the NH, which is mainly located in eastern Asia, the central North Pacific, and the North Atlantic. The sea level pressure anomalies (SLPA) in the central North Pacific are essential for the occurrence of the SSTA WWR in this region. Moreover, the strongest positive correlation occurs when the SLPA lead SSTA in the central North Pacific by 1 month, which suggests that the atmospheric forcing on the ocean may play a dominant role in this region. Therefore, the “reemergence mechanism” is not the only process influencing the SSTA WWR, and the WWR of the atmospheric circulation anomalies may be one of the causes of the SSTA WWR in the central North Pacific. Finally, the occurrence of the SSTA WWR in the NH is closely related to SSTA interdecadal variability in the NH, but it is linearly independent of ENSO.

Description: This study is the last in a series of papers addressing the dynamics of the West African summer monsoon at intraseasonal time scales between 10 and 90 days. The signals of convectively coupled equatorial Rossby (ER) waves within the summer African monsoon have been investigated after filtering NOAA outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) data within a box delineated by the dispersion curves of the theoretical ER waves. Two families of waves have been detected in the 10–100-day periodicity band by performing a singular spectrum analysis on a regional index of ER-filtered OLR. For each family the first EOF mode has been retained to focus on the main convective variability signal. Within the periodicity band of 30–100 days, an ER wave pattern with an approximate wavelength of 13 500 km has been depicted. This ER wave links the MJO mode in the Indian monsoon sector with the main mode of convective variability over West and central Africa. This confirms the investigations carried out in previous studies. Within the 10–30-day periodicity band, a separate ER wave pattern has been highlighted in the African monsoon system with an approximate wavelength of 7500 km, a phase speed of 6 m s−1, and a period of 15 days. The combined OLR and atmospheric circulation pattern looks like a combination of ER wave solutions with meridional wavenumbers of 1 and 2. Its vertical baroclinic profile suggests that this wave is forced by the deep convective heating. Its initiation in terms of OLR modulation is detected north of Lake Victoria, extending northward and then propagating westward along the Sahel latitudes. The Sahel mode identified in previous studies corresponds to the second main mode of convective variability within the 10–30-day periodicity band, and this has also been examined. Its pattern and evolution look like the first-mode ER wave pattern and they are temporally correlated with a coefficient of +0.6. About one-third of the Sahel mode events are concomitant with an ER wave occurrence. The main difference between these two signals consists of a stronger OLR and circulation modulation of the Sahel mode over East and central Africa. Thus, the Sahel mode occurrence and its westward propagation could be explained in part by atmospheric dynamics associated with the ER waves and in part by land surface interactions, as shown in other studies.

Description: The generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution is fitted to winter season daily maximum precipitation over North America, with indices representing El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) as predictors. It was found that ENSO and PDO have spatially consistent and statistically significant influences on extreme precipitation, while the influence of NAO is regional and is not field significant. The spatial pattern of extreme precipitation response to large-scale climate variability is similar to that of total precipitation but somewhat weaker in terms of statistical significance. An El Niño condition or high phase of PDO corresponds to a substantially increased likelihood of extreme precipitation over a vast region of southern North America but a decreased likelihood of extreme precipitation in the north, especially in the Great Plains and Canadian prairies and the Great Lakes/Ohio River valley.

Description: Anthropogenic forcings, such as greenhouse gases and aerosols, are starting to show their influence on the climate, as evidenced by a global warming trend observed in the past century. The weakening of tropical circulation, a consequence of global warming, has also been found in observations and in twenty-first-century climate model simulations. It is a common belief that this weakening of tropical circulation is associated with the fact that global-mean precipitation increases more slowly than water vapor. Here, a new mechanism is proposed for this robust change, which is determined by atmospheric stability associated with the depth of convection. Convection tends to extend higher in a warmer climate because of an uplifting of the tropopause. The higher the convection, the more stable the atmosphere. This leads to a weakening of tropical circulation.

Description: The authors examine the projected change in interannual variability of East Asian summer precipitation and of dominant monsoonal circulation components in the twenty-first century under scenarios A1B and A2 by analyzing the simulated results of 12 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) coupled models. Interannual standard deviation is used to depict the intensity of interannual variability. An evaluation indicates that these models can reasonably reproduce the essential features of the present-day interannual variability in both East Asian rainfall and the rainfall-related circulations. The models project an enhanced interannual variability of summer rainfall over East Asia in the twenty-first century, under both scenarios A1B and A2. Over the East Asian summer rain belt, 10 of the 12 models under scenario A1B and 9 of the 10 models under scenario A2 show enhanced variability in the twenty-first century relative to the twentieth century. The multimodel ensemble (MME) results in increased ratios of interannual standard deviation of precipitation averaged over this region of about 12% and 19% under scenarios A1B and A2, respectively. Furthermore, it is found that the interannual variability is intensified much more remarkably in comparison with mean precipitation. Two circulation factors, the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) and East Asian upper-tropospheric jet (EAJ), which are closely related to the interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall, are also projected by the models to exhibit enhanced interannual variability in the twenty-first century. This provides more evidence for the enhancement of interannual variability in East Asian summer rainfall and implies intensified interannual variability of the whole East Asian summer monsoon system. On the other hand, the relationships of East Asian rainfall with the WNPSH and EAJ do not exhibit clear changes in the twenty-first century under scenarios A1B and A2, and there are great discrepancies in the changes of the relationships among the individual models.

Description: The diurnal temperature range (DTR) of surface air over land varies geographically and seasonally. The authors have investigated these variations using generalized additive models (GAMs), a nonlinear regression methodology. With DTR as the response variable, meteorological and land surface parameters were treated as explanatory variables. Regression curves related the deviation of DTR from its mean value to values of the meteorological and land surface variables. Cloud cover, soil moisture, distance inland, solar radiation, and elevation were combined as explanatory variables in an ensemble of 84 GAM models that used data grouped into seven vegetation types and 12 months. The ensemble explained 80% of the geographical and seasonal variation in DTR. Vegetation type and cloud cover exhibited the strongest relationships with DTR. Shortwave radiation, distance inland, and elevation were positively correlated with DTR, whereas cloud cover and soil moisture were negatively correlated. A separate analysis of the surface energy budget showed that changes in net longwave radiation represented the effects of solar and hydrological variation on DTR. It is found that vegetation and its associated climate is important for DTR variation in addition to the climatic influence of cloud cover, soil moisture, and solar radiation. It is also found that surface net longwave radiation is a powerful diagnostic of DTR variation, explaining over 95% of the seasonal variation of DTR in tropical regions.

Description: The spread in climate sensitivity obtained from 12 general circulation model runs used in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates a 95% confidence interval of 2.1°–5.5°C, but this reflects compensation between model feedbacks. In particular, cloud feedback strength negatively covaries with the albedo feedback as well as with the combined water vapor plus lapse rate feedback. If the compensation between feedbacks is removed, the 95% confidence interval for climate sensitivity expands to 1.9°–8.0°C. Neither of the quoted 95% intervals adequately reflects the understanding of climate sensitivity, but their differences illustrate that model interdependencies must be understood before model spread can be correctly interpreted. The degree of negative covariance between feedbacks is unlikely to result from chance alone. It may, however, result from the method by which the feedbacks were estimated, physical relationships represented in the models, or from conditioning the models upon some combination of observations and expectations. This compensation between model feedbacks—when taken together with indications that variations in radiative forcing and the rate of ocean heat uptake play a similar compensatory role in models—suggests that conditioning of the models acts to curtail the intermodel spread in climate sensitivity. Observations used to condition the models ought to be explicitly stated, or there is the risk of doubly calling on data for purposes of both calibration and evaluation. Conditioning the models upon individual expectation (e.g., anchoring to the Charney range of 3° ± 1.5°C), to the extent that it exists, greatly complicates statistical interpretation of the intermodel spread.

Description: The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) simulated in various ocean-only and coupled atmosphere–ocean numerical models often varies in time because of either forced or internal variability. The path of the Gulf Stream (GS) is one diagnostic variable that seems to be sensitive to the amplitude of the AMOC, yet previous modeling studies show a diametrically opposed relationship between the two variables. In this note this issue is revisited, bringing together ocean observations and comparisons with the GFDL Climate Model version 2.1 (CM2.1), both of which suggest a more southerly (northerly) GS path when the AMOC is relatively strong (weak). Also shown are some examples of possible diagnostics to compare various models and observations on the relationship between shifts in GS path and changes in AMOC strength in future studies.

Description: Interannual sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the central equatorial Pacific consists of a component related to eastern Pacific SST variations (called Type-1 SST variability) and a component not related to them (called Type-2 SST variability). Lead–lagged regression and ocean surface-layer temperature balance analyses were performed to contrast their control mechanisms. Type-1 variability is part of the canonical, which is characterized by SST anomalies extending from the South American coast to the central Pacific, is coupled with the Southern Oscillation, and is associated with basinwide subsurface ocean variations. This type of variability is dominated by a major 4–5-yr periodicity and a minor biennial (2–2.5 yr) periodicity. In contrast, Type-2 variability is dominated by a biennial periodicity, is associated with local air–sea interactions, and lacks a basinwide anomaly structure. In addition, Type-2 SST variability exhibits a strong connection to the subtropics of both hemispheres, particularly the Northern Hemisphere. Type-2 SST anomalies appear first in the northeastern subtropical Pacific and later spread toward the central equatorial Pacific, being generated in both regions by anomalous surface heat flux forcing associated with wind anomalies. The SST anomalies undergo rapid intensification in the central equatorial Pacific through ocean advection processes, and eventually decay as a result of surface heat flux damping and zonal advection. The southward spreading of trade wind anomalies within the northeastern subtropics-to-central tropics pathway of Type-2 variability is associated with intensity variations of the subtropical high. Type-2 variability is found to become stronger after 1990, associated with a concurrent increase in the subtropical variability. It is concluded that Type-2 interannual variability represents a subtropical-excited phenomenon that is different from the conventional ENSO Type-1 variability.

Description: Ocean–atmosphere interaction over the Northern Hemisphere western boundary current (WBC) regions (i.e., the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, Oyashio, and their extensions) is reviewed with an emphasis on their role in basin-scale climate variability. SST anomalies exhibit considerable variance on interannual to decadal time scales in these regions. Low-frequency SST variability is primarily driven by basin-scale wind stress curl variability via the oceanic Rossby wave adjustment of the gyre-scale circulation that modulates the latitude and strength of the WBC-related oceanic fronts. Rectification of the variability by mesoscale eddies, reemergence of the anomalies from the preceding winter, and tropical remote forcing also play important roles in driving and maintaining the low-frequency variability in these regions. In the Gulf Stream region, interaction with the deep western boundary current also likely influences the low-frequency variability. Surface heat fluxes damp the low-frequency SST anomalies over the WBC regions; thus, heat fluxes originate with heat anomalies in the ocean and have the potential to drive the overlying atmospheric circulation. While recent observational studies demonstrate a local atmospheric boundary layer response to WBC changes, the latter’s influence on the large-scale atmospheric circulation is still unclear. Nevertheless, heat and moisture fluxes from the WBCs into the atmosphere influence the mean state of the atmospheric circulation, including anchoring the latitude of the storm tracks to the WBCs. Furthermore, many climate models suggest that the large-scale atmospheric response to SST anomalies driven by ocean dynamics in WBC regions can be important in generating decadal climate variability. As a step toward bridging climate model results and observations, the degree of realism of the WBC in current climate model simulations is assessed. Finally, outstanding issues concerning ocean–atmosphere interaction in WBC regions and its impact on climate variability are discussed.

Description: Snow avalanches are natural hazards strongly controlled by the mountain winter climate, but their recent response to climate change has thus far been poorly documented. In this paper, hierarchical modeling is used to obtain robust indexes of the annual fluctuations of runout altitudes. The proposed model includes a possible level shift, and distinguishes common large-scale signals in both mean- and high-magnitude events from the interannual variability. Application to the data available in France over the last 61 winters shows that the mean runout altitude is not different now than it was 60 yr ago, but that snow avalanches have been retreating since 1977. This trend is of particular note for high-magnitude events, which have seen their probability rates halved, a crucial result in terms of hazard assessment. Avalanche control measures, observation errors, and model limitations are insufficient explanations for these trends. On the other hand, strong similarities in the pattern of behavior of the proposed runout indexes and several climate datasets are shown, as well as a consistent evolution of the preferred flow regime. The proposed runout indexes may therefore be usable as indicators of climate change at high altitudes.

Description: To investigate the relative role of the cold SST anomaly (SSTA) in the western North Pacific (WNP) or Indian Ocean basin mode (IOBM) in maintaining an anomalous anticyclone over the western North Pacific (WNPAC) during the El Niño decaying summer, a suite of numerical experiments is performed using an atmospheric general circulation model, ECHAM4. In sensitive experiments, the El Niño composite SSTA is specified in either the WNP or the tropical Indian Ocean, while the climatological SST is specified elsewhere. The results indicate that the WNPAC is maintained by the combined effects of the local forcing of the negative SSTA in the WNP and the remote forcing from the IOBM. The former (latter) contribution gradually weakens (enhances) from June to August. The negative SSTA in the WNP is crucial for the maintenance of the WNPAC in early summer. However, because of a negative air–sea feedback, the negative SSTA gradually decays, as does the local forcing effect. Enhanced local convection associated with the IOBM stimulates atmospheric Kelvin waves over the equatorial western Pacific. The impact of the Kelvin waves on the WNP circulation depends on the formation of the climatological WNP monsoon trough, which does not fully establish until late summer. Therefore, the IOBM plays a crucial role in late summer via the Kelvin wave induced anticyclonic shear and boundary layer divergence.

