The internal atmospheric variability (IAV) of the net surface heat flux (NHF) in the observed 20th/21st century atmosphere is estimated as the residual after removing the sea surface temperature ...(SST) and externally forced atmospheric response derived from the four atmospheric models of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations under phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The mean NHF of four atmospheric reanalysis datasets is an estimate of the observed NHF. Although the AMIP models are forced with the same SST and external forcing, the forced responses differ significantly among AMIP models, suggestive of uncertainty in the models. Besides, the uncertainty of IAV in the reanalyses could also arise from the uncertainty in reanalyses as observations contain errors and reanalysis includes interpolation by models. It is concluded that: (a) The SST/NHF and SST/forced NHF correlations are significantly negative over most of world ocean in the AMIP models, indicating damping of the SST anomalies by the NHF. (b) The IAV of the AMIP models is not correlated with SST, while the positive IAV/SST correlations in the reanalyses suggests the role of IAV in forcing the SST variability in the extra‐tropics. (c) The standard deviation (STD) of the IAV of AMIP models is indistinguishable from that of the mean reanalysis over a majority of world ocean, and the STD of the NHF of the AMIP models is larger than that of the mean reanalysis in the subtropics and midlatitudes. (d) The IAV in the mean reanalysis plays a role in forcing the SST variability in the extra‐tropics (e.g., Atlantic Multidecadal Variability), while it may not be an important forcing in the tropical oceans (e.g., ENSO).
The internal atmospheric variability (IAV) of the net surface heat flux is estimated as the residual after removing the SST and externally forced atmospheric response derived from AMIP simulations. IAV in the mean reanalysis plays a role in forcing the SST variability in the extra‐tropics, while it may not be an important forcing in the tropical oceans. The standard deviation of IAV of AMIP models is indistinguishable from that of the mean reanalysis in the subtropics and midlatitudes.
The statistical characteristics of the atmospheric internal variability (hereafter internal atmospheric noise) for surface pressure (PS) in twentieth century simulations of a coupled general ...circulation model are documented. The atmospheric noise is determined from daily post-industrial (1871–1998) Community Climate System Model 3 simulations by removing the SST and externally forced responses from the total fields. The forced responses are found from atmosphere-only simulations forced by the SST and external forcing of the coupled runs. However, we do not address the influence of the SST variability on the synoptic scale high frequency weather noise.The spatial patterns of the main seasonal modes of atmospheric noise variability are found for boreal winter and summer from empirical orthogonal function analyses performed globally and for various regions, including the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and the equatorial Pacific. The temporal characteristics of the modes are illustrated by power spectra and probability density functions (PDF) of the principal components (PC). Our findings show that, for two different realizations of noise, the variability is dominated by large scale spatial structures of the atmospheric noise that resemble observed patterns, and that their relative amplitudes in the CGCM and AGCM simulations are very similar. The regional expression of the dominant global mode, a seasonally dependent AO-like or AAO-like pattern is also found in the regional analyses, with similar time dependence. The PCs in the CGCM and the corresponding SST forced AGCM simulations are uncorrelated, but the spectra and PDFs of the CGCM and AGCM PCs are similar.The temporal structures of the noise PCs are white at timescales larger than few months, so that these modes can be thought of as stochastic forcings (in time) for the climate system. The PDFs of the noise PCs are not statistically distinguishable from Gaussian distributions with the same standard deviation. The PDFs do not change substantially between the first and second half of the twentieth century.
