Are Simulated and Observed Twentieth Century Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Trends Significant Relative to Internal Variability?

Coats, S.; Karnauskas, K. B.

doi:10.1002/2017gl074622

i

Are Simulated and Observed Twentieth Century Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Trends Significant Relative to Internal Variability?

Supporting Files

2017
By Coats, S. ; Karnauskas, K. B.

Details

Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Coats, S. ; Karnauskas, K. B.
NOAA Program & Office:

CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
Description:

Historical trends in the tropical Paci ﬁc zonal sea surface temperature gradient (SST gradient) are analyzed herein using 41 climate models (83 simulations) and 5 observational data sets. A linear inversemodel is trained on each simulation and observational data set to assess if trends in the SST gradient are signi ﬁcant relative to the stationary statistics of internal variability, as would suggest an important role for external forcings such as anthropogenic greenhouse gasses. None of the 83 simulations have a positive trendin the SST gradient, a strengthening of the climatological SST gradient with more warming in the western than eastern tropical Paci ﬁc, as large as the mean trend across the ﬁve observational data sets. If the observed trends are anthropogenically forced, this discrepancy suggests that state-of-the-art climate models are notcapturing the observed response of the tropical Paci ﬁc to anthropogenic forcing, with serious implications for conﬁdence in future climate projections. There are caveats to this interpretation, however, as some climate
Keywords:

General Earth And Planetary Sciences Geophysics General Earth And Planetary Sciences General Earth And Planetary Sciences
Source:

Geophysical Research Letters, 44(19), 9928-9937
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017gl074622
ISSN:

0094-8276 ; 1944-8007
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Document Type:

Journal Article
Rights Information:

Other
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:6894d816eb6b9ab338b2f3ae8df2b59538e37727e2bcfa7fe1a2f92245755e20
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/52887/noaa_52887_DS1.pdf
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[PDF - 1.20 MB ]

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