Description: The asymptotic predictability of global land surface precipitation is estimated empirically at the seasonal time scale with lead times from 0 to 12 months. Predictability is defined as the unbiased estimate of predictive skill using a given model structure assuming that all relevant predictors are included, thus representing an upper bound to the predictive skill for seasonal forecasting applications. To estimate predictability, a simple linear regression model is formulated based on the assumption that land surface precipitation variability can be divided into a component forced by low-frequency variability in the global sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) field and that can theoretically be predicted one or more seasons into the future, and a “weather noise” component that originates from nonlinear dynamical instabilities in the atmosphere and is not predictable beyond ~10 days. Asymptotic predictability of global precipitation was found to be 14.7% of total precipitation variance using 1900–2007 data, with only minor increases in predictability using shorter and presumably less error-prone records. This estimate was derived based on concurrent SSTA–precipitation relationships and therefore constitutes the maximum skill achievable assuming perfect forecasts of the evolution of the SSTA field. Imparting lags on the SSTA–precipitation relationship, the 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month predictability of global precipitation was estimated to be 7.3%, 5.4%, 4.2%, and 3.7%, respectively, demonstrating the comparative gains that can be achieved by developing improved SSTA forecasts compared to developing improved SSTA–precipitation relationships. Finally, the actual average cross-validated predictive skill was found to be 2.1% of the total precipitation variance using the full 1900–2007 dataset and was dominated by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. This indicates that there is still significant potential for increases in predictive skill through improved parameter estimates, the use of longer and/or more reliable datasets, and the use of larger spatial fields to substitute for limited temporal records.

Description: The background state of the equatorial Pacific determines the prevalence of a “slow” recharge oscillator-type ENSO over a “fast” quasi-biennial surface-driven ENSO. The first is controlled to a large extent by the thermocline feedback, whereas the latter is related to enhanced zonal advective feedback. In this study, dynamical diagnostics are used to investigate the relative importance of these two feedbacks in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and its relation with the differences in ENSO-like variability among the models. The focus is on the role of the mean oceanic surface circulation in controlling the relative weight of the two feedbacks. By the means of an intermediate-type ocean model of the tropical Pacific “tuned” from the coupled general circulation model (CGCM) outputs, the contribution of the advection terms (vertical versus zonal) to the rate of SST change is estimated. A new finding is that biases in the advection terms are to a large extent related to the biases in the mean surface circulation. The latter are used to infer the dominant ENSO feedback for each CGCM. This allows for the classification of the CGCMs into three groups that account for the dominant feedback process of the ENSO cycle: horizontal advection (mainly in the western Pacific), vertical advection (mainly in the eastern Pacific), and the combination of both mechanisms. Based on such classification, the analysis also reveals that the models exhibit distinctive behavior with respect to the characteristics of ENSO: for most models, an enhanced (diminished) contribution of the zonal advective feedback is associated with faster (slower) ENSO and a tendency toward a cooler (warmer) mean state in the western-to-central Pacific Ocean. The results support the interpretation that biases in the mean state are sustained/maintained by the privileged mode of variability associated with the dominant feedback mechanism in the models. In particular, the models having a dominant zonal advective feedback exhibit significant cold SST asymmetry (or negative skewness) in the western equatorial Pacific.

Description: The predictability of intraseasonal variation in the tropics is assessed in the present study by using various statistical and dynamical models with rigorous and fair measurements. For a fair comparison, the real-time multivariate Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) (RMM) index, proposed by Wheeler and Hendon, is used as a predictand for all models. The statistical models include the models based on a multilinear regression, a wavelet analysis, and a singular spectrum analysis (SSA). The prediction limits (correlation skill of 0.5) of statistical models for RMM1 (RMM2) index are at days 16–17 (14–15) for the multiregression model, whereas they are at days 8–10 (9–12) for the wavelet- and SSA-based models. The poor predictability of the wavelet and SSA models is related to the tapering problem for a half-length of the time window before the initial condition. To assess the dynamical predictability, long-term serial prediction experiments with a prediction interval of every 5 days are carried out with Seoul National University (SNU) AGCM and coupled general circulation model (CGCM) for 26 (1980–2005) boreal winters. The prediction limits of RMM1 and RMM2 occur at around 20 days for both AGCM and CGCM. These results demonstrate that the skills of dynamical models used in this study are better than those of the three statistical predictions. The dynamical and statistical predictions are combined using a multimodel ensemble method. The combination provides a superior skill to any of the statistical and dynamical predictions, with a prediction limit of 22–24 days. The dependencies of prediction skill on the initial phase and amplitude of the MJO are also investigated.

Description: The snowpack is an important seasonal surface water storage reservoir that affects the availability of water resources during the spring and summer seasons in mid–high latitudes. Not surprisingly, interannual variations in snow cover extent and snow water equivalent have been extensively studied in arid regions such as western North America. This study broadens the focus by examining snow depth as an alternative snowpack metric, and considers its variability over different parts of North America. The authors use singular value decomposition (SVD) in conjunction with linear and partial correlation to show that regional snow-depth variations can be largely explained by the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific–North American (PNA) modes of atmospheric variability through distinct mechanistic pathways involving regional winter circulation patterns and hydrologic fluxes. The high index phase of the NAO generates positive winter air temperature anomalies over eastern parts of North America, causing thinning of the winter snowpack via snowmelt. Meanwhile, the high index phase of the PNA generates negative winter snowfall anomalies across midlatitudinal areas of North America, which also serve to thin the snowpack. Positive PNA anomalies have also been shown to increase temperatures and decrease snow depths over western North America. The PNA influence extends across the continent, whereas the NAO influence is limited to eastern North America. The winter snow-depth variations associated with all of these pathways exhibit seasonal persistence, which ultimately yield regional-scale spring snow-depth anomalies throughout much of North America.

Description: Recent studies arising from both statistical analysis and dynamical disease models indicate that there is a link between the incidence of cholera, a paradigmatic waterborne bacterial illness endemic to Bangladesh, and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Cholera incidence typically increases following boreal winter El Niño events for the period 1973–2001. Observational and model analyses find that Bangladesh summer rainfall is enhanced following winter El Niño events, providing a plausible physical link between El Niño and cholera incidence. However, rainfall and cholera incidence do not increase following every winter El Niño event. Substantial variations in Bangladesh precipitation also occur in simulations in which identical sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies are prescribed in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. Bangladesh summer precipitation is thus not uniquely determined by forcing from the tropical Pacific, with significant implications for predictions of cholera risk. Nonparametric statistical analysis is used to identify regions of SST anomalies associated with variations in Bangladesh rainfall in an ensemble of pacemaker simulations. The authors find that differences in the response of Bangladesh summer precipitation to winter El Niño events are strongly associated with the persistence of warm SST anomalies in the central Pacific. Also there are significant differences in the SST patterns associated with positive and negative Bangladesh rainfall anomalies, indicating that the response is not fully linear. SST anomalies in the Indian Ocean also modulate the influence of the tropical Pacific, with colder Indian Ocean SST tending to enhance Bangladesh precipitation relative to warm Indian Ocean SST for identical conditions in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. This influence is not fully linear. Forecasts of Bangladesh rainfall and cholera risk may thus be improved by considering the Niño-3 and Niño-4 indices separately, rather than the Niño-3.4 index alone. Additional skill may also be gained by incorporating information on the southeast Indian Ocean and by updating the forecast with information on the evolution of the SST anomalies into spring.

Description: The climate response to increased CO2 concentration is generally studied using climate models that have finite spatial and temporal resolutions. Different parameterizations of the effect of unresolved processes can result in different representations of small-scale fluctuations in the climate model. The representation of small-scale fluctuations can, on the other hand, affect the modeled climate response. In this study the mechanisms by which enhanced small-scale fluctuations alter the climate response to CO2 doubling are investigated. Climate experiments with preindustrial and doubled CO2 concentrations obtained from a comprehensive climate model [ECHAM5/Max Planck Institute Ocean Model (MPI-OM)] are analyzed both with and without enhanced small-scale fluctuations. By applying a stochastic model to the experimental results, two different mechanisms are found. First, the small-scale fluctuations can change the statistical behavior of the global mean temperature as measured by its statistical damping. The statistical damping acts as a restoring force that determines, according to the fluctuation–dissipation theory, the amplitude of the climate response to a change in external forcing (here, CO2 doubling). Second, the small-scale fluctuations can affect processes that occur only in response to the CO2 increase, thereby altering the change of the effective forcing on the global mean temperature.

Description: It is shown that space–time smoothed outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) indices of equatorial Pacific seasonal variability can give an interestingly different perspective on El Niño than is obtained from sea surface temperature (SST) indices or the Southern Oscillation index (SOI). In particular, the index defined by averaging over an eastern-central region exhibits strong event like character—more so than in any other El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm-phase index known to the authors. Although the historical record for OLR is much shorter than for SST or SOI, OLR offers a direct connection to anomalous atmospheric heating. It is suggested that the years identified as events by this OLR index deserve particular recognition; and it is noteworthy that they all meet the criteria for “El Niño” years. Other years, whose warm-ENSO status differs depending upon the index favored, are not particularly distinctive from an OLR perspective, and a case could be made that either the other years do not deserve special classification or that they should be identified as different from the OLR-distinguished El Niño years.

Description: Anthropogenic climate change is likely to be felt most acutely through changes in the frequency of extreme meteorological events. However, quantifying the impact of climate change on these events is a challenge because the core of the climate change science relies on general circulation models to detail future climate projections, and many of these extreme events occur on small scales that are not resolved by climate models. This note describes an attempt to infer the impact of climate change on one particular type of extreme meteorological event—the cool-season tornadoes of southern Australia. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology predicts threat areas for cool-season tornadoes using fine-resolution numerical weather prediction model output to define areas where the buoyancy of a near-surface air parcel and the vertical wind shear each exceed specified thresholds. The diagnostic has been successfully adapted to coarser-resolution climate models and applied to simulations of the current climate, as well as future projections of the climate over southern Australia. Simulations of the late twentieth century are used to validate the models’ ability to reproduce the climatology of the risk of cool-season tornado formation by comparing these with similar computations based on historical reanalyses. Model biases are overcome by setting model specific thresholds to define the cool-season tornado risk. The diagnostic, applied to simulations of the twenty-first century, is then used to quantify the impact of the projected climate change on cool-season tornado risk. The sign of the response is consistent across all models: a decrease of the risk of formation during the twenty-first century is projected, driven by the thermodynamical response. The thermal response is modulated by the dynamical response, which varies between models. The projected decrease in tornadoes risk during the cool season is consistent with the projection of positive southern annular mode trends and the known influence of this mode of variability on interannual to intraseasonal time-scale variations in cool-season tornado occurrence.

Description: A K-means clustering algorithm was used to classify Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) scenes within 1° square patches over the tropical (15°S–15°N) oceans. Three cluster centroids or “regimes” that minimize the Euclidean distance metric in a five-dimensional space of standardized variables were sought [convective surface rainfall rate; ratio of convective rain to total rain; and fractions of convective echo profiles with tops in three fixed height ranges (9 km)]. Independent cluster computations in adjacent ocean basins return very similar clusters in terms of PR echo-top distributions, rainfall, and diabatic heating profiles. The clusters consist of shallow convection (SHAL cluster), with a unimodal distribution of PR echo tops and composite diabatic heating rates of ∼2 K day−1 below 3 km; midlevel convection (MID-LEV cluster), with a bimodal distribution of PR echo tops and ∼5 K day−1 heating up to about 7 km; and deeper convection (DEEP cluster), with a multimodal distribution of PR echo tops and 〉20 K day−1 heating from 5 to 10 km. Each contributes roughly 20%–40% in terms of total tropical rainfall, but with MID-LEV clusters especially enhanced in the Indian and Atlantic sectors, SHAL relatively enhanced in the central and east Pacific, and DEEP most prominent in the western Pacific. While the clusters themselves are quite similar in rainfall and heating, specific cloud types defined according to the PR echo top and surface rainfall rate are less similar and exhibit systematic differences from one cluster to another, implying that the degree to which precipitation structures are similar decreases when one considers individual precipitating clouds as repeating tropical structures instead of larger-scale cluster ensembles themselves.

Description: Records of Atlantic basin tropical cyclones (TCs) since the late nineteenth century indicate a very large upward trend in storm frequency. This increase in documented TCs has been previously interpreted as resulting from anthropogenic climate change. However, improvements in observing and recording practices provide an alternative interpretation for these changes: recent studies suggest that the number of potentially missed TCs is sufficient to explain a large part of the recorded increase in TC counts. This study explores the influence of another factor—TC duration—on observed changes in TC frequency, using a widely used Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT). It is found that the occurrence of short-lived storms (duration of 2 days or less) in the database has increased dramatically, from less than one per year in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century to about five per year since about 2000, while medium- to long-lived storms have increased little, if at all. Thus, the previously documented increase in total TC frequency since the late nineteenth century in the database is primarily due to an increase in very short-lived TCs. The authors also undertake a sampling study based upon the distribution of ship observations, which provides quantitative estimates of the frequency of missed TCs, focusing just on the moderate to long-lived systems with durations exceeding 2 days in the raw HURDAT. Upon adding the estimated numbers of missed TCs, the time series of moderate to long-lived Atlantic TCs show substantial multidecadal variability, but neither time series exhibits a significant trend since the late nineteenth century, with a nominal decrease in the adjusted time series. Thus, to understand the source of the century-scale increase in Atlantic TC counts in HURDAT, one must explain the relatively monotonic increase in very short-duration storms since the late nineteenth century. While it is possible that the recorded increase in short-duration TCs represents a real climate signal, the authors consider that it is more plausible that the increase arises primarily from improvements in the quantity and quality of observations, along with enhanced interpretation techniques. These have allowed National Hurricane Center forecasters to better monitor and detect initial TC formation, and thus incorporate increasing numbers of very short-lived systems into the TC database.

Description: The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) response to mesoscale eddies in sea surface temperature (SST) in the Kuroshio Extension was investigated using a high-resolution (T213L30) atmospheric general circulation model. A control run was performed first by integrating the model for 40 days, driven by the satellite-derived, eddy-resolving SST during January 2006. The spatial pattern of surface wind anomalies—that is, a deviation from large-scale winds—reveals a positive correlation with the spatial pattern of mesoscale SST anomalies. The momentum budget analysis of the anomalous zonal wind was performed to investigate the formation of the ABL response. The most dominant term was the pressure gradient force; the advection term was comparable but in the opposite sense. Vertical mixing acts to weaken the anomalous zonal wind near the surface; however, the downward (upward) vertical turbulent flux anomalies were dominant near the ABL top over the warm (cold) SST anomalies, suggesting that the vertical mixing mechanism is effective. The role of the vertical mixing was further examined by a sensitivity experiment in which the turbulent diffusion coefficient for momentum was spatially smoothed. While the pressure gradient force and the advection terms were almost unchanged in the momentum budgets, the deceleration due to turbulence was enhanced because of the absence of the momentum input from the free atmosphere. The result is a reduction in the amplitude of the surface zonal wind anomalies to approximately half in the sensitivity experiment.

