Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming

McGregor, Shayne; Timmermann, Axel; Stuecker, Malte F.; England, Matthew H.; Merrifield, M. A.; Jin, Fei‐Fei; Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu

doi:10.1038/nclimate2330

Cited by 555 publications

(541 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

473

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, the PDO and DIOB are highly correlated with positive correlation before the mid-1980s and negative correlation afterward (Fig. 8b); the PDO can affect Indian Ocean winds partly through modulating the Asian-Australian monsoon Arblaster 2011, 2012); decadal variability of tropical Indian Ocean SST since the mid-1980s and multidecadal trend since the 1960s (e.g., Han et al 2014a) as well as tropical Atlantic warming since the 1990s (e.g., McGregor et al 2014) might have affected the tropical Pacific winds and sea level; and changes in ENSO-PDO phase relationship may enhance decadal sea level variability in the western tropical Pacific (Moon et al 2015).…”

Section: Summary Issues and Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Modeling studies suggest that warming of the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans enhances surface easterly trade winds and thus contributes to the intensified SLR (e.g., Luo et al 2012;Han et al 2014a;Hamlington et al 2014;England et al 2014;McGregor et al 2014); however, a large portion of this rapid SLR-together with weak falls in the eastern basin-is part of the basin-scale sea level pattern associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) or decadal variability of ENSO (Bromirski et al 2011;Merrifield et al 2012;Meyssignac et al 2012;Zhang and Church 2012;Hamlington et al 2013Hamlington et al , 2014Moon et al 2013;Han et al 2014a; Palanisamy et al 2015). The PDO is defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly over the North Pacific ([20°N), and the leading principal component (PC1) is referred to as the PDO index (e.g., Mantua et al 1997;Minobe 1997;Zhang et al 1997;Garreaud and Battisti 1999; see review papers by Alexander 2010;Liu 2012).…”

Section: Pdo-related Sea Level Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth's climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modes and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this paper, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.

show abstract

Section: Summary Issues and Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pdo-related Sea Level Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The canonical view, based on observed phase-lagged temperature anomaly signals at latitudinally separated buoy locations along the shelf, is that major changes in SST and hydrographic structure over the shelf are predominantly driven by advection of anomalous properties from higher latitudes upstream (Loder et al, 2001;Shearman and Lentz, 2010). In these higher latitudes serving as potential source waters, the Labrador-Newfoundland shelf and Labrador Sea are also among the most rapidly warming regions of the global ocean (Belkin, 2009;McGregor et al, 2014;Larouche and Galbraith, 2016). Oceanographic anomalies related to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the dominant basinscale climate signal of the North Atlantic, are advected into the region from higher latitudes with a 2-4 year lag (Greene et al, 2013;Xu et al, 2015).…”

Section: Research Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf

Thomas

Pershing

Friedland

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Thomas, AC, et al 2017 Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf. Elem Sci Anth, 5: 48, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.240 Introduction Sea surface temperatures (SST) on the North American continental shelf from Cape Hatteras to Nova Scotia (Figure 1) (hereinafter referred to as the northeastern shelf) exhibit one of the strongest warming trends of the global ocean (Burrows et al., 2011;Pershing et al., 2015; Saba et al., 2015), and the region has recently been subjected to a strong heat wave (Mills et al., 2013; Scannell et al., 2016). The warming trend has been implicated in shifts in the distribution of marine species (Lucey and Nye, 2010;Pinsky et al., 2013), many of which are of commercial importance (Nye et al., 2009;Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012), and some of which are invasive species able to exploit new ranges (e.g. Maynard et al., 2016; Stephenson et al., 2009). Such trends impose serious challenges for fisheries and fisheries management (e.g. Pinsky and Fogarty, 2012;Pershing et al., 2015). However, temperature interactions with species distributions and behaviors occur not only through trends in temperatures, latitudinal shifts in isotherms, or even in episodic events such as heat waves, but also through shifts in phenology, the timing within temperature seasonal cycles (Asch, 2015;Burrows et al., 2011). Friedland and Hare (2007) ). Winter (January-April) trends are relatively weak, and even negative in some areas; early summer (May-June) trends are positive everywhere, and later summer (July-September) trends are strongest (~1.0°C decade -1). These seasonal differences shift the phenology of many metrics of the SST cycle. The yearday on which specific temperature thresholds (8° and 12°C) are reached in spring trends earlier, most strongly over the Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine (~ -0.5 days year ). Three metrics defining the warmest summer period show significant trends towards earlier summer starts, later summer ends and longer summer duration over the entire study region. Trends in start and end dates are strongest (~1 day year -1 ) over the Gulf of Maine and Scotian Shelf. Trends in increased summer duration are >2.0 days year -1 in parts of the Gulf of Maine. Regression analyses show that phenology trends have regionally varying links to the North Atlantic Oscillation, to local spring and summer atmospheric pressure and air temperature and to Gulf Stream position. For effective monitoring and management of dynamically heterogeneous shelf regions, the results highlight the need to quantify spatial and seasonal differences in SST trends as well as trends in SST phenology, each of which likely has implications for the ecological functioning of the shelf.

show abstract

“…and heat uptake, and reductions in the rate of global warming [Meehl et al, 2011;England et al, 2014;McGregor et al, 2014]. …”

Section: 1002/2016gl071978mentioning

confidence: 99%

Model evidence for low‐level cloud feedback driving persistent changes in atmospheric circulation and regional hydroclimate

Burgman

Kirtman

Clement

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent studies suggest that low clouds in the Pacific play an important role in the observed decadal climate variability and future climate change. In this study, we implement a novel modeling experiment designed to isolate how interactions between local and remote feedbacks associated with low cloud, SSTs, and the large‐scale circulation play a significant role in the observed persistence of tropical Pacific SST and associated North American drought. The modeling approach involves the incorporation of observed patterns of satellite‐derived shortwave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) into the coupled model framework and is ideally suited for examining the role of local and large‐scale coupled feedbacks and ocean heat transport in Pacific decadal variability. We show that changes in SWCRE forcing in eastern subtropical Pacific alone reproduces much of the observed changes in SST and atmospheric circulation over the past 16 years, including the observed changes in precipitation over much of the Western Hemisphere.

show abstract

Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming

Abstract: Given the importance of the recent wind-induced trends in Pacific sea level and surface temperature, it is vital to determine the underlying causes.

Cited by 555 publications

References 30 publications

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

Seasonal trends and phenology shifts in sea surface temperature on the North American northeastern continental shelf

Model evidence for low‐level cloud feedback driving persistent changes in atmospheric circulation and regional hydroclimate

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About