The Role of Bjerknes and Shortwave Feedbacks in the Tropical Pacific SST Response to Global Warming

Fu, Minmin; Fedorov, Alexey

doi:10.1029/2023gl105061

i

The Role of Bjerknes and Shortwave Feedbacks in the Tropical Pacific SST Response to Global Warming

Supporting Files

2023
By Fu, Minmin ; Fedorov, Alexey

Details

Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Fu, Minmin ; Fedorov, Alexey
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
Description:

The evolution of tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in response to greenhouse warming is of great societal and scientific interest. Most state‐of‐the‐art climate models predict a mean “El Niño‐like” warming pattern by century‐end, characterized by greater warming over the Pacific cold tongue compared to the western warm pool. However, it is unclear which proposed mechanism dominates in this response. Here, we present partially coupled abrupt CO2 doubling experiments in which surface wind stress and shortwave heating are overridden to values from a control simulation. Contrary to previous studies, we find that experiments with overriding of surface wind stress exhibit only 58% of the full reduction in east‐west SST contrast. When both surface wind stress and shortwave flux are overridden, only 34% of the full reduction remains, controlled by spatially‐varying evaporative cooling. These results underscore the importance of Bjerknes and shortwave feedbacks in the tropical Pacific SST response to global warming.
Keywords:

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

Geophysical Research Letters, 50(19)
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gl105061
ISSN:

0094-8276 ; 1944-8007
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA20OAR4310377
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:8fb3443ebb9fd27547e2e25828e9205cea29a172b1cb48c46452218b041e1f32
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/58112/noaa_58112_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 2.87 MB ]

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