Description: Information from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) level 3 monthly 0.5° × 0.5° Convective and Stratiform Heating (CSH) product and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) 2A12 datasets is used to examine the four-dimensional latent heating (LH) structure over the Asian monsoon region between 1998 and 2006. High sea surface temperatures, ocean–land contrasts, and complex terrain produce large precipitation and atmospheric heating rates whose spatial and temporal characteristics are relatively undocumented. Analyses show interannual and intraseasonal LH variations with a large fraction of the interannual variability induced by internal intraseasonal variability. Also, the analyses identify a spatial dipole of LH anomalies between the equatorial Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal regions occurring during the summer active and suppressed phases of the monsoon intraseasonal oscillation. Comparisons made between the TRMM CSH and TMI 2A12 datasets indicate differences in the shape of the vertical profile of LH. A comparison of TRMM LH retrievals with sounding budget observations made during the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment shows a high correspondence in the timing of positive LH episodes during the rainy periods. Negative values of atmospheric heating, associated with radiative cooling and with upper-tropospheric cooling from nonsurface-precipitating clouds, are not captured by either of the TRMM datasets. In summary, LH algorithms based on satellite information are capable of representing the spatial and temporal characteristics of the vertically integrated heating in the Asian monsoon region. However, the vertical distribution of atmospheric heating is not captured accurately throughout different convective phases. It is suggested that satellite-derived radiative heating/cooling products are needed to supplement the LH products in order to give a better overall depiction of atmospheric heating.

Description: In contrast to previous studies validating numerical weather prediction (NWP) models using observations from the global positioning system (GPS), this paper focuses on the validation of seasonal and interannual variations in the water vapor. The main advantage of the performed validation is the independence of the GPS water vapor estimates compared to studies using water vapor datasets from radiosondes or satellite microwave radiometers that are already assimilated into the NWP models. Tropospheric parameters from a GPS reanalysis carried out in a common project of the Technical Universities in Munich and Dresden were converted into precipitable water (PW) using surface pressure observations from the WMO and mean atmospheric temperature data from ECMWF. PW time series were generated for 141 globally distributed GPS sites covering the time period from the beginning of 1994 to the end of 2004. The GPS-derived PW time series were carefully examined for their homogeneity. The validation of the NWP model from NCEP shows that the differences between the modeled and observed PW values are time dependent. In addition to establishing a long-term mean, this study also validates the seasonal cycle and interannual variations in the PW. Over Europe and large parts of North America the seasonal cycle and the interannual variations in the PW from GPS and NCEP agree very well. The results reveal a submillimeter accuracy of the GPS-derived PW anomalies. In the regions mentioned above, NCEP provides a highly accurate database for studies of long-term changes in the atmospheric water vapor. However, in the Southern Hemisphere large differences in the seasonal signals and in the PW anomalies were found between GPS and NCEP. The seasonal signal of the PW is underestimated by NCEP in the tropics and in Antarctica by up to 40% and 25%, respectively. Climate change studies based on water vapor data from NCEP should consider the large uncertainties in the analysis when interpreting these data, especially in the tropics.

Description: The first three principal modes of wintertime surface temperature variability in Seoul, South Korea (37.33°N, 126.59°E), are extracted from the 1979–2008 observed records via cyclostationary EOF (CSEOF) analysis. The first mode represents the seasonal cycle, the principle physical mechanism of which is associated with the continent–ocean sea level pressure contrast. The second mode mainly describes the overall wintertime warming or cooling. The third mode depicts subseasonal fluctuations of surface temperature. Sea level pressure anomalies to the west of South Korea (eastern China) and those with an opposite sign to the east of South Korea (Japan) are a major physical factor both for the second mode and the third mode. These sea level pressure anomalies with opposite signs alter the amount of warm air to the south of South Korea, which changes the surface temperature in South Korea. The PC time series of the seasonal cycle is significantly correlated with the East Asian winter monsoon index and exhibits a conspicuous downward trend. The PC time series of the second mode exhibits a positive trend. These trends imply that the wintertime surface temperature in South Korea has increased and the seasonal cycle has weakened gradually over the past 30 yr; the sign of greenhouse warming is clear in both PC time series. The ∼7-day oscillations are a major component of high-frequency variability in much of the analysis domain and are a manifestation of Rossby waves. Rossby waves aloft result in the concerted variation of physical variables in the atmospheric column. Due to the stronger mean zonal wind, the disturbances by Rossby waves propagate eastward at ∼8–12 m s−1; the passing of Rossby waves with alternating signs produces the ∼7-day temperature oscillations in South Korea.

Description: This study uses the NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project (NSIPP-1) AGCM to investigate the physical mechanisms by which the leading patterns of annual mean SST variability impact U.S. precipitation. The focus is on a cold Pacific pattern and a warm Atlantic pattern that exert significant drought conditions over the U.S. continent. The precipitation response to the cold Pacific is characterized by persistent deficits over the Great Plains that peak in summer with a secondary peak in spring, and weakly pluvial conditions in summer over the Southeast (SE). The precipitation response to the warm Atlantic is dominated by persistent deficits over the Great Plains with the maximum deficit occurring in late summer. The precipitation response to the warm Atlantic is overall similar to the response to the cold Pacific with, however, considerably weaker amplitude. An analysis of the atmospheric moisture budget combined with a stationary wave model diagnosis of the associated atmospheric circulation anomalies is conducted to investigate mechanisms of the precipitation responses. A key result is that, while the cold Pacific and warm Atlantic are two spatially distinct SST patterns, they nevertheless produce similar diabatic heating anomalies over the Gulf of Mexico during the warm season. In the case of the Atlantic forcing, the heating anomalies are a direct response to the SST anomalies, whereas in the case of Pacific forcing they are a secondary response to circulation anomalies forced from the tropical Pacific. The diabatic heating anomalies in both cases force an anomalous low-level cyclonic flow over the Gulf of Mexico that leads to reduced moisture transport into the central United States and increased moisture transport into the eastern United States. The precipitation deficits over the Great Plains in both cases are greatly amplified by the strong soil moisture feedback in the NSIPP-1 AGCM. In contrast, the response over the SE to the cold Pacific during spring is primarily associated with an upper-tropospheric high anomaly over the southern United States that is remotely forced by tropical Pacific diabatic heating anomalies, leading to greatly reduced stationary moisture flux convergences and anomalous subsidence in that region. Moderately reduced evaporation and weakened transient moisture flux convergences play secondary roles. It is only during spring that these three terms are all negative and constructively contribute to produce the maximum dry response in spring. The above findings based on the NSIPP-1 AGCM are generally consistent with observations, as well as with four other AGCMs included in the U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) project.

Description: The fast and slow components of global warming in a comprehensive climate model are isolated by examining the response to an instantaneous return to preindustrial forcing. The response is characterized by an initial fast exponential decay with an e-folding time smaller than 5 yr, leaving behind a remnant that evolves more slowly. The slow component is estimated to be small at present, as measured by the global mean near-surface air temperature, and, in the model examined, grows to 0.4°C by 2100 in the A1B scenario from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), and then to 1.4°C by 2300 if one holds radiative forcing fixed after 2100. The dominance of the fast component at present is supported by examining the response to an instantaneous doubling of CO2 and by the excellent fit to the model’s ensemble mean twentieth-century evolution with a simple one-box model with no long times scales.

Description: The edges or margins of tropical convective zones are hypothesized to be sensitive to low-level inflow conditions. The present study evaluates where and to what extent convective margin variability is sensitive to low-level inflow variability using observed precipitation and reanalysis wind and total precipitable water data over the tropical South America–Atlantic sector in austral summer. Composite analysis based on an inflow measure defined by projecting low-level monthly-mean atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) or lower free troposphere (LFT) winds onto either mean horizontal precipitation or precipitable water gradients shows widespread contraction of the edges of convection zones in the direction of stronger convection for anomalously strong low-level inflow; such behavior is consistent with enhanced import of relatively dry air along the edges of convection zones. However, the distinction between ABL and LFT winds may be significant regionally, for example, along the Atlantic ITCZ’s northern margin. Back trajectory analysis is employed to estimate source regions of low-level air masses arriving at margin points over time scales (2–4 days) during which low-level air masses are expected to retain some memory of initial moisture conditions while also undergoing diabatic modification. Probability distribution functions of mean precipitation values encountered along trajectories facilitate objective quantification of the frequency with which trajectories approach the margin from drier areas outside the convection zone. While margin points in the ABL are strongly dominated by inflow (i.e., trajectories originating outside of the convection zone), points in the LFT may show inflow, outflow, or mixed inflow–outflow conditions. LFT locations dominated by inflow trajectories generally correspond to regions with composites exhibiting the clearest signatures of LFT wind variability on precipitation.

Description: The global and regional climate response to a warming of the Indian Ocean is examined in an ensemble of atmospheric general circulation model experiments. The most marked changes occur over the Indian Ocean, where the increase in tropical SST is found to drive enhanced convection throughout the troposphere. In the extratropics, the warming Indian Ocean is found to induce a significant trend toward the positive phase of the northern annular mode and also to enhance the Southern Hemisphere storm track over Indian Ocean longitudes as a result of stronger meridional temperature gradients. Convective outflow in the upper levels over the warming Indian Ocean leads to a trend in subsidence over the Indian and Asian monsoon regions extending southeastward to Indonesia, the eastern Pacific, and northern Australia. Regional changes in Australia reveal that this anomalous zone of subsidence induces a drying trend in the northern regions of the continent. The long-term rainfall trend is exacerbated over northeastern Australia by the anomalous anticyclonic circulation, which leads to an offshore trend in near-surface winds. The confluence of these two factors leads to a drying signal over northeastern Australia, which is detectable during austral autumn. The rapid, late twentieth-century warming of the Indian Ocean may have contributed to a component of the observed drying trend over northeastern Australia in this season via modifications to the vertical structure of the tropical wind field.

Description: An important question in assessing twentieth-century climate change is to what extent have ENSO-related variations contributed to the observed trends. Isolating such contributions is challenging for several reasons, including ambiguities arising from how ENSO itself is defined. In particular, defining ENSO in terms of a single index and ENSO-related variations in terms of regressions on that index, as done in many previous studies, can lead to wrong conclusions. This paper argues that ENSO is best viewed not as a number but as an evolving dynamical process for this purpose. Specifically, ENSO is identified with the four dynamical eigenvectors of tropical SST evolution that are most important in the observed evolution of ENSO events. This definition is used to isolate the ENSO-related component of global SST variations on a month-by-month basis in the 136-yr (1871–2006) Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature dataset (HadISST). The analysis shows that previously identified multidecadal variations in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans all have substantial ENSO components. The long-term warming trends over these oceans are also found to have appreciable ENSO components, in some instances up to 40% of the total trend. The ENSO-unrelated component of 5-yr average SST variations, obtained by removing the ENSO-related component, is interpreted as a combination of anthropogenic, naturally forced, and internally generated coherent multidecadal variations. The following two surprising aspects of these ENSO-unrelated variations are emphasized: 1) a strong cooling trend in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and 2) a nearly zonally symmetric multidecadal tropical–extratropical seesaw that has amplified in recent decades. The latter has played a major role in modulating SSTs over the Indian Ocean.

Description: The atmospheric component of the United Kingdom’s new High-resolution Global Environmental Model (HiGEM) has been run with interactive aerosol schemes that include biomass burning and mineral dust. Dust emission, transport, and deposition are parameterized within the model using six particle size divisions, which are treated independently. The biomass is modeled in three nonindependent modes, and emissions are prescribed from an external dataset. The model is shown to produce realistic horizontal and vertical distributions of these aerosols for each season when compared with available satellite- and ground-based observations and with other models. Combined aerosol optical depths off the coast of North Africa exceed 0.5 both in boreal winter, when biomass is the main contributor, and also in summer, when the dust dominates. The model is capable of resolving smaller-scale features, such as dust storms emanating from the Bodélé and Saharan regions of North Africa and the wintertime Bodélé low-level jet. This is illustrated by February and July case studies, in which the diurnal cycles of model variables in relation to dust emission and transport are examined. The top-of-atmosphere annual mean radiative forcing of the dust is calculated and found to be globally quite small but locally very large, exceeding 20 W m−2 over the Sahara, where inclusion of dust aerosol is shown to improve the model radiative balance. This work extends previous aerosol studies by combining complexity with increased global resolution and represents a step toward the next generation of models to investigate aerosol–climate interactions.

Description: Arctic sea ice extent has decreased dramatically over the last 30 years, and this trend is expected to continue through the twenty-first century. Changes in sea ice extent impact cloud cover, which in turn influences the surface energy budget. Understanding cloud feedback mechanisms requires an accurate determination of cloud cover over the polar regions, which must be obtained from satellite-based measurements. The accuracy of cloud detection using observations from space varies with surface type, complicating any assessment of climate trends as well as the understanding of ice–albedo and cloud–radiative feedback mechanisms. To explore the implications of this dependence on measurement capability, cloud amounts from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are compared with those from the CloudSat and Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder (CALIPSO) satellites in both daytime and nighttime during the time period from July 2006 to December 2008. MODIS is an imager that makes observations in the solar and infrared spectrum. The active sensors of CloudSat and CALIPSO, a radar and lidar, respectively, provide vertical cloud structures along a narrow curtain. Results clearly indicate that MODIS cloud mask products perform better over open water than over ice. Regional changes in cloud amount from CloudSat/CALIPSO and MODIS are categorized as a function of independent measurements of sea ice concentration (SIC) from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E). As SIC increases from 10% to 90%, the mean cloud amounts from MODIS and CloudSat–CALIPSO both decrease; water that is more open is associated with increased cloud amount. However, this dependency on SIC is much stronger for MODIS than for CloudSat–CALIPSO, and is likely due to a low bias in MODIS cloud amount. The implications of this on the surface radiative energy budget using historical satellite measurements are discussed. The quantified ice–water difference in MODIS cloud detection can be used to adjust estimated trends in cloud amount in the presence of changing sea ice cover from an independent dataset. It was found that cloud amount trends in the Arctic might be in error by up to 2.7% per decade. The impact of these errors on the surface net cloud radiative effect (“forcing”) of the Arctic can be significant, as high as 8.5%.

Description: The coupled ocean–atmosphere responses to idealized freshwater forcing in the western tropical Pacific are studied using a fully coupled climate model. The model explicitly demonstrates that freshwater forcing in the western tropical Pacific can lead to a basinwide response with the pattern resembling the Pacific decadal oscillation. In the tropics, a negative (positive) freshwater forcing over the western tropical Pacific decreases (increases) sea surface height locally, and sets up a positive (negative) zonal pressure gradient anomaly, which accelerates (decelerates) the meridional overturning circulation and equatorial surface westward flow. This leads to an intensification (reduction) of meridional heat divergence and vertical cold advection, and thus a development of La Niña (El Niño)–like responses in the tropics. The tropical responses are further substantiated by the positive Bjerknes feedback, and subsequently force significant changes in the extratropical North Pacific through atmospheric teleconnection. The local freshwater response also reinforces the imposed forcing, forming a positive feedback loop. Applications to Pacific climate changes are discussed.

Description: A global and seasonal assessment of regions of the earth with strong climate–vegetation biophysical process (VBP) interactions is provided. The presence of VBP and degree of VBP effects on climate were assessed based on the skill of simulations of observed global precipitation by two general circulation models of the atmosphere coupled to three land models with varying degrees of complexity in VBP representation. The simulated VBP effects on precipitation were estimated to be about 10% of observed precipitation globally and 40% over land; the strongest impacts were in the monsoon regions. Among these, VBP impacts were highest on the West African, South Asian, East Asian, and South American monsoons. The specific characteristics of vegetation–precipitation interactions in northern high latitudes were identified. Different regions had different primary impact season(s) depending on regional climate characteristics and geographical features. The characteristics of VBP effects on surface energy and water balance as well as their interactions were also analyzed. The VBP-induced change in evaporation was the dominant factor in modulating the surface energy and water balance. The land–cloud interaction had substantial effects in the feedback. Meanwhile, the monsoon regions, midlatitudes lands, and high-latitude lands each exhibited quite different characteristics in circulation response to surface heating changes. This study is the first to compare simulations with observations to identify and assess global seasonal mean VBP feedback effects. It is concluded that VBPs are a major component of the global water cycle.

Description: The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of the two perturbed physics ensembles (PPE) generated using structurally different GCMs, Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC3.2) and the Third Hadley Centre Atmospheric Model with slab ocean (HadSM3), is investigated. A method to quantify the shortwave (SW) cloud feedback by clouds with different cloud-top pressure is developed. It is found that the difference in the ensemble means of the ECS between the two ensembles is mainly caused by differences in the SW low-level cloud feedback. The ensemble mean SW cloud feedback and ECS of the MIROC3.2 ensemble is larger than that of the HadSM3 ensemble. This is likely related to the 1XCO2 low-level cloud albedo of the former being larger than that of the latter. It is also found that the largest contribution to the within-ensemble variation of ECS comes from the SW low-level cloud feedback in both ensembles. The mechanism that causes the within-ensemble variation is different between the two ensembles. In the HadSM3 ensemble, members with large 1XCO2 low-level cloud albedo have large SW cloud feedback and large ECS; ensemble members with large 1XCO2 cloud cover have large negative SW cloud feedback and relatively low ECS. In the MIROC3.2 ensemble, the 1XCO2 low-level cloud albedo is much more tightly constrained, and no relationship is found between it and the cloud feedback. These results indicate that both the parametric uncertainties sampled in PPEs and the structural uncertainties of GCMs are important and worth further investigation.

Description: The lower reach of the Yangtze River basin (LYRB) is located at the central region of the mei-yu and baiu front, which represents the subtropical East Asian (EA) summer monsoon. Based on the newly released daily rainfall data, two dominant intraseasonal variation (ISV) modes are identified over the LYRB during boreal summer (May–August), with spectral peaks occurring on day 15 (the biweekly mode) and day 24 (the 21–30-day mode). These two modes have comparable intensities, and together they account for above about 57% of the total intraseasonal variance. Both ISV modes exhibit baroclinic structures over the LYRB at their extreme phases. However, the genesis and evolutions associated with the two modes are different. Considering the genesis of their extreme wet phases over the LYRB, the biweekly mode is initiated by a midlatitude jet stream vorticity anomaly moving southeastward, while the 21–30-day mode is primarily associated with a low-level westward propagation of an anticyclonic anomaly from 145° to 120°E, which reflects the westward extension of the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH). The development of the biweekly mode at LYRB is enhanced by the northwestward movement of a low-level anticyclonic anomaly from the Philippine Sea to the south of Taiwan, which is a result of the enhancement of the WNPSH resulting from its merger with a transient midlatitude high. In contrast, the development of the 21–30-day mode is enhanced by an upper-level trough anomaly moving from Lake Baikal to far east Russia. These two ISV periodicities are also found to be embedded in their corresponding source regions. The new knowledge on the sources and evolutions of the two major LYRB ISV modes provides empirical predictors for the intraseasonal variation in the subtropical EA summer monsoon.

Description: The dynamics of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are studied in terms of the balance between energy input from the winds (via wind power) and changes in the storage of available potential energy in the tropical ocean. Presently, there are broad differences in the way global general circulation models simulate the dynamics, magnitude, and phase of ENSO events; hence, there is a need for simple, physically based metrics to allow for model evaluation. This energy description is a basinwide, integral, quantitative approach, ideal for intermodel comparison, that assesses model behavior in the subsurface ocean. Here it is applied to a range of ocean models and data assimilations within ENSO spatial and temporal scales. The onset of an El Niño is characterized by a decrease in wind power that leads to a decrease in available potential energy, and hence a flatter thermocline. In contrast, La Niña events are preceded by an increase in wind power that leads to an increase in the available potential energy and a steeper thermocline. The wind power alters the available potential energy via buoyancy power, associated with vertical mass fluxes that modify the slope of the isopycnals. Only a fraction of wind power is converted to buoyancy power. The efficiency of this conversion γ is estimated in this study at 50%–60%. Once the energy is delivered to the thermocline it is subject to small, but important, diffusive dissipation. It is estimated that this dissipation sets the e-folding damping rate α for the available potential energy on the order of 1 yr−1. The authors propose to use the efficiency γ and the damping rate α as two energy-based metrics for evaluating dissipative properties of the ocean component of general circulation models, providing a simple method for understanding subsurface ENSO dynamics and a diagnostic tool for exploring differences between the models.

Description: Historical ship observations of sea surface temperature (SST) from 1850 to present were used to compute linear 40-yr trends for all 5° latitude by 5° longitude grid cells with sufficient data. Trends from throughout the twentieth century were centered about a 7 mK yr−1 warming trend with standard deviation 14 mK yr−1. Although different with high statistical significance from a distribution with zero mean, the warming trends were not unusual in amplitude compared to the available nineteenth-century trends. Trends at the same grid points from the latter half of the nineteenth century were distributed about near-zero mean with standard deviation 17 mK yr−1. The shift in mean is robust to accounting for the biases arising from differing observational methods prior to 1942. The 40-yr trends from the latter half of the twentieth century were centered about 10 ± 4 mK yr−1 and more clearly distinct from earlier trends. Linear 40-yr trends were computed at different locations and times from all publicly available coral skeleton records of the concentration ratio of Sr to Ca. The pre-twentieth-century distribution of 40-yr trends in the Sr/Ca ratio was significantly different from the twentieth-century trends, consistent with the warming found in the instrumental SST. The interpretation of the coral Sr/Ca 40-yr trends cannot yet be reduced to a single factor. Major uncertainties were due to (i) the correlation of modern Sr/Ca records with instrumental SST being dominated by seasonal effects, with correlations on time scales longer than the annual cycle much lower, and (ii) the poor quality instrumental SST on long time scales in remote locations. Based on the NOAA extended reconstructed instrumental SST dataset since 1870 and 499 yr of Sr/Ca data from 13 different coral records, the authors found a Pearson correlation coefficient r = −0.77 for 40-yr low-pass-filtered times series. Interpreting the change in distribution of trends in Sr/Ca will require further study of the factors affecting Sr/Ca on time scales longer than seasonal.

Description: Recently the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) project office made available a new product called the convective–stratiform heating (CSH). These are the datasets for vertical profiles of diabatic heating rates (the apparent heat source). These observed estimates of heating are obtained from the TRMM satellite’s microwave radiances and the precipitation radar. The importance of such datasets for defining the vertical distribution of heating was largely the initiative of Dr. W.-K. Tao from NASA’s Goddard Laboratory. The need to examine how well some of the current cumulus parameterization schemes perform toward describing the amplitude and the three-dimensional distributions of heating is addressed in this paper. Three versions of the Florida State University (FSU) global atmospheric model are run that utilize different versions of cumulus parameterization schemes; namely, modified Kuo parameterization, simple Arakawa–Schubert parameterization, and Zhang–McFarlane parameterization. The Kuo-type scheme used here relies on moisture convergence and tends to overestimate the rainfall generally compared to the TRMM estimates. The other schemes used here show only a slight overestimate of rain rates compared to TRMM; those invoke mass fluxes that are less stringent in this regard in defining cloud volumes. The mass flux schemes do carry out a total moisture budget for a vertical column model and include all components of the moisture budget and are not limited to the horizontal convergence of moisture. The authors carry out a numerical experimentation that includes over a hundred experiments from each of these models; these experiments differ only in their use of the cumulus parameterization. The rest of the model physics, resolution, and initial states are kept the same for each set of 117 forecasts. The strategy for this experimentation follows the authors’ previous studies with the FSU multimodel superensemble. This includes a 100-day training and a 17-day forecast phase, both of which include a large number of forecast experiments. The training phase provides a useful statistical database for tagging the systematic errors of the respective models. The forecast phase is designed to minimize the collective bias errors of these member models. In these forecasts the authors also include the ensemble mean and the multimodel superensemble. In this paper the authors examine model errors in their representations of the heating (amplitude, vertical level of maximum, and the geographical distributions). The main message of this study is that some cumulus parameterization schemes overestimate the amplitude of heating, whereas others carry lower values. The models also exhibit large errors in the placement of the vertical level of maximum heating. Some significant errors were also found in the geographical distributions of heating. The ensemble mean largely mimics the model features and also carries some large errors. The superensemble is more selective in reducing the three-dimensional collective bias errors of the models and provides the best short range forecasts, through hour 60, for the heating. This study shows that it is possible to diagnose some of the modeling errors in the heating for individual member models and that information can be important for correcting such features.

Description: The response of the tropical atmosphere to a collapse of the thermohaline circulation (THC) is investigated by comparing two 5-member ensemble runs with a coupled climate model (CCM), the difference being that in one ensemble a hosing experiment was performed. An extension of the Held–Hou–Lindzen model for the Hadley circulation is developed to interpret the results. The forcing associated with a THC collapse is qualitatively similar to, but smaller in amplitude than, the solstitial shift from boreal summer to winter. This forcing results from reduced ocean heat transport creating an anomalous cross-equatorial SST gradient. The small amplitude of the forcing makes it possible to arrive at analytical expressions using standard perturbation theory. The theory predicts the latitudinal shift between the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and Southern Hemisphere (SH) Hadley cells, and the relative strength of the anomalous cross-equatorial Hadley cell compared to the solstitial cell. The poleward extent of the Hadley cells is controlled by other physics. In the NH the Hadley cell contracts, while zonal velocities increase and the subtropical jet shifts equatorward, whereas in the SH cell the opposite occurs. This behavior can be explained by assuming that the poleward extent of the Hadley cell is determined by baroclinic instability: it scales with the inverse of the isentropic slopes. Both theory and CCM results indicate that a THC collapse and changes in tropical circulation do not act in competition, as a possible explanation for abrupt climate change; they act in concert.

Description: This study combines k-means cluster analysis with linear unidimensional scaling to illustrate the spatial and temporal variability of the wintertime North Pacific sea level pressure (SLP) field. Daily wintertime SLP data derived from the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis are used to produce 16 SLP anomaly patterns that represent a discretized approximation of the continuum of North Pacific SLP patterns. This study adopts the continuum perspective for teleconnection patterns, which provides a much simpler framework for understanding North Pacific variability than the more commonly used discrete modal approach. The primary focus of this research is to show that variability in the North Pacific—on intraseasonal, interannual, and interdecadal time scales—can be understood in terms of changes in the frequency distribution of the cluster patterns that compose the continuum, each of which has a time scale of about 10 days. This analysis reveals 5–6 Pacific–North American–like (PNA-like) patterns for each phase, as well as dipoles and wave trains. A self-organizing map (SOM) analysis of coupled SLP and outgoing longwave radiation data shows that many of these patterns are associated with convection in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. On intraseasonal time scales, the frequency distribution of these patterns, in particular the PNA-like patterns, is strongly influenced by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). On interannual time scales, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts the North Pacific continuum, with warm ENSO episodes resulting in the increased frequency of easterly displaced Aleutian low pressure anomaly patterns and cold ENSO episodes resulting in the increased frequency of southerly displaced Aleutian high pressure anomaly patterns. In addition, the results of this analysis suggest that the interdecadal variability of the North Pacific SLP field, including the well-known “regime shift” of 1976/77, also results from changes in the frequency distribution within the continuum of SLP patterns.

Description: The Indian Ocean exhibits strong variability on a number of time scales, including prominent intraseasonal variations in both the atmosphere and ocean. Of particular interest is the south tropical Indian Ocean thermocline ridge, a region located between 12° and 5°S, which exhibits prominent variability in sea surface temperature (SST) due to dominant winds that raise the thermocline and shoal the mixed layer. In this paper, submonthly (less than 30 day) cooling events in the thermocline ridge region are diagnosed with observations and models, and are related to large-scale conditions in the Indo-Pacific region. Observations from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) satellite were used to identify 16 cooling events in the period 1998–2007, which on average cannot be fully accounted for by air–sea enthalpy fluxes. Analysis of observations and a hierarchy of models, including two coupled global climate models (GFDL CM2.1 and GFDL CM2.4), indicates that ocean dynamical changes are important to the cooling events. For extreme cooling events (above 2.5 standard deviations), air–sea enthalpy fluxes account for approximately 50% of the SST signature, and oceanic processes cannot in general be neglected. For weaker cooling events (1.5–2.5 standard deviations), air–sea enthalpy fluxes account for a larger fraction of the SST signature. Furthermore, it is found that cooling events are preconditioned by large-scale, low-frequency changes in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system. When the thermocline is unusually shallow in the thermocline ridge region, cooling events are more likely to occur and are stronger; these large-scale conditions are more (less) likely during La Niña (El Niño/Indian Ocean dipole) events. Strong cooling events are associated with changes in atmospheric convection, which resemble the Madden–Julian oscillation, in both observations and the models.

