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Despite decades of efforts and improvements in the representation of processes as well as in model resolution, current global climate models still suffer from a set of important, systematic biases in sea surface temperature (SST), not much different from the previous generation of climate models. Many studies have looked at errors in the wind field, cloud representation or oceanic upwelling in coupled models to explain the SST errors. In this paper we highlight the relationship between latent heat flux (LH) biases in forced atmospheric simulations and the SST biases models develop in coupled mode, at the scale of the entire intertropical domain. By analyzing 22 pairs of forced atmospheric and coupled ocean-atmosphere simulations from the CMIP5 database, we show a systematic, negative correlation between the spatial patterns of these two biases. This link between forced and coupled bias patterns is also confirmed by two sets of dedicated sensitivity experiments with the IPSL-CM5A-LR model. The analysis of the sources of the atmospheric LH bias pattern reveals that the near-surface wind speed bias dominates the zonal structure of the LH bias and that the near-surface relative humidity dominates the east-west contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seasonal cycle and interannual variability in the tropical oceans simulated by three versions of the Flexible Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System (FGOALS) model (FGOALS-g1.0, FGOALS-g2 and FGOALSs2), which have participated in phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5), are presented in this paper. The seasonal cycle of SST in the tropical Pacific is realistically reproduced by FGOALS-g2 and FGOALSs2, while it is poorly simulated in FGOALS-g1.0. Three feedback mechanisms responsible for the SST annual cycle in the eastern Pacific are evaluated. The ocean-atmosphere dynamic feedback, which is successfully reproduced by both FGOALS-g2 and FGOALS-s2, plays a key role in determining the SST annual cycle, while the overestimated stratus cloud-SST feedback amplifies the annual cycle in FGOALS-s2. Because of the serious warm bias existing in FGOALS-g1.0, the ocean-atmosphere dynamic feedback is greatly underestimated in FGOALS-g1.0, in which the SST annual cycle is mainly driven by surface solar radiation. FGOALS-g1.0 simulates much stronger ENSO events than observed, whereas FGOALS-g2 and FGOALSs2 successfully simulate the observed ENSO amplitude and period and positive asymmetry, but with less strength. Further ENSO feedback analyses suggest that surface solar radiation feedback is principally responsible for the overestimated ENSO amplitude in FGOALS-g1.0. Both FGOALS-g1.0 and FGOALS-s2 can simulate two different types of El Ni-no events - with maximum SST anomalies in the eastern Pacific (EP) or in the central Pacific (CP) - but FGOALS-g2 is only able to simulate EP El Ni-no, because the negative cloud shortwave forcing feedback by FGOALS-g2 is much stronger than observed in the central Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idealized forcing experiments with 1% per year CO2 increase to stabilized doubled and quadrupled CO2, twenty-first century transient scenario experiments (SRES scenarios A1B and B1), and stabilized twenty-second century A1B and B1 experiments with two global coupled climate models (PCM and CCSM3) are analyzed for possible future changes of El Niño events. With increased CO2 in the models, there is a reduction of amplitude of El Niño events. This is particularly apparent with larger forcing in the stabilized 4×CO2 experiment in PCM and the stabilized greenhouse gas A1B experiment in CCSM3, where the reduction of amplitude is outside the range of the inherent multi-century variability of El Niño in the control runs of the models and is statistically significant. With moderately increased forcing (stabilized 2×CO2 in PCM and the stabilized B1 experiment in CCSM3), the reduction in amplitude is evident, but it is not significant. The change in El Niño behavior with larger forcing is attributed to the change in base state temperature in the equatorial Pacific, which is similar with increased greenhouse gases (GHGs) in both models. Positive temperature anomalies in and below the thermocline, associated with a reduction of the trade winds, and weakened Pacific Ocean subtropical cells, produce a less intense thermocline, and consequently lower amplitude El Niño events. The previously noted intensification of El Niño tropical precipitation anomalies in a warmer mean base state that applied when there was no appreciable change in El Niño amplitude does not hold in the present study where the El Niño events decrease in magnitude in a future warmer climate. North American surface temperature anomalies associated with El Niño are reduced and become less significant in the future events, with the anomalously deepened Aleutian low in the North Pacific weakened and moved eastward with greater radiative forcing. Part of this is attributed to the smaller amplitude events and thus lower amplitude teleconnections