Search

The atmospheric Green's function method is a technique for modeling the response of the atmosphere to changes in the spatial field of surface temperature. While early studies applied this method to changes in atmospheric circulation, it has also become an important tool to understand changes in radiative feedbacks due to evolving patterns of warming, a phenomenon called the "pattern effect." To better study this method, this paper presents a protocol for creating atmospheric Green's functions to serve as the basis for a model intercomparison project, GFMIP. The protocol has been developed using a series of sensitivity tests performed with the HadAM3 atmosphere‐only general circulation model, along with existing and new simulations from other models. Our preliminary results have uncovered nonlinearities in the response of the atmosphere to surface temperature changes, including an asymmetrical response to warming versus cooling patch perturbations, and a change in the dependence of the response on the magnitude and size of the patches. These nonlinearities suggest that the pattern effect may depend on the heterogeneity of warming as well as its location. These experiments have also revealed tradeoffs in experimental design between patch size, perturbation strength, and the length of control and patch simulations. The protocol chosen on the basis of these experiments balances scientific utility with the simulation time and setup required by the Green's function approach. Running these simulations will further our understanding of many aspects of atmospheric response, from the pattern effect and radiative feedbacks to changes in circulation, cloudiness, and precipitation. Plain Language Summary: Many properties of the atmosphere are affected by the temperature of the ocean surface. Knowing how strong these effects are would help us to better predict global warming. The response to a given surface warming depends on where the warming occurs. To account for this, researchers sometimes simulate the response to individual patches of warming and then assume the response to an arbitrary warming pattern can be summed together from these patch responses. This is sometimes called the atmospheric Green's function method, and it works well at recreating the atmospheric response to historical temperature changes. We are organizing a Green's Function Model Intercomparison Project (GFMIP), in which participants will apply the method consistently for many climate models. This paper presents the GFMIP protocol. In the course of developing this protocol, we found that the atmospheric response to warming is not proportional in all cases: the response to surface warming is not the opposite of the response to surface cooling; warming twice as much doesn't cause twice as much of a response; and making a patch of warming twice as large doesn't cause twice as large a response. GFMIP will help us figure out how to account for this nonlinearity. Key Points: The Green's Function Model Intercomparison Project (GFMIP) explores the atmospheric response to surface temperature patch perturbationsThis paper presents the GFMIP protocol, which was generated using insights from past studies and new sensitivity testsGreen's functions reconstruct the response to historical temperatures, but nonlinearities can affect responses to other warming patterns [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changes of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) associated winter rainfall relationship in Southeast Asia (SEA) in the historical period (1981–2010) and future period (2071–2100) based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models simulations. Twenty general circulation models (GCMs) are chosen from the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) highest emission scenario—Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 5‐8.5. This study focuses only on the GCMs that have been able to replicate the consistent associated patterns observed, referred to as "teleconnection‐consistent models" (TCMs). During historical period, ENSO has significant negative association with SEA winter rainfall, particularly over Indochina mainland, Maritime Continent (MC) and northern Borneo. The significant negative‐associated teleconnection affected area has increased under future climate, particularly over southern part of South China Sea (SCS). The weakening of south westerlies at Western North Pacific (WNP) centred near 20°N reduces the moisture transport from Indochina into south of China, increase the negative correlated affected area in the SEA regions above equator. The northeasterlies/easterlies that prevailed from the WNP anticyclone (AC) brings significant moisture flux into southern Borneo, causing increment of significant positive‐associated moisture flux convergence to that region. The weakening of upward motion in TCM results in less warm and moist air rising over SEA MC, reducing the rainfall availability. The 1° eastward expansion of WC downward branch eastern edge leads to suppression of convective activities, increasing the dry affected area. The results suggest that the ENSO has a larger influence on the negative‐associated SEA rainfall and atmospheric circulation in the December–January–February (DJF) late‐21st century when compared to the 1980–2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]