The mechanisms responsible for the decadal variability of the tripole mode of North Atlantic SST during the latter half of the twentieth century are diagnosed using a new technique. The SST and ...associated ocean variability are reconstructed by forcing an interactive ensemble coupled GCM by the surface fluxes resulting from weather noise. The weather noise surface fluxes are obtained from the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis by removing the simulated atmospheric feedback to the observed SST evolution. Simulations are performed to reconstruct and estimate the contributions of the local weather noise heat flux and wind stress to the observed evolution of the tripole pattern. The results indicate that the North Atlantic tripole pattern is forced primarily by the local weather noise surface heat flux. The roles of several types of ocean circulation variability, including gyres forced by the wind stress weather noise, the wind stress feedback to the SST, and the meridional overturning circulation, are also examined. Conclusions from this approach are expected to be model dependent. Further analysis, in the context of a simple model, of the mechanisms producing the tripole variability is presented in Part II.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mechanisms of the internally generated decadal-to-multidecadal variability of SST in the Atlantic Ocean are investigated in a long control simulation of the Community Climate System Model version 3 ...with constant external forcing. The interactive ensemble (IE) coupling strategy, with an ensemble of atmospheric GCMs (AGCM) coupled to an ocean model, a sea-ice model and a land model, is used to diagnose the roles of various processes in the coupled GCM (CGCM). The noise components of heat flux, wind stress and fresh water flux of the control simulation, determined from the CGCM surface fluxes by subtracting the SST-forced surface fluxes, estimated as the ensemble mean of AGCM simulations, are applied at the ocean surface of the IE in different regions and in different combinations. The IE simulations demonstrate that the climate variability in the control simulation is predominantly forced by noise. The local noise forcing is found to be responsible for the SST variability in the Atlantic Ocean, with noise heat flux and noise wind stress playing a critical role. The control run Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) index is decomposed into interannual, decadal and multidecadal modes based on the ensemble empirical mode decomposition. The AMV multidecadal mode, a combination of 50- and 100-year modes, is examined in detail. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern in the atmosphere, dominated by the noise component, forces the multidecadal mode through noise heat flux and noise wind stress. The noise wind stress forcing on the multidecadal mode is associated with ocean dynamics, including gyre adjustment and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMV decadal mode is also found to be related to noise NAO forcing. The associated ocean dynamics are connected with both noise heat flux and noise wind stress, but the AMOC related to the decadal mode is more likely to be forced by noise heat flux. For both multidecadal and decadal modes, the atmospheric response to SST, including the SST-forced heat flux and SST-forced wind stress, acts as a damping.
A pronounced tropical cooling (> 4 °C) and high-latitude warming in the annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) climatology is found in a numerical experiment conducted with a coupled model ...consisting of an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) coupled to a slab ocean model (SOM) in which the time-independent SOM thickness is reduced by a factor of two. The results suggest that biases in the ocean mixed layer depth could be contributing to SST biases in coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models. These changes in annual mean SST are noteworthy since in simple climate models the SOM thickness controls the amplitude and phase of the SST annual cycle, but it plays no role in determining the annual mean SST. Results from the numerical experiment indicate that halving of the SOM thickness not only changes annual cycle amplitude but results in asymmetrical changes in the annual cycle that rectify onto annual mean SST. The changed SOM thickness is found to primarily affect the surface net solar flux and latent heat flux components. However, due to the SOM equilibrium energy budget constraint, the annual mean net surface heat flux does not change, and the solar and latent heat fluxes changes compensate for each other. There is no such constraint on the annual cycle of heat fluxes, where the solar and latent components act to reinforce each other over much of the ocean, with the notable exception of the tropic Pacific warm pool region. We investigate the influence of the amplitude of the SST annual cycle on the annual mean SST through the net surface heat flux and its components using a two-step approach. First, two prescribed SST AGCM simulations are carried out, both with the annual mean SST of the full-thickness SOM coupled model simulation: one forced with the SST annual cycle of the full-thickness SOM coupled simulation, and the other forced with the SST annual cycle of the half-thickness SOM coupled simulation. Second, the impacts of these changes in the annual cycle on the annual mean SST are assessed in a full-thickness AGCM-SOM coupled simulation forced by the net, annual-mean, surface heat flux changes produced by the SST annual cycle changes in the first step. It is found that these net surface heat flux changes can largely reproduce the annual mean SST sensitivity to SOM thickness found in the coupled SOM thickness halving experiment. The effects on the annual mean heat flux components and annual mean SST from changes in the SOM thickness in an idealized limiting case are also considered.