as indicated by contrasting composites of medium and high amplitude El Niño events from the control runs. The change in midlatitude base state circulation also contributes to the change in El Niño teleconnections. The effects of this change in base state on the weakened El Niño teleconnections over North America are confirmed in sensitivity experiments with a version of the atmospheric model in which heating anomalies are specified to mimic El Niño events in a base state changed due to increased GHGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look at changes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in a high-resolution eddy-permitting climate model experiment in which the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC) is switched off using freshwater hosing. The ENSO mode is shifted eastward and its period becomes longer and more regular when the AMOC is off. The eastward shift can be attributed to an anomalous eastern Ekman transport in the mean equatorial Pacific ocean state. Convergence of this transport deepens the thermocline in the eastern tropical Pacific and increases the temperature anomaly relaxation time, causing increased ENSO period. The anomalous Ekman transport is caused by a surface northerly wind anomaly in response to the meridional sea surface temperature dipole that results from switching the AMOC off. In contrast to a previous study with an earlier version of the model, which showed an increase in ENSO amplitude in an AMOC off experiment, here the amplitude remains the same as in the AMOC on control state. We attribute this difference to variations in the response of decreased stochastic forcing in the different models, which competes with the reduced damping of temperature anomalies. In the new high-resolution model, these effects approximately cancel resulting in no change in amplitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large multi-decadal fluctuations of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability simulated in a 4000-year pre-industrial control run of GFDL CM2.1 have received considerable attention due to implications for constraining the causes of past and future changes in ENSO. We evaluated the mechanisms of this low-frequency ENSO modulation through analysis of the extreme epochs of CM2.1 as well as through the use of a linearized intermediate-complexity model of the tropical Pacific, which produces reasonable emulations of observed ENSO variability. We demonstrate that the low-frequency ENSO modulation can be represented by the simplest model of a linear, stationary process, even in the highly nonlinear CM2.1. These results indicate that CM2.1's ENSO modulation is driven by transient processes that operate at interannual or shorter time scales. Nonlinearities and/or multiplicative noise in CM2.1 likely exaggerate the ENSO modulation by contributing to the overly active ENSO variability. In contrast, simulations with the linear model suggest that intrinsically-generated tropical Pacific decadal mean state changes do not contribute to the extreme-ENSO epochs in CM2.1. Rather, these decadal mean state changes actually serve to damp the intrinsically-generated ENSO modulation, primarily by stabilizing the ENSO mode during strong-ENSO epochs. Like most coupled General Circulation Models, CM2.1 suffers from large biases in its ENSO simulation, including ENSO variance that is nearly twice that seen in the last 50 years of observations. We find that CM2.1's overly strong ENSO variance directly contributes to its strong multi-decadal modulation through broadening the distribution of epochal variance, which increases like the square of the long-term variance. These results suggest that the true spectrum of unforced ENSO modulation is likely substantially narrower than that in CM2.1. However, relative changes in ENSO modulation are similar between CM2.1, the linear model tuned to CM2.1, and the linear model tuned to observations, underscoring previous findings that relative changes in ENSO variance can robustly be compared across models and observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provided a quantitative evaluation of convectively coupled Kelvin waves (CCKWs) over the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean simulated by 20 coupled climate models that participated in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5. The two leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes of filtered daily precipitation anomalies are used to represent the eastward propagating CCKWs in both observations and simulations. The eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the EOF modes represent the spatial patterns and intensity of CCKWs respectively, and the lead-lag relationship between the two EOF principle components describe the phase propagation of CCKWs. A non-dimensional metric was designed in consideration of all the three factors (i.e., pattern, amplitude and phase propagation) for evaluation. The relative rankings of the models based on the skill scores calculated by the metric are conducted for the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, respectively. Two models (NorESM1-M and MPI-ESM-LR) are ranked among the best 20 % for both the regions. Three models (inmcm4, MRI-CGCM3 and HadGEM2-ES) are ranked among the worst 20 % for both the regions. While the observed CCKW amplitude is greater north of the equator in the Pacific, some models overestimate the CCKW ampliutde in the Southern Hemisphere. This bias is related to the mean state precipitation bias along the south Pacific convergence zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents results from regional climate model (RCM) projections for the south-west Pacific Ocean. The regional models used bias corrected sea surface temperatures. Six global climate models (GCMs) were used to drive a global variable resolution model on a quasi-uniform 60 km grid. One of these simulations was used to drive three limited area regional models. Thus a four member ensemble was produced by different RCMs downscaling the same GCM (GFDL2.1), and a six member ensemble was produced by the same RCM (Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model-CCAM) downscaling six different GCMs. Comparison of the model results with precipitation observations shows the differences to be dominated by the choice of RCM, with all the CCAM simulations performing similarly and generally having lower error than the other RCMs. However, evaluating aspects of the model representation of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) does not show CCAM to perform better in this regard. In terms of the future projections of the SPCZ for the December-January-February season, the ensemble showed no consensus change in most characteristics though a majority of the ensemble members project a decrease in the SPCZ strength. Thus, similar to GCM based studies, there is large uncertainty concerning future changes in the SPCZ and there is no evidence to suggest that future changes will be outside the natural variability. These RCM simulations do not support an increase in the frequency of zonal SPCZ events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the twentieth century, global mean surface temperature has not risen as rapidly as predicted by global climate models (GCMs). This discrepancy has become known as the global warming 'hiatus' and a variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed slowdown in warming. Focusing on internally generated variability, we use pre-industrial control simulations from an observationally constrained ensemble of GCMs and a statistical approach to evaluate the expected frequency and characteristics of variability-driven hiatus periods and their likelihood of future continuation. Given an expected forced warming trend of ∼0.2 K per decade, our constrained ensemble of GCMs implies that the probability of a variability-driven 10-year hiatus is ∼10%, but less than 1% for a 20-year hiatus. Although the absolute probability of a 20-year hiatus is small, the probability that an existing 15-year hiatus will continue another five years is much higher (up to 25%). Therefore, given the recognized contribution of internal climate variability to the reduced rate of global warming during the past 15 years, we should not be surprised if the current hiatus continues until the end of the decade. Following the termination of a variability-driven hiatus, we also show that there is an increased likelihood of accelerated global warming associated with release of heat from the sub-surface ocean and a reversal of the phase of decadal variability in the Pacific Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The equatorial response to subtropical Pacific forcing was studied in a coupled climate model. The forcings in the western, central and eastern subtropical Pacific all caused a significant response in the equatorial thermocline, with comparable magnitudes. This work highlights the key role of air-sea coupling in the subtropical impact on the equatorial thermocline, instead of only the role of the 'oceanic tunnel'. The suggested mechanism is that the cyclonic (anticyclonic) circulation in the atmosphere caused by the subtropical surface warming (cooling) can generate an anomalous upwelling (downwelling) in the interior region. At the same time, an anomalous downwelling (upwelling) occurs at the equatorward flank of the forcing, which produces anomalous thermocline warming (cooling), propagating equatorward and resulting in warming (cooling) in the equatorial thermocline. This is an indirect process that is much faster than the 'oceanic tunnel' mechanism in the subtropical impact on the equator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eastern- and central-Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation (EP- and CP-ENSO) have been found to be dominant in the tropical Pacific Ocean, and are characterized by interannual and decadal oscillation, respectively. In the present study, we defined the EP- and CP-ENSO modes by singular value decomposition (SVD) between SST and sea level pressure (SLP) anomalous fields. We evaluated the natural features of these two types of ENSO modes as simulated by the pre-industrial control runs of 20 models involved in phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The results suggested that all the models show good skill in simulating the SST and SLP anomaly dipolar structures for the EP-ENSO mode, but only 12 exhibit good performance in simulating the tripolar CP-ENSO modes. Wavelet analysis suggested that the ensemble principal components in these 12 models exhibit an interannual and multi-decadal oscillation related to the EP- and CP-ENSO, respectively. Since there are no changes in external forcing in the pre-industrial control runs, such a result implies that the decadal oscillation of CP-ENSO is possibly a result of natural climate variability rather than external forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimental outputs of 11 Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are analyzed to assess the atmospheric circulation anomaly over Northern Hemisphere induced by the anomalous rainfall over tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean during boreal winter. The analysis shows that the main features of the interannual variation of tropical rainfall anomalies, especially over the Central Pacific (CP) (5°S-5°N, 175°E-135°W) and Indo-western Pacific (IWP) (20°S-20°N, 110°-150°E) are well captured in all the CMIP5/AMIP models. For the IWP and western Indian Ocean (WIO) (10°S-10°N, 45°-75°E), the anomalous rainfall is weaker in the 11 CMIP5/AMIP models than in the observation. During El Niño/La Niña mature phases in boreal winter, consistent with observations, there are geopotential height anomalies known as the Pacific North American (PNA) pattern and Indo-western Pacific and East Asia (IWPEA) pattern in the upper troposphere, and the northwestern Pacific anticyclone (cyclone) (NWPA) in the lower troposphere in the models. Comparison between the models and observations shows that the ability to simulate the PNA and NWPA pattern depends on the ability to simulate the anomalous rainfall over the CP, while the ability to simulate the IWPEA pattern is related to the ability to simulate the rainfall anomaly in the IWP and WIO, as the SST anomaly is same in AMIP experiments. It is found that the tropical rainfall anomaly is important in modeling the impact of the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean on the extratropical atmospheric circulation anomaly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oceanic vertical mixing is known to influence the state of the equatorial ocean which affects the climate system, including the amplitude of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Recent measurements of ocean currents at high vertical resolution capture numerous small vertical scale structures (SVSs) within and above the equatorial thermocline that contribute significantly to vertical mixing but which are not sufficiently resolved by coarse resolution ocean models. We investigate the impact of the vertical mixing induced by the SVSs on the mean state and interannual variability in the tropical Pacific by using a coupled general circulation model. The vertical mixing induced by the SVSs is represented as an elevated vertical diffusivity from the surface down to the 20 °C isotherm depth, a proxy for the depth of the thermocline. We investigate different forms for the elevated mixing. It is found that the SVS-induced mixing strongly affect the mean state of the ocean leading to a warming of sea surface temperature (SST) and associated deepening and sharpening of the thermocline in the eastern equatorial Pacific. We find that the SST warming induced by the elevated mixing is further strengthened through the Bjerknes feedback and SST-shortwave flux feedback. We also find a reduction in the number of large amplitude ENSO events and in certain cases an increase in the skewness of ENSO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lag correlations of sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs), sea surface height anomalies (SSHAs), subsurface temperature anomalies, and surface zonal wind anomalies (SZWAs) produced by the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model: Grid-point Version 2 (FGOALS-g2) are analyzed and compared with observations. The insignificant, albeit positive, lag correlations between the SSTAs in the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean (STIO) in fall and the SSTAs in the central-eastern Pacific cold tongue in the following summer through fall are found to be not in agreement with the observational analysis. The model, however, does reproduce the significant lag correlations between the SSHAs in the STIO in fall and those in the cold tongue at the one-year time lag in the observations. These, along with the significant lag correlations between the SSTAs in the STIO in fall and the subsurface temperature anomalies in the equatorial Pacific vertical section in the following year, suggest that the Indonesian Throughflow plays an important role in propagating the Indian Ocean anomalies into the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Analyses of the interannual anomalies of the Indonesian Throughflow transport suggest that the FGOALