Circus Tents, Convective Thresholds, and the Non‐Linear Climate Response to Tropical SSTs

Details

• Journal Title:
  Geophysical Research Letters
• Personal Author:
  Williams, Andrew I. L. ; Jeevanjee, Nadir ; Bloch‐Johnson, Jonah
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory)
• Description:
  Using model simulations, we demonstrate that the climate response to localized tropical sea surface temperature (SST) perturbations exhibits numerous non-linearities. Most pronounced is an asymmetry in the response to positive and negative SST perturbations. Additionally, we identify a “magnitude-dependence” of the response on the size of the SST perturbation. We then explain how these non-linearities arise as a robust consequence of convective quasi-equilibrium and weak (but non-zero) temperature gradients in the tropical free-troposphere, which we encapsulate in a “circus tent” model of the tropical atmosphere. These results demonstrate that the climate response to SST perturbations is fundamentally non-linear, and highlight potential
• Keywords:
  General Earth And Planetary Sciences Geophysics General Earth And Planetary Sciences General Earth And Planetary Sciences
• Source:
  Geophysical Research Letters, 50(6)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1029/2022gl101499
• ISSN:
  0094-8276 ; 1944-8007
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:b3b1cbe60e9cc5ffeaf5dfdc7d55fe02f172c682a790dcbc413b3fedf74b705a
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/55056/noaa_55056_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.69 MB ]