An analysis of Rossby wave dynamics in two and three dimensions is carried from the point of view of a reference frame propagating with the zonal phase speed of the wave. Since trajectories and ...streamlines coincide in this reference frame, the mechanism for (westward) propagation of free waves has a different interpretation than in a reference frame fixed to the ground. In the wave reference frame, propagating free-wave solutions are possible only when parcels approach from the west. When parcels approach from the east, potential vorticity cannot be conserved along trajectories.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
In Part I of this study, the atmospheric weather noise for 1951–2000 was inferred from an atmospheric analysis in conjunction with SST-forced AGCM simulations and used to force interactive ...ensemble coupled GCM simulations of the North Atlantic SST variability. Here, results from those calculations are used in conjunction with a simple stochastically forced coupled model of the decadal time scale North Atlantic tripole SST variability to examine the mechanisms associated with the tripole SST variability. The diagnosed tripole variability is found to be characterized by damped, delayed oscillator dynamics, similar to what has been found by other investigators. However, major differences here, affecting the signs of two of the crucial parameters of the simple model, are that the atmospheric heat flux feedback damps the tripole pattern and that a counterclockwise intergyre gyre-like circulation enhances the tripole pattern. Delayed oscillator dynamics are still obtained because the sign of the dynamically important parameter, proportional to the product of these two parameters, is unchanged. Another difference with regard to the dynamical processes included in the simple model is that the major contribution to the ocean’s dynamical heat flux response to the weather noise wind stress is through a delayed modulation of the mean gyres, rather than from the simultaneous intergyre gyre response. The power spectrum of a revised simple model forced by white noise has a less prominent decadal peak using the parameter values and dynamics diagnosed here than in previous investigations. Decadal time scale retrospective predictions made with this version of the simple model are no better than persistence.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
It is commonly assumed that a reasonable estimate of the SST-forced component of the observed atmospheric circulation is given by an atmospheric GCM (AGCM) forced with the observed SST. However, ...there are results that find different SST-forced responses from the observed, for example for the ENSO–monsoon relationship, and suggest that these differences are due to lack of coupling to the ocean rather than atmospheric model bias unrelated to coupling. Here, the coupling issue is isolated and examined through perfect model experiments. A coupled atmosphere–ocean GCM (CGCM) simulation and an AGCM simulation forced by the SST from the CGCM are compared to examine whether the SST-forced responses are the same. This question cannot be addressed directly, since the SST-forced response of the CGCM is a priori unknown. Therefore, two indirect tests are applied, based on the assumption that the noise decorrelation time scale is short compared to a month.
The first test is to compare the time-lagged linear regressions of the atmospheric fields onto several SST indices (defined as the area-averaged SST anomalies in the tropics or extratropics), with SST leading the atmosphere by a month. The second test is to compare the time lagged linear covariances of several atmospheric indices (including two monsoon indices and a North Atlantic Oscillation index) and SST, with the SST leading the atmosphere by a month. Both tests find that the SST-forced responses are the same in the CGCM and SST-forced AGCM. These tests can be extended to compare the SST-forced responses between different AGCMs, CGCMs, and observations.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A coupled (ocean‐atmosphere) general circulation model (CGCM) and an uncoupled atmospheric general circulation model forced with the SST and external forcing of the coupled model simulate similar 2 m ...air temperature (TS) trends and also similar sea level pressure (SLP) trends for the latter half of the 20th century. This suggests that the inability of atmospheric models forced by observed SST and external forcing to reproduce observed SLP trends in the Indian Ocean could be due to model bias rather than lack of coupling. The internally generated TS trend in the CGCM is found to be small in comparison to the externally forced component. Intrinsic atmospheric noise explains most of the CGCM's internally generated high‐latitude SLP trend, while in low latitudes, the response of the SLP trend to the internally generated SST trend is important.
Key Points
SLP trends are analyzed in externally forced coupled and uncoupled GCMs
SLP trends are attributed to external forcing and internal mechanisms
Forced SLP trends in coupled and uncoupled simulations are similar
There are potential advantages to extending operational seasonal forecast models to predict decadal variability but major efforts are required to assess the model fidelity for this task. In this ...study, we examine the North Atlantic climate simulated by the NCEP Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2), using a set of ensemble decadal hindcasts and several 30-year simulations initialized from realistic ocean–atmosphere states. It is found that a substantial climate drift occurs in the first few years of the CFSv2 hindcasts, which represents a major systematic bias and may seriously affect the model’s fidelity for decadal prediction. In particular, it is noted that a major reduction of the upper ocean salinity in the northern North Atlantic weakens the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) significantly. This freshening is likely caused by the excessive freshwater transport from the Arctic Ocean and weakened subtropical water transport by the North Atlantic Current. A potential source of the excessive freshwater is the quick melting of sea ice, which also causes unrealistically thin ice cover in the Arctic Ocean. Our sensitivity experiments with adjusted sea ice albedo parameters produce a sustainable ice cover with realistic thickness distribution. It also leads to a moderate increase of the AMOC strength. This study suggests that a realistic freshwater balance, including a proper sea ice feedback, is crucial for simulating the North Atlantic climate and its variability.
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