The relative importance of tropical variability forced from the North Pacific through ocean pathways

To what extent is tropical variability forced from the North Pacific through ocean pathways relative to locally generated variability and variability forced through the atmosphere? To address this question, in this study we use an anomaly-coupled model, consisting of a global, atmospheric general circulation model and a 4½-layer, reduced-gravity, Pacific-Ocean model. Three solutions are obtained; with coupling over the entire basin (CNT), with coupling confined to the tropics and wind stress and heat fluxes in the North and South Pacific specified by climatology (TP), and with coupling confined to the Tropics and wind stress and heat fluxes in the North Pacific specified by output from CNT (NPF). It is found that there are two distinct signals forced in the North Pacific that can impact the tropics through ocean pathways. These two signals are forced by wind stress and surface heat flux anomalies in the subtropical North Pacific. The first signal is relatively fast, impacts tropical variability less than a year after forcing, is triggered from November to March, and propagates as a first-mode baroclinic Rossby wave. The second signal is only triggered during springtime when buoyancy forcing can effectively generate higher-order baroclinic modes through subduction anomalies into the permanent thermocline, and it reaches the equator 4–5 years after forcing. The slow signal is found to initiate tropical variability more efficiently than the fast signal with one standard deviation in subtropical zonal wind stress forcing tropical SST anomalies centered on the equator at 135°W of approximately 0.5°C. Allowing extratropically forced tropical variability is found to shift primarily 2-year ENSO variability in a tropics-alone simulation to a more realistic range of 2–6 years.     

Sensitivity of global warming to the pattern of tropical ocean warming

The current generations of climate models are in substantial disagreement as to the projected patterns of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Tropics over the next several decades. We show that the spatial patterns of tropical ocean temperature trends have a strong influence on global mean temperature and precipitation and on global mean radiative forcing. We identify the SST patterns with the greatest influence on the global mean climate and find very different, and often opposing, sensitivities to SST changes in the tropical Indian and West Pacific Oceans. Our work stresses the need to reduce climate model biases in these sensitive regions, as they not only affect the regional climates of the nearby densely populated continents, but also have a disproportionately large effect on the global climate.

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Development of the Operational Oceanographic System of Korea

Ocean Science Journal - The Korea Operational Oceanographic System (KOOS) was developed at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) to produce real-time forecasting and...     

Critical influence of the pattern of Tropical Ocean warming on remote climate trends

Evidence is presented that the recent trend patterns of surface air temperature and precipitation over the land masses surrounding the North Atlantic Ocean (North America, Greenland, Europe, and North Africa) have been strongly influenced by the warming pattern of the tropical oceans. The current generation of atmosphere–ocean coupled climate models with prescribed radiative forcing changes generally do not capture these regional trend patterns. On the other hand, even uncoupled atmospheric models without the prescribed radiative forcing changes, but with the observed oceanic warming specified only in the tropics, are more successful in this regard. The tropical oceanic warming pattern is poorly represented in the coupled simulations. Our analysis points to model error rather than unpredictable climate noise as a major cause of this discrepancy with respect to the observed trends. This tropical error needs to be reduced to increase confidence in regional climate change projections around the globe, and to formulate better societal responses to projected changes in high-impact phenomena such as droughts and wet spells.