Description: An observational analysis of Mediterranean Sea water cycle variability based on recently available datasets provides new insights on the long-term changes that affected the region since the 1960s. Results indicate an overall increase in evaporation during 1958–2006, with a decrease up until the mid-1970s and an increase thereafter. Precipitation variability is characterized by substantial interdecadal variations and a negative long-term trend. Evaporation increase, primarily driven by SST variability, together with precipitation decrease resulted in a substantial increase in the loss of freshwater from the Mediterranean Sea toward the overlying atmosphere. An increase in the freshwater deficit is consistent with observed Mediterranean Sea salinity tendencies and has broad implications for the Mediterranean water cycle and connected systems. These observational results are in qualitative agreement with simulated Mediterranean Sea water cycle behavior from a large ensemble of models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3). However, simulated anomalies are about one order of magnitude smaller than those observed. This inconsistency and the large uncertainties associated with the observational rates of change highlight the need for more research to better characterize and understand Mediterranean water cycle variations in recent decades, and to better simulate the crucial underlying processes in global models.

Description: This study investigates the causes of interannual-to-interdecadal variability of the East Asian (EA; 0°–60°N, 100°–140°E) winter monsoon (EAWM) over the past 50 yr (1957–2006). The winter mean surface air temperature variations are dominated by two distinct principal modes that together account for 74% of the total temperature variance. The two modes have notably different circulation structures and sources of variability. The northern mode, characterized by a westward shift of the EA major trough and enhanced surface pressure over central Siberia, represents a cold winter in the northern EA resulting from cold-air intrusion from central Siberia. The southern mode, on the other hand, features a deepening EA trough and increased surface pressure over Mongolia, representing a cold winter south of 40°N resulting from cold-air intrusion from western Mongolia. The cold northern mode is preceded by excessive autumn snow covers over southern Siberia–Mongolia, whereas the cold southern mode is preceded by development of La Niña episodes and reduced snow covers over northeast Siberia. These remarkably different spatiotemporal structures and origins are primarily associated with interannual variations. On the decadal or longer time scale their structures are somewhat similar and are preceded by similar autumn sea surface temperature anomalies over the North Atlantic and tropical Indian Ocean. The two modes found for the EA region also represent the winter temperature variability over the entire Asian continent. Thus, study of the predictability of the two modes may shed light on understanding the predictable dynamics of the Asian winter monsoon.

Description: Spatial variations in sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall changes over the tropics are investigated based on ensemble simulations for the first half of the twenty-first century under the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenario A1B with coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation models of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Despite a GHG increase that is nearly uniform in space, pronounced patterns emerge in both SST and precipitation. Regional differences in SST warming can be as large as the tropical-mean warming. Specifically, the tropical Pacific warming features a conspicuous maximum along the equator and a minimum in the southeast subtropics. The former is associated with westerly wind anomalies whereas the latter is linked to intensified southeast trade winds, suggestive of wind–evaporation–SST feedback. There is a tendency for a greater warming in the northern subtropics than in the southern subtropics in accordance with asymmetries in trade wind changes. Over the equatorial Indian Ocean, surface wind anomalies are easterly, the thermocline shoals, and the warming is reduced in the east, indicative of Bjerknes feedback. In the midlatitudes, ocean circulation changes generate narrow banded structures in SST warming. The warming is negatively correlated with wind speed change over the tropics and positively correlated with ocean heat transport change in the northern extratropics. A diagnostic method based on the ocean mixed layer heat budget is developed to investigate mechanisms for SST pattern formation. Tropical precipitation changes are positively correlated with spatial deviations of SST warming from the tropical mean. In particular, the equatorial maximum in SST warming over the Pacific anchors a band of pronounced rainfall increase. The gross moist instability follows closely relative SST change as equatorial wave adjustments flatten upper-tropospheric warming. The comparison with atmospheric simulations in response to a spatially uniform SST warming illustrates the importance of SST patterns for rainfall change, an effect overlooked in current discussion of precipitation response to global warming. Implications for the global and regional response of tropical cyclones are discussed.

Description: Building on an earlier report on the 2005 drought in equatorial East Africa, this short note examines the circulation mechanisms of the anomalies in the boreal autumn “short rains” season in the subsequent three years. Westerlies during this season are the surface manifestation of a powerful zonal–vertical circulation cell along the Indian Ocean equator. The surface equatorial westerlies were fast during the 2005 and 2008 droughts, near average during the near-average 2007 short rains, and slack during the 2006 floods, consistent with the known circulation diagnostics.

Description: A large number of water- and climate-related applications, such as drought monitoring, are based on spaceborne-derived relationships between land surface temperature (LST) and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The majority of these applications rely on the existence of a negative slope between the two variables, as identified in site- and time-specific studies. The current paper investigates the generality of the LST–NDVI relationship over a wide range of moisture and climatic/radiation regimes encountered over the North American continent (up to 60°N) during the summer growing season (April–September). Information on LST and NDVI was obtained from long-term (21 years) datasets acquired with the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). It was found that when water is the limiting factor for vegetation growth (the typical situation for low latitudes of the study area and during the midseason), the LST–NDVI correlation is negative. However, when energy is the limiting factor for vegetation growth (in higher latitudes and elevations, especially at the beginning of the growing season), a positive correlation exists between LST and NDVI. Multiple regression analysis revealed that during the beginning and the end of the growing season, solar radiation is the predominant factor driving the correlation between LST and NDVI, whereas other biophysical variables play a lesser role. Air temperature is the primary factor in midsummer. It is concluded that there is a need to use empirical LST–NDVI relationships with caution and to restrict their application to drought monitoring to areas and periods where negative correlations are observed, namely, to conditions when water—not energy—is the primary factor limiting vegetation growth.

Description: This paper reports on an analysis of the tropical cyclone (TC) potential intensity (PI) and its control parameters in transient global warming simulations. Specifically, the TC PI is calculated for phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) integrations during the first 70 yr of a transient run forced by a 1% yr−1 CO2 increase. The linear trend over the period is used to project a 70-yr change in relevant model parameters. The results for a 15-model ensemble-mean climate projection show that the thermodynamic potential intensity (THPI) increases on average by 1.0% to ∼3.1% over various TC basins, which is mainly attributed to changes in the disequilibrium in enthalpy between the ocean and atmosphere in the transient response to increasing CO2 concentrations. This modest projected increase in THPI is consistent with that found in other recent studies. In this paper the effects of evolving large-scale dynamical factors on the projected TC PI are also quantified, using an empirical formation that takes into account the effects of vertical shear and translational speed based on a statistical analysis of present-day observations. Including the dynamical efficiency in the formulation of PI leads to larger projected changes in PI relative to that obtained using just THPI in some basins and smaller projected changes in others. The inclusion of the dynamical efficiency has the largest relative effect in the main development region (MDR) of the North Atlantic, where it leads to a 50% reduction in the projected PI change. Results are also presented for the basin-averaged changes in PI for the climate projections from each of the 15 individual models. There is considerable variation among the results for individual model projections, and for some models the projected increase in PI in the eastern Pacific and south Indian Ocean regions exceeds 10%.

Description: Because of global warming, the hydrologic behavior of the Rhine basin is expected to shift from a combined snowmelt- and rainfall-driven regime to a more rainfall-dominated regime. Previous impact assessments have indicated that this leads, on average, to increasing streamflow by ∼30% in winter and spring and decreasing streamflow by a similar value in summer. In this study, high-resolution (0.088°) regional climate scenarios conducted with the regional climate model REMO (REgional MOdel) for the Rhine basin are used to force a macroscale hydrological model. These climate scenarios are based on model output from the ECHAM5–Max Planck Institute Ocean Model (MPI-OM) global climate model, which is in turn forced by three Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) emission scenarios: A2, A1B, and B1. The Variable Infiltration Capacity model (VIC; version 4.0.5) is used to examine changes in streamflow at various locations throughout the Rhine basin. Average streamflow, peak flows, low flows, and several water balance terms are evaluated for both the first and second half of the twenty-first century. The results reveal a distinct contrast between those periods. The first half is dominated by increased precipitation, causing increased streamflow throughout the year. During the second half of the century, a streamflow increase in winter/spring and a decrease in summer is found, similar to previous studies. This is caused by 1) temperature and evapotranspiration, which are considerably higher during the second half of the century; 2) decreased precipitation in summer; and 3) an earlier start of the snowmelt season. Magnitudes of peak flows increase during both periods, and the magnitudes of streamflow droughts increase only during the second half of the century.

Description: The authors use singular spectrum analysis to investigate the relative magnitude of decadal to multidecadal (D2M) variability in annual and seasonal precipitation anomalies across North America. In most places, decadal (10–20 yr) or multidecadal (20–50 yr) variability makes up less than 10% of the total variance in either annual or seasonal precipitation, with interannual variability or secular trends having much greater importance. Decadal variability is most prominent (contributing 25%–30% of the total variance) in Minnesota and northern California during winter, and the central Rocky Mountains in autumn. Eastern Québec is the only major region where precipitation exhibits significant variance in the multidecadal band. Precipitation across much of Canada exhibits significant variance at extremely low frequencies (greater than 50 yr), but variability at these time scales cannot be separated from secular trends because of the limited length of instrumental climate records. Decadal signals in the discharge of the Sacramento River and, to a lesser degree, the Colorado River are coherent and in phase with similar signals in regional precipitation. Prominent D2M signals do not resemble the low-frequency components of major climate modes such as ENSO or the PDO, which suggests that this behavior is not a product of a simple linear translation of a single climate forcing.

Description: Application of the moist static energy framework to analyses of vertical stability and net energy in the Sahel sheds light on the divergence of projections of climate change. Two distinct mechanisms are sketched. In one, anthropogenic warming changes continental climate indirectly: warming of the oceans increases moist static energy at upper levels, affecting vertical stability globally, from the top down, and driving drying over the Sahel, in a way analogous to the impact of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on the global tropical atmosphere. In the other, the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases drives a direct continental change: the increase in net terrestrial radiation at the surface increases evaporation, favoring vertical instability and near-surface convergence from the bottom up. In both cases the surface warms, but in the first precipitation and evaporation decrease, while in the second they increase. In the first case, land surface warming is brought about by the remotely forced decrease in precipitation and consequent decrease in evaporation and increase in net solar radiation at the surface. In the second, it is brought about by the increase in net terrestrial radiation at the surface, amplified by the water vapor feedback associated with an increase in near-surface humidity.

Description: This study investigates the evolution of cloud and rainfall structures associated with Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data. Two complementary indices are used to define MJO phases. Joint probability distribution functions (PDFs) of cloud-top temperature and radar echo-top height are constructed for each of the eight MJO phases. The genesis stage of MJO convection over the western Pacific (phases 1 and 2) features a bottom-heavy PDF, characterized by abundant warm rain, low clouds, suppressed deep convection, and higher sea surface temperature (SST). As MJO convection develops (phases 3 and 4), a transition from the bottom-heavy to top-heavy PDF occurs. The latter is associated with the development of mixed-phase rain and middle-to-high clouds, coupled with rapid SST cooling. At the MJO convection peak (phase 5), a top-heavy PDF contributed by deep convection with mixed-phase and ice-phase rain and high echo-top heights (〉5 km) dominates. The decaying stage (phases 6 and 7) is characterized by suppressed SST, reduced total rain, increased contribution from stratiform rain, and increased nonraining high clouds. Phase 7, in particular, signals the beginning of a return to higher SST and increased warm rain. Phase 8 completes the MJO cycle, returning to a bottom-heavy PDF and SST conditions similar to phase 1. The structural changes in rain and clouds at different phases of MJO are consistent with corresponding changes in derived latent heating profiles, suggesting the importance of a diverse mix of warm, mixed-phase, and ice-phase rain associated with low-level, congestus, and high clouds in constituting the life cycle and the time scales of MJO.

Description: The dynamical response of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) to mesoscale sea surface temperature (SST) perturbations is investigated over the Agulhas Return Current during winter from a 1-month, high-resolution, three-dimensional simulation using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model. A steady lower boundary condition for July 2002 is obtained using SST measurements from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on the Earth Observing System (EOS)–Aqua satellite (AMSR-E). The WRF models’ ability to accurately simulate the SST-induced surface wind response is demonstrated from a comparison with satellite surface wind observations from the SeaWinds scatterometer on the Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite. Relevant features of this simulation include a quasi-periodic distribution of mesoscale SST perturbations with spatial scales ∼200 km and strong winds that lead to a large surface sensible heat flux response, whose broad range of 80–100 W m−2 between warm and cool SST perturbations is much larger than seen in most previous simulations of mesoscale wind–SST coupling. This simulation provides the first realistic example of vertical turbulent redistribution of momentum driven by the SST-induced surface heating perturbations acting in concert with the SST-induced pressure gradients to accelerate near-surface flow toward warm water and decelerate near-surface flow toward cool water. This simulation is also the first example of a near-surface wind speed response to mesoscale SST perturbations that differs qualitatively and substantially from the vertically averaged MABL wind response. In the vertically averaged MABL momentum budget, the surface wind stress acts as a drag on the SST-induced perturbation flow as it is being accelerated by SST-induced pressure gradients. However, only in the middle and upper reaches of the MABL does the turbulent stress divergence act as a drag on the SST-induced winds perturbations in this simulation. These mesoscale SST perturbations are also shown to modify the wind direction within the MABL. Dynamically, this is accomplished through SST-induced perturbations to the crosswind components of the pressure gradient, turbulent stress divergence, and the Coriolis force.

Description: The amplitude asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña is investigated by diagnosing the mixed-layer heat budget during the ENSO developing phase by using the three ocean assimilation products: Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) 2.0.2, SODA 1.4.2, and the Global Ocean Data Assimilation System (GODAS). It is found that the nonlinear zonal and meridional ocean temperature advections are essential to cause the asymmetry in the far eastern Pacific, whereas the vertical nonlinear advection has the opposite effect. The zonal current anomaly is dominated by the geostrophic current in association with the thermocline depth variation. The meridional current anomaly is primarily attributed to the Ekman current driven by wind stress forcing. The resulting induced anomalous horizontal currents lead to warm nonlinear advection during both El Niño and La Niña episodes and thus strengthen (weaken) the El Niño (La Niña) amplitude. The convergence (divergence) of the anomalous geostrophic mixed-layer currents during El Niño (La Niña) results in anomalous downwelling (upwelling) in the far eastern equatorial Pacific, which leads to a cold nonlinear vertical advection in both warm and cold episodes.

Description: This study aims to evaluate the consistency and discrepancies in estimates of diabatic heating profiles associated with precipitation based on satellite observations and microphysics and those derived from the thermodynamics of the large-scale environment. It presents a survey of diabatic heating profile estimates from four Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) products, four global reanalyses, and in situ sounding measurements from eight field campaigns at various tropical locations. Common in most of the estimates are the following: (i) bottom-heavy profiles, ubiquitous over the oceans, are associated with relatively low rain rates, while top-heavy profiles are generally associated with high rain rates; (ii) temporal variability of latent heating profiles is dominated by two modes, a deep mode with a peak in the upper troposphere and a shallow mode with a low-level peak; and (iii) the structure of the deep modes is almost the same in different estimates and different regions in the tropics. The primary uncertainty is in the amount of shallow heating over the tropical oceans, which differs substantially among the estimates.

Description: This paper describes numerical experiments using a climate–storm surge simulation system for the coast of the United Kingdom, with a particular focus on the southern North Sea and the Thames estuary in southeastern England. Time series of surges simulated in the southern North Sea by a surge model driven by atmospheric data from a regional climate model and surges simulated by the same surge model driven by atmospheric data from a global climate model are compared. A strong correspondence is demonstrated, and a linear scaling factor relating them is derived. This factor varies slowly with location. Around the Thames estuary, extreme surges are compared in the same way, and the linear scaling factor for the extremes is found to be similar to that for the full time series. The authors therefore assert that in seeking significant trends in surge at this location using this model arrangement, the regional model downscaling stage could be avoided, if observations were used to establish a suitable scaling factor for each location. The influence of the tide–surge phase relationship is investigated, and extreme sea levels at the mouth of the River Thames from regional-model-driven simulations are compared to the extreme event of 1953. Although the simulated levels are slightly lower, they are found to be comparable given the observational uncertainty. The assumption that time-mean sea level changes can be added linearly to surge changes is investigated at this location for large changes in time-mean sea level. The authors find that the primary effect of such an increase is on the speed of propagation of tide and surge, supporting the case for a simple linear addition of mean and extreme sea level changes.

Description: Fair-weather cumuli are fundamental in regulating the vertical structure of water vapor and entropy in the lowest 2–3 km of the earth’s atmosphere over vast areas of the oceans. In this study, a long record of profiling cloud radar observations at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) at Nauru Island is used to investigate cloud vertical air motion statistics over an 8-yr observing period. Appropriate processing of the observed low radar reflectivities provides radar volume samples that contain only small cloud droplets; thus, the Doppler velocities are used as air motion tracers. The technique is applied to shallow boundary layer clouds (less than 1000 m thick) during the 1999–2007 period when radar data are available. Using the boundary layer winds from the soundings obtained at the Nauru ACRF, the fair-weather cumuli fields are classified in easterly and westerly boundary layer wind regimes. This distinction is necessary to separate marine-forced (westerlies) from land-forced (easterlies) shallow clouds because of a well-studied island effect at the Nauru ACRF. The two regimes exhibit large diurnal differences in cloud fraction and cloud dynamics as manifested by the analysis of the hourly averaged vertical air motion statistics. The fair-weather cumuli fields associated with easterlies exhibit a strong diurnal cycle in cloud fraction and updraft strength and fraction, indicating a strong influence of land-forced clouds. In contrast over the fair-weather cumuli with oceanic origin, land-forced clouds are characterized by uniform diurnal cloudiness and persistent updrafts at the cloud-base level. This study provides a unique observational dataset appropriate for testing fair-weather cumulus mass flux and turbulence parameterizations in numerical models.

Description: The probability of climate extremes is strongly affected by atmospheric circulation. This study quantifies the worldwide influence of three major modes of circulation on station-based indices of intense precipitation: the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Pacific interdecadal variability as characterized by the North Pacific index (NPI), and the North Atlantic Oscillation–Northern Annular Mode. The study examines which stations show a statistically significant (5%) difference between the positive and negative phases of a circulation regime. Results show distinct regional patterns of response to all these modes of climate variability; however, precipitation extremes are most substantially affected by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The effects of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation are seen throughout the world, including in India, Africa, South America, the Pacific Rim, North America, and, weakly, Europe. The North Atlantic Oscillation has a strong, continent-wide effect on Eurasia and affects a small, but not negligible, percentage of stations across the Northern Hemispheric midlatitudes. This percentage increases slightly if the Northern Annular Mode index is used rather than the NAO index. In that case, a region of increase in intense precipitation can also be found in Southeast Asia. The NPI influence on precipitation extremes is similar to the response to El Niño, and strongest in landmasses adjacent to the Pacific. Consistently, indices of more rare precipitation events show a weaker response to circulation than indices of moderate extremes; the results are quite similar, but of opposite sign, for negative anomalies of the circulation indices.

Description: Multimodel ensembles, whereby different global climate models (GCMs) and regional climate models (RCMs) are combined, have been widely used to explore uncertainties in regional climate projections. In this study, the extent to which information can be enhanced from sparsely filled GCM–RCM ensemble matrices and the way in which simulations should be prioritized to sample uncertainties most effectively are examined. A simple scaling technique, whereby the local climate response in an RCM is predicted from the large-scale change in the GCM, is found to often show skill in estimating local changes for missing GCM–RCM combinations. In particular, scaling shows skill for precipitation indices (including mean, variance, and extremes) across Europe in winter and mean and extreme temperature in summer and winter, except for hot extremes over central/northern Europe in summer. However, internal variability significantly impacts the ability to determine scaling skill for precipitation indices, with a three-member ensemble found to be insufficient for identifying robust local scaling relationships in many cases. This study suggests that, given limited computer resources, ensembles should be designed to prioritize the sampling of GCM uncertainty, using a reduced set of RCMs. Exceptions are found over the Alps and northeastern Europe in winter and central Europe in summer, where sampling multiple RCMs may be equally or more important for capturing uncertainty in local temperature or precipitation change. This reflects the significant role of local processes in these regions. Also, to determine the ensemble strategy in some cases, notably precipitation extremes in summer, better sampling of internal variability is needed.

Description: Two atmospheric general circulation model experiments are conducted with specified terrestrial snow conditions representative of 1980–99 and 2080–99. The snow states are obtained from twentieth-century and twenty-first-century coupled climate model integrations under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Sea surface temperatures, sea ice, and greenhouse gas concentrations are set to 1980–99 values in both atmospheric model experiments to isolate the effect of the snow changes. The reduction in snow cover in the twenty-first century relative to the twentieth century increases the solar radiation absorbed by the surface, and it enhances the upward longwave radiation and latent and sensible fluxes that warm the overlying atmosphere. The maximum twenty-first-century minus twentieth-century surface air temperature (SAT) differences are relatively small (

Description: Changes in the area of Australia experiencing concurrent temperature and rainfall extremes are investigated through the use of two combined indices. The indices describe variations between the fraction of land area experiencing extreme cold and dry or hot and wet conditions. There is a high level of agreement between the variations and trends of the indices from 1957 to 2008 when computed using (i) a spatially complete gridded dataset without rigorous quality control checks and (ii) spatially incomplete high-quality station datasets with rigorous quality control checks. Australian extremes are examined starting from 1911, which is the first time a broad-scale assessment of Australian temperature extremes has been performed prior to 1957. Over the whole country, the results show an increase in the extent of hot and wet extremes and a decrease in the extent of cold and dry extremes annually and during all seasons from 1911 to 2008 at a rate of between 1% and 2% decade−1. These trends mostly stem from changes in tropical regions during summer and spring. There are relationships between the extent of extreme maximum temperatures, precipitation, and soil moisture on interannual and decadal time scales that are similar to the relationships exhibited by variations of the means. However, the trends from 1911 to 2008 and from 1957 to 2008 are not consistent with these relationships, providing evidence that the processes causing the interannual variations and those causing the longer-term trends are different.

Description: Subseasonal characteristics of the diurnal variation of the summer monsoon rainfall over central eastern China (25°–40°N, 110°–120°E) are analyzed using hourly station rain gauge data. Results show that the rainfall in the monsoon rain belt is dominated by the long-duration rainfall events (≥7 h) with early-morning peaks. The long-duration rainfall events and early-morning diurnal peaks experience subseasonal movement that is similar to that of the monsoon rain belt. When the monsoon rainfall is separated into the active and break periods, the long-duration early-morning precipitation dominates the active period, which is in sharp contrast to the short-duration (≤6 h) rainfall with leading late-afternoon diurnal peaks during the break period. The combination of different diurnal features of monsoon rainfall in the active and break monsoon periods also explains the less coherent diurnal phases of summer mean rainfall over central eastern China. The cause of the early-morning peak of rainfall during the active monsoon period is discussed.

Description: A variable-grid atmospheric general circulation model, namely, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique-zoom, version 4 (LMDz4), with a local zoom over eastern China, is driven by 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data and is used as a downscaling tool of summer rainfall variability for the period 1958–2000. During the integration, the model temperature and wind were nudged to the ERA-40 data through a relaxation procedure. The performance of the LMDz4 in simulating the regional rainfall features is thoroughly assessed through a comparison to both rain gauge data and the reanalysis product. The dynamical downscaling improves not only the climatology of the monsoon major rainband but also the interannual variability modes of rainfall over eastern China in comparison with that of the ERA-40 data. The added values of LMDz4 are evident in both the spatial patterns of dominant rainfall variability modes and the associated temporal variations. A comparison of rainfall averaged over several typical regions shows improvement as a better-matched variability and a reduced root-mean-square error, except for the region over the lower reaches of the Yellow River valley, where the model shows bias because of the northward shift of the monsoon rainband. This rainband shift is caused by the stronger low-level southerlies and the lower specific humidity over southern China. The stronger southwestern wind transports excessive water vapor northward, and the underestimation of specific humidity implies that air masses need to go farther north to reach condensation. Both favor a northward shift of the major rainband. The analysis demonstrates that a variable-resolution AGCM can be a useful tool for the dynamical downscaling of rainfall variability over eastern China, although the rainband bias remains evident as with many other regional climate models.

Description: A global climatology for rapid cyclone intensification has been produced from the second NCEP reanalysis (NCEP2), the 25-yr Japanese Reanalysis (JRA-25), and the ECMWF reanalyses over the period 1979–2008. An improved (combined) criterion for identifying explosive cyclones has been developed based on preexisting definitions, offering a more balanced, normalized climatological distribution. The combined definition was found to significantly alter the population of explosive cyclones, with a reduction in “artificial” systems, which are found to compose 20% of the population determined by earlier definitions. Seasonally, winter was found to be the dominant formative period in both hemispheres, with a lower degree of interseasonal variability in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). Considered over the period 1979–2008, little change is observed in the frequency of systems outside of natural interannual variability in either hemisphere. Significant statistical differences have been found between reanalyses in the SH, while in contrast the Northern Hemisphere (NH) was characterized by strong positive correlations between reanalyses in almost all examined cases. Spatially, explosive cyclones are distributed into several distinct regions, with two regions in the northwest Pacific and the North Atlantic in the NH and three main regions in the SH. High-resolution and modern reanalysis data were also found to increase the climatology population of rapidly intensifying systems. This indicates that the reanalyses have apparently undergone increasing improvements in consistency over time, particularly in the SH.

Description: A new version of the atmosphere–ocean general circulation model cooperatively produced by the Japanese research community, known as the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC), has recently been developed. A century-long control experiment was performed using the new version (MIROC5) with the standard resolution of the T85 atmosphere and 1° ocean models. The climatological mean state and variability are then compared with observations and those in a previous version (MIROC3.2) with two different resolutions (medres, hires), coarser and finer than the resolution of MIROC5. A few aspects of the mean fields in MIROC5 are similar to or slightly worse than MIROC3.2, but otherwise the climatological features are considerably better. In particular, improvements are found in precipitation, zonal mean atmospheric fields, equatorial ocean subsurface fields, and the simulation of El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The difference between MIROC5 and the previous model is larger than that between the two MIROC3.2 versions, indicating a greater effect of updating parameterization schemes on the model climate than increasing the model resolution. The mean cloud property obtained from the sophisticated prognostic schemes in MIROC5 shows good agreement with satellite measurements. MIROC5 reveals an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 2.6 K, which is lower than that in MIROC3.2 by 1 K. This is probably due to the negative feedback of low clouds to the increasing concentration of CO2, which is opposite to that in MIROC3.2.

Description: The comparison of circulation patterns (CPs) obtained from reanalysis data to those from general circulation model (GCM) simulations is a frequent task for model validation, downscaling of GCM simulations, or other climate change–related studies. Here, the authors suggest a set of measures to quantify the differences between CPs. A combination of clustering using Gaussian mixture models with a set of related difference measures allows for taking cluster size and shape information into account and thus provides more information than the Euclidean distances between cluster centroids. The characteristics of the various distance measures are illustrated with a simple simulated example. Subsequently, a five-component Gaussian mixture to define circulation patterns for the North Atlantic region from reanalysis data and GCM simulations is used. CPs are obtained independently for the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and the 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40), as well as for twentieth-century simulations from 14 GCMs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) database. After discussing the difference of CPs based on spherical and nonspherical clusters for the reanalysis datasets, the authors give a detailed evaluation of the cluster configuration for two GCMs relative to NCEP–NCAR. Finally, as an illustration, the capability of reproducing the NCEP–NCAR probability density function (pdf) defining the Greenland anticyclone CP is evaluated for all 14 GCMs, considering that the size and shape of the underlying pdfs complement the commonly used Euclidean distance of CPs’ mean values.

Description: When the climate system experiences time-dependent external forcing (e.g., from increases in greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations), there are two inherent limits on the gain in skill of decadal climate predictions that can be attained from initializing with the observed ocean state. One is the classical initial-value predictability limit that is a consequence of the system being chaotic, and the other corresponds to the forecast range at which information from the initial conditions is overcome by the forced response. These limits are not caused by model errors; they correspond to limits on the range of useful forecasts that would exist even if nature behaved exactly as the model behaves. In this paper these two limits are quantified for the Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3), with several 40-member climate change scenario experiments. Predictability of the upper-300-m ocean temperature, on basin and global scales, is estimated by relative entropy from information theory. Despite some regional variations, overall, information from the ocean initial conditions exceeds that from the forced response for about 7 yr. After about a decade the classical initial-value predictability limit is reached, at which point the initial conditions have no remaining impact. Initial-value predictability receives a larger contribution from ensemble mean signals than from the distribution about the mean. Based on the two quantified limits, the conclusion is drawn that, to the extent that predictive skill relies solely on upper-ocean heat content, in CCSM3 decadal prediction beyond a range of about 10 yr is a boundary condition problem rather than an initial-value problem. Factors that the results of this study are sensitive and insensitive to are also discussed.

Description: A multimodel comparison method is used to assess the sensitivity of Subantarctic Mode Water (SAMW) and Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) formation to climate change. For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A2 emissions scenario (where atmospheric CO2 is 860 ppm at 2100), the models show cooling and freshening on density surfaces less than about 27.4 kg m−3, a pattern that has been observed in the late twentieth century. SAMW (defined by the low potential vorticity layer) and AAIW (defined by the salinity minimum layer) warm and freshen as they shift to lighter density classes. Heat and freshwater fluxes at the ocean surface dominate the projected buoyancy gain at outcrop regions of SAMW and AAIW, whereas the net increase in the Ekman flux of heat and freshwater contributes to a lesser extent. This buoyancy gain, combined with shoaling of the winter mixed layer, reduces the volume of SAMW subducted into the ocean interior by a mean of 8 Sv (12%), and the subduction of AAIW decreases by a mean of 14 Sv (23%; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1). Decreases in the projected subduction of the key Southern Ocean upper-water masses imply a slow down in the Southern Ocean circulation in the future, driven by surface warming and freshening. A reduction in the subduction of intermediate waters implies a likely future decrease in the capacity of the Southern Ocean to sequester CO2.

Description: A variety of observational and modeling studies show that changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) can induce rapid global-scale climate change. In particular, a substantially weakened AMOC leads to a southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. However, the simulated amplitudes of the AMOC-induced tropical climate change differ substantially among different models. In this paper, the sensitivity to cloud feedback of the climate response to a change in the AMOC is studied using a coupled ocean–atmosphere model [the GFDL Coupled Model, version 2.1 (CM2.1)]. Without cloud feedback, the simulated AMOC-induced climate change in this model is weakened substantially. Low-cloud feedback has a strong amplifying impact on the tropical ITCZ shift in this model, whereas the effects of high-cloud feedback are weaker. It is concluded that cloud feedback is an important contributor to the uncertainty in the global response to AMOC changes.

Description: A fully coupled land–ocean–atmosphere GCM is used to explore the biogeophysical impact of large-scale deforestation on surface climate. By analyzing the model sensitivity to global-scale replacement of forests by grassland, it is shown that the surface albedo increase owing to deforestation has a cooling effect of −1.36 K globally. On the other hand, forest removal decreases evapotranspiration efficiency and decreases surface roughness, both leading to a global surface warming of 0.24 and 0.29 K, respectively. The net biogeophysical impact of deforestation results from the competition between these effects. Globally, the albedo effect is dominant because of its wider-scale impact, and the net biogeophysical impact of deforestation is thus a cooling of −1 K. Over land, the balance between the different processes varies with latitude. In temperate and boreal zones of the Northern Hemisphere the albedo effect is stronger and deforestation thus induces a cooling. Conversely, in the tropics the net impact of deforestation is a warming, because evapotranspiration efficiency and surface roughness provide the dominant influence. The authors also explore the importance of the ocean coupling in shaping the climate response to deforestation. First, the temperature over ocean responds to the land cover perturbation. Second, even the temperature change over land is greatly affected by the ocean coupling. By assuming fixed oceanic conditions, the net effect of deforestation, averaged over all land areas, is a warming, whereas taking into account the coupling with the ocean leads, on the contrary, to a net land cooling. Furthermore, it is shown that the main parameter involved in the coupling with the ocean is surface albedo. Indeed, a change in albedo modifies temperature and humidity in the whole troposphere, thus enabling the initially land-confined perturbation to be transferred to the ocean. Finally, the radiative forcing framework is discussed in the context of land cover change impact on climate. The experiments herein illustrate that deforestation triggers two opposite types of forcing mechanisms—radiative forcing (owing to surface albedo change) and nonradiative forcing (owing to change in evapotranspiration efficiency and surface roughness)—that exhibit a similar magnitude globally. However, when applying the radiative forcing concept, nonradiative processes are ignored, which may lead to a misrepresentation of land cover change impact on climate.

Description: Variations in the warm water volume (WWV) of the equatorial Pacific Ocean are considered a key element of the dynamics of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. WWV, a proxy for the upper-ocean heat content, is usually defined as the volume of water with temperatures greater than 20°C. It has been suggested that the observed variations in WWV are controlled by interplay among meridional, zonal, and vertical transports (with vertical transports typically calculated as the residual of temporal changes in WWV and the horizontal transport divergence). Here, the output from a high-resolution ocean model is used to calculate the zonal and meridional transports and conduct a comprehensive analysis of the mass balance above the 25 kg m−3 σθ surface (approximating the 20°C isotherm). In contrast to some earlier studies, the authors found that on ENSO time scales variations in the diapycnal transport across the 25 kg m−3 isopycnal are small in the eastern Pacific and negligible in the western and central Pacific. In previous observational studies, the horizontal transports were estimated using Ekman and geostrophic dynamics; errors in these approximations were unavoidably folded into the estimates of the diapycnal transport. Here, the accuracy of such estimates is assessed by recalculating mass budgets using the model output at a spatial resolution similar to that of the observations. The authors show that errors in lateral transports can be of the same order of magnitude as the diapycnal transport itself. Further, the rate of change of WWV correlates well with wind stress curl (a driver of meridional transport). This relationship is explored using an extended version of the Sverdrup balance, and it is shown that the two are correlated because they both have the ENSO signal and not because changes in WWV are solely attributable to the wind stress curl.

Description: The authors have intercompared the following six surface buoyancy flux estimates, averaged over the years 2005–07: two reanalyses [the recent ECMWF reanalysis (ERA-Interim; hereafter ERA), and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)–NCAR reanalysis 1 (hereafter NCEP1)], two recent flux products developed as an improvement of NCEP1 [the flux product by Large and Yeager and the Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE)], and two ad hoc air–sea flux estimates that are obtained by combining the NCEP1 or ERA net radiative fluxes with turbulent flux estimates using the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) 3.0 bulk formulas with NCEP1 or ERA input variables. The accuracy of SOSE adjustments of NCEP1 atmospheric fields (which SOSE uses as an initial guess and a constraint) was assessed by verification that SOSE reduces the biases in the NCEP1 fluxes as diagnosed by the Working Group on Air–Sea Fluxes (Taylor), suggesting that oceanic observations may be a valuable constraint to improve atmospheric variables. Compared with NCEP1, both SOSE and Large and Yeager increase the net ocean heat loss in high latitudes, decrease ocean heat loss in the subtropical Indian Ocean, decrease net evaporation in the subtropics, and decrease net precipitation in polar latitudes. The large-scale pattern of SOSE and Large and Yeager turbulent heat flux adjustment is similar, but the magnitude of SOSE adjustments is significantly larger. Their radiative heat flux adjustments patterns differ. Turbulent heat fluxes determined by combining COARE bulk formulas with NCEP1 or ERA should not be combined with unmodified NCEP1 or ERA radiative fluxes as the net ocean heat gain poleward of 25°S becomes unrealistically large. The other surface flux products (i.e., NCEP1, ERA, Large and Yeager, and SOSE) balance more closely. Overall, the statistical estimates of the differences between the various air–sea heat flux products tend to be largest in regions with strong ocean mesoscale activity such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the western boundary currents.

Description: The Walker circulation (WC) is one of the world’s most prominent and important atmospheric systems. The WC weakened during the twentieth century, reaching record low levels in recent decades. This weakening is thought to be partly due to global warming and partly due to internally generated natural variability. There is, however, no consensus in the literature on the relative contribution of external forcing and natural variability to the observed weakening of the WC. This paper examines changes in the strength of the WC using an index called BoxΔP, which is equal to the difference in mean sea level pressure across the equatorial Pacific. Change in both the observations and in World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) climate models are examined. The annual average BoxΔP declines in the observations and in 15 out of 23 models during the twentieth century (results that are significant at or above the 95% level), consistent with earlier work. However, the magnitude of the multimodel ensemble mean (MMEM) 1901–99 trend (−0.10 Pa yr−1) is much smaller than the magnitude of the observed trend (−0.52 Pa yr−1). While a wide range of trends is evident in the models with approximately 90% of the model trends in the range (−0.25 to +0.1 Pa yr−1), even this range is too narrow to encompass the magnitude of the observed trend. Twenty-first-century changes in BoxΔP under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B and A2 are also examined. Negative trends (i.e., weaker WCs) are evident in all seasons. However, the MMEM trends for the A1B and A2 scenarios are smaller in magnitude than the magnitude of the observed trend. Given that external forcing linked to greenhouse gases is much larger in the twenty-first-century scenarios than twentieth-century forcing, this, together with the twentieth-century results mentioned above, would seem to suggest that external forcing has not been the primary driver of the observed weakening of the WC. However, 9 of the 23 models are unable to account for the observed change unless the internally generated component of the trend is very large. But indicators of observed variability linked to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation have modest trends, suggesting that internally variability has been modest. Furthermore, many of the nine “inconsistent” models tend to have poorer simulations of climatic features linked to ENSO. In addition, the externally forced component of the trend tends to be larger in magnitude and more closely matches the observed trend in the models that are better able to reproduce ENSO-related variability. The “best” four models, for example, have a MMEM of −0.2 Pa yr−1 (i.e., approximately 40% of the observed change), suggesting a greater role for external forcing in driving the observed trend. These and other considerations outlined below lead the authors to conclude that (i) both external forcing and internally generated variability contributed to the observed weakening of the WC over the twentieth century and (ii) external forcing accounts for approximately 30%–70% of the observed weakening with internally generated climate variability making up the rest.

Description: The semiannual cycle in zonal wind over the equatorial Indian Ocean is investigated by use of ocean–atmospheric reanalyses, and linear ocean–atmospheric models. In observations, the semiannual cycle in zonal wind is dominant on the equator and confined in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Results from a momentum budget analysis show that momentum advection generated by the cross-equatorial monsoon circulation is important for the semiannual zonal-wind cycle in the equatorial Indian Ocean. In experiments with a linearized primitive model of the atmosphere, semiannual momentum forcing due to the meridional advection over the central equatorial Indian Ocean is important to simulate the observed maxima of the semiannual cycle in equatorial zonal wind. Off Somalia, diabatic heating and surface friction over land weaken the semiannual response to large momentum forcing there. Results from a linear ocean model suggest that the semiannual zonal wind stress over the central equatorial Indian Ocean generates large semiannual variability in zonal current through a basin-mode resonance.

Description: This study assesses the ability of the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4) to represent the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), the dominant mode of intraseasonal variability in the tropical atmosphere. The U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) MJO Working Group’s prescribed diagnostic tests are used to evaluate the model’s mean state, variance, and wavenumber–frequency characteristics in a 20-yr simulation of the intraseasonal variability in zonal winds at 850 hPa (U850) and 200 hPa (U200), and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR). Unlike its predecessor, CCSM4 reproduces a number of aspects of MJO behavior more realistically. The CCSM4 produces coherent, broadbanded, and energetic patterns in eastward-propagating intraseasonal zonal winds and OLR in the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans that are generally consistent with MJO characteristics. Strong peaks occur in power spectra and coherence spectra with periods between 20 and 100 days and zonal wavenumbers between 1 and 3. Model MJOs, however, tend to be more broadbanded in frequency than in observations. Broad-scale patterns, as revealed in combined EOFs of U850, U200, and OLR, are remarkably consistent with observations and indicate that large-scale convergence–convection coupling occurs in the simulated MJO. Relations between MJO in the model and its concurrence with other climate states are also explored. MJO activity (defined as the percentage of time the MJO index exceeds 1.5) is enhanced during El Niño events compared to La Niña events, both in the model and observations. MJO activity is increased during periods of anomalously strong negative meridional wind shear in the Asian monsoon region and also during strong negative Indian Ocean zonal mode states, in both the model and observations.

Description: Variability present at a satellite instrument sampling scale (small-scale variability) has been neglected in earlier simulations of atmospheric and cloud property change retrievals using spatially and temporally averaged spectral radiances. The effects of small-scale variability in the atmospheric change detection process are evaluated in this study. To simulate realistic atmospheric variability, top-of-the-atmosphere nadir-view longwave spectral radiances are computed at a high temporal (instantaneous) resolution with a 20-km field-of-view using cloud properties retrieved from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements, along with temperature humidity profiles obtained from reanalysis. Specifically, the effects of the variability on the necessary conditions for retrieving atmospheric changes by a linear regression are tested. The percentage error in the annual 10° zonal mean spectral radiance difference obtained by assuming linear combinations of individual perturbations expressed as a root-mean-square (RMS) difference computed over wavenumbers between 200 and 2000 cm−1 is 10%–15% for most of the 10° zones. However, if cloud fraction perturbation is excluded, the RMS difference decreases to less than 2%. Monthly and annual 10° zonal mean spectral radiances change linearly with atmospheric property perturbations, which occur when atmospheric properties are perturbed by an amount approximately equal to the variability of the10° zonal monthly deseasonalized anomalies or by a climate-model-predicted decadal change. Nonlinear changes in the spectral radiances of magnitudes similar to those obtained through linear estimation can arise when cloud heights and droplet radii in water cloud change. The spectral shapes computed by perturbing different atmospheric and cloud properties are different so that linear regression can separate individual spectral radiance changes from the sum of the spectral radiance change. When the effects of small-scale variability are treated as noise, however, the error in retrieved cloud properties is large. The results suggest the importance of considering small-scale variability in inferring atmospheric and cloud property changes from the satellite-observed zonally and annually averaged spectral radiance difference.

Description: This study evaluates the capability of coupled global climate models (CGCMs) in simulating the prime examples of the forced response (global monsoon) and internal feedback process (El Niño). Emphases are also placed on the fidelity of the year-to-year variability of global monsoon precipitation that is coordinated by the interannual sea surface temperature (SST) fluctuation over the tropics. The latest version of the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate 5 (MIROC5) with advanced physical schemes is compared with the two previous versions (MIROC3.2, high- and medium-resolution versions) and with the 20 CGCMs participating in the third phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3). The climatological annual mean and cycles of precipitation and 850-hPa winds, the key components to demarcate the global monsoon domain, are reproduced better in MIROC5 than in MIROC3 versions. As a consequence, the former considerably outperforms the latter and is generally superior to the CMIP3 CGCMs in replicating the intensity and domain of global monsoon precipitation and circulations. These results highlight the importance of the improved physical parameterization in a model. Analyses of the monthly Niño-3 index suggest that the amplitude and periodicity of El Niño are simulated better in MIROC5 than in the MIROC3 versions. Yet the reality of nonlinear ENSO dynamics measured indirectly by the SST asymmetricity over the equatorial Pacific is unsatisfactory in the MIROC family as well as in the majority of the CMIP3 models. The maximum covariance analysis shows that a significant fraction of the interannual global monsoon rainfall variability is in concert with El Niño. The multimodel results reveal that such coupling is robust across the current CGCMs. More importantly, the fidelity of the global monsoon precipitation significantly relies on the realism of tropical SST. Comparison among the MIROC models suggests that improved El Niño is likely attributable to the more realistic Bjerknes feedback loop, which results from the intensified convective activity over the equatorial central Pacific Ocean.

Description: This paper evaluates the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) sensitivity to eight different combinations of cumulus, microphysics, and planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterization schemes over a topographically complex region in southern Spain (Andalusia) for the period 1990–99. The WRF configuration consisted of a 10-km-resolution domain nested in a coarser domain driven by 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data, with spectral nudging above the PBL employed over the latter domain. The model outputs have been compared at different time scales with an observational dataset that comprises 438 rain gauges and 152 temperature stations with records of both daily maximum and minimum temperatures. To reduce the “representation error,” the validation with observations has been performed using a multistep regionalization that distinguishes five precipitation regions and four temperature regions. The analysis proves that both cumulus and PBL schemes have a crucial impact on the description of precipitation in Andalusia, whereas no noticeable differences between microphysics options were appreciated. Temperature is described similarly by all the configurations, except for the PBL choice affecting minimum values. WRF provides a definite improvement over ERA-40 in the climate description in terms of frequency, spatial distribution, and intensity of extreme events. It also captures more accurately the annual cycle and reduces the biases and the RMSE for monthly precipitation, whereas only a minor enhancement of these features was obtained for monthly-mean maximum and minimum temperatures. The results indicate that WRF is able to correctly reproduce Andalusian climate and produces useful added-value information for climate studies.

Description: Arctic snow presence, absence, properties, and water amount are key components of Earth’s changing climate system that incur far-reaching physical and biological ramifications. Recent dataset and modeling developments permit relatively high-resolution (10-km horizontal grid; 3-h time step) pan-Arctic snow estimates for 1979–2009. Using MicroMet and SnowModel in conjunction with land cover, topography, and 30 years of the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) atmospheric reanalysis data, a distributed snow-related dataset was created including air temperature, snow precipitation, snow-season timing and length, maximum snow water equivalent (SWE) depth, average snow density, snow sublimation, and rain-on-snow events. Regional variability is a dominant feature of the modeled snow-property trends. Both positive and negative regional trends are distributed throughout the pan-Arctic domain, featuring, for example, spatially distinct areas of increasing and decreasing SWE or snow season length. In spite of strong regional variability, the data clearly show a general snow decrease throughout the Arctic: maximum winter SWE has decreased, snow-cover onset is later, the snow-free date in spring is earlier, and snow-cover duration has decreased. The domain-averaged air temperature trend when snow was on the ground was 0.17°C decade−1 with minimum and maximum regional trends of −0.55° and 0.78°C decade−1, respectively. The trends for total number of snow days in a year averaged −2.49 days decade−1 with minimum and maximum regional trends of −17.21 and 7.19 days decade−1, respectively. The average trend for peak SWE in a snow season was −0.17 cm decade−1 with minimum and maximum regional trends of −2.50 and 5.70 cm decade−1, respectively.

Description: A new and potentially skillful seasonal forecast model of tropical cyclone formation [tropical cyclogenesis (TCG)] is developed for the Australian region. The model is based on Poisson regression using the Bayesian approach. Predictor combinations are chosen using a step-by-step predictor selection. The three-predictor model based on derived indices of June–August average convective available potential energy, May–July average meridional winds at 850 hPa (V850), and July–September geopotential height at 500 hPa produces the smallest standard error (se = 0.36) and root-mean-squared error (RMSE = 5.20) for the leave-one-out cross-validated TCG hindcasts over the 40-yr record between 1968/69–2007/08. The corresponding correlation coefficient between observed annual TCG totals and cross-validated model hindcasts is r = 0.73. Using fourfold cross validation, model hindcast skill is robust, with 85% of the observed seasonal TCG totals hindcast within the model standard deviations. Seasonal TCG totals during ENSO events are typically well captured with RMSE = 5.14 during El Niño, and RMSE = 6.04 during La Niña years. The model is shown to be valuable in hindcasting seasonal TCG totals in the eastern Australian subregion (r = 0.73) and also provides some skill for the western Australian region (r = 0.42), while it not useful for the northern region. In summary, the authors find that the three-predictor Bayesian model provides substantial improvement over existing statistical TCG forecast models, with remarkably skillful hindcasts (forecasts) of Australian region and subregional seasonal TCG totals provided one month ahead of the TC season.

Description: Satellite estimates of surface shortwave radiation (SWR) at high latitudes agree less with ground observations than at other locations; moreover, ground observations at such latitudes are scarce. The comprehensive observations of radiative fluxes made since 1977 by the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program at the Barrow North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site are unique. They provide an opportunity to revisit accuracy estimates of remote sensing products at these latitudes, which are problematic because the melting of snow/ice and lower solar elevation make the satellite retrievals more difficult. A newly developed inference scheme for deriving SWR from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS; Terra and Aqua) that utilizes updated information on surface properties over snow and sea ice will be evaluated against these ground measurements and compared with other satellite and model products. Results show that the MODIS-based estimates are in good agreement with observations, with a bias of −5.3 W m−2 (−4% of mean observations) for the downward SWR, a bias of −5.3 W m−2 (−7%) for upward SWR, a bias of 1 (1%) for net SWR, and a bias of −0.001 (0%) for surface albedo. As such, the MODIS estimates of SWR can be useful for numerical model evaluations and for estimating the energy budgets at high latitudes.

Description: Systematic relationships between aspects of intraseasonal variability (ISV) and mean state bias are shown in a number of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) simulations. When AGCMs are categorized as either strong ISV or weak ISV models, it is shown that seasonal mean precipitation patterns are similar among models in the same group but are significantly different from those of the other group. Strong ISV models simulate excessive rainfall over the South Asian summer monsoon and the northwestern Pacific monsoon regions during boreal summer. Larger ISV amplitude also corresponds closely to a larger ratio of eastward-to-westward-propagating variance, but no model matches the observations in both quantities simultaneously; a realistic eastward-to-westward ratio is simulated only when variance exceeds that observed. Three sets of paired simulations, in which only one parameter in the convection scheme is changed to enhance the moisture sensitivity of convection, are used to explore the common differences between the two groups in greater detail. In strong ISV models, the mean and the standard deviation of surface latent heat flux is greater, convective rain fraction is smaller, and tropical tropospheric temperatures are lower compared to weak ISV models. The instantaneous joint relationships between daily gridpoint relative humidity and precipitation differ in some respects when strong and weak ISV models are compared, but these differences are not systematic enough to explain the differences in ISV amplitude. Conversely, there are systematic differences in the frequency with which specific values of humidity and precipitation occur. In strong ISV models, columns with a higher saturation fraction and rain rate occur more frequently and make a greater contribution to total precipitation.

Description: This study evaluates the ability of global climate models to reproduce observed tropical influences on North Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature variability. In an ensemble of climate models, the study finds that the simulated North Pacific response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forcing is systematically delayed relative to the observed response because of winter and spring mixed layers in the North Pacific that are too deep and air–sea feedbacks that are too weak. Model biases in mixed layer depth and air–sea feedbacks are also associated with a model mean ENSO-related signal in the North Pacific whose amplitude is overestimated by about 30%. The study also shows that simulated North Pacific variability has more power at lower frequencies than is observed because of model errors originating in the tropics and extratropics. Implications of these results for predictions on seasonal, decadal, and longer time scales are discussed.

Description: A model evaluation approach is proposed in which weather and climate prediction models are analyzed along a Pacific Ocean cross section, from the stratocumulus regions off the coast of California, across the shallow convection dominated trade winds, to the deep convection regions of the ITCZ—the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Cloud System Study/Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (GCSS/WGNE) Pacific Cross-Section Intercomparison (GPCI). The main goal of GPCI is to evaluate and help understand and improve the representation of tropical and subtropical cloud processes in weather and climate prediction models. In this paper, a detailed analysis of cloud regime transitions along the cross section from the subtropics to the tropics for the season June–July–August of 1998 is presented. This GPCI study confirms many of the typical weather and climate prediction model problems in the representation of clouds: underestimation of clouds in the stratocumulus regime by most models with the corresponding consequences in terms of shortwave radiation biases; overestimation of clouds by the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) in the deep tropics (in particular) with the corresponding impact in the outgoing longwave radiation; large spread between the different models in terms of cloud cover, liquid water path and shortwave radiation; significant differences between the models in terms of vertical cross sections of cloud properties (in particular), vertical velocity, and relative humidity. An alternative analysis of cloud cover mean statistics is proposed where sharp gradients in cloud cover along the GPCI transect are taken into account. This analysis shows that the negative cloud bias of some models and ERA-40 in the stratocumulus regions [as compared to the first International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP)] is associated not only with lower values of cloud cover in these regimes, but also with a stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition that occurs too early along the trade wind Lagrangian trajectory. Histograms of cloud cover along the cross section differ significantly between models. Some models exhibit a quasi-bimodal structure with cloud cover being either very large (close to 100%) or very small, while other models show a more continuous transition. The ISCCP observations suggest that reality is in-between these two extreme examples. These different patterns reflect the diverse nature of the cloud, boundary layer, and convection parameterizations in the participating weather and climate prediction models.

Description: The early twentieth-century North American pluvial (1905–17) was one of the most extreme wet periods of the last 500 yr and directly led to overly generous water allotments in the water-limited American west. Here, the causes and dynamics of the pluvial event are examined using a combination of observation-based datasets and general circulation model (GCM) experiments. The character of the moisture surpluses during the pluvial differed by region, alternately driven by increased precipitation (the Southwest), low evaporation from cool temperatures (the central plains), or a combination of the two (the Pacific Northwest). Cool temperature anomalies covered much of the West and persisted through most months, part of a globally extensive period of cooler land and sea surface temperatures (SST). Circulation during boreal winter favored increased moisture import and precipitation in the Southwest, while other regions and seasons were characterized by near-normal or reduced precipitation. Anomalies in the mean circulation, precipitation, and SST fields are partially consistent with the relatively weak El Niño forcing during the pluvial and, also, reflect the impacts of positive departures in the Arctic Oscillation that occurred in 10 of the 13 pluvial winters. Differences between the reanalysis dataset, an independent statistical drought model, and GCM simulations highlight some of the remaining uncertainties in understanding the full extent of SST forcing of North American hydroclimatic variability.

Description: Evidence is presented that the boreal summer surface air temperature over south China and northeast China is remotely influenced by the Indian Ocean Basin mode (IOBM) sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Above-normal temperature in south China and below-normal temperature in northeast China correspond to a simultaneous Indian Ocean Basin warming. The teleconnection from Indian Ocean SST anomalies to China summer surface air temperature is investigated using observations and an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). The results herein indicate that the tropical Indian Ocean Basin warming can trigger a low-level anomalous anticyclone circulation in the subtropical northwest Pacific and an anomalous cyclone circulation in midlatitude East Asia through emanating a baroclinic Kelvin wave. In south China, the reduced rainfall and downward vertical motion associated with the anomalous low-level anticyclone circulation lead to above-normal summer surface air temperature. In northeast China, by contrast, upward vertical motion associated with the anomalous cyclone leads to below-normal summer surface air temperature.

Description: In the present study, monthly mean objectively analyzed air–sea fluxes (OAFlux) and NCEP–Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis datasets are employed to investigate air–sea interaction over the subtropical North Pacific during the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) transition phase. A coupled low-frequency mode is identified, for which surface net heat flux and atmospheric circulation changes are strongly coupled during the ENSO transition phase. This mode features anomalous cooling (warming) and low-level anomalous cyclonic (anticyclonic) circulation over the subtropical North Pacific. When this mode is prominent, the atmospheric circulation anomalies lead to SST cooling (warming) through surface heat flux anomalies associated with increases (decreases) in the sea–air temperature and humidity differences induced by anomalous cold (warm) advection. In turn, positive heat flux anomalies induce more surface heating, and the SST cooling (warming) causes less (more) deep convective heating. The anomalous surface heating and deep convective heating contribute significantly to anomalous circulation through the thermal adaptation mechanism (adaptation of atmospheric circulation to vertical differential heating). This positive feedback favors the maintenance of these anomalous winds over the subtropical North Pacific.

Description: One pronounced feature in observed latitudinal dependence of lower-stratospheric temperature trends is the enhanced cooling near 30° latitude in both hemispheres. The observed phenomenon has not, to date, been explained in the literature. This study shows that the enhanced cooling is a direct response of the lower-stratospheric temperature to the poleward shift of subtropical jets. Furthermore, this enhanced lower-stratospheric cooling can be used to quantify the poleward shift of subtropical jets. Using the lower-stratospheric temperatures observed by satellite-borne microwave sounding units, it is shown that the subtropical jets have shifted poleward by 0.6° ± 0.1° and 1.0° ± 0.3° latitude in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, respectively, in last 30 years since 1979, indicating a widening of tropical belt by 1.6° ± 0.4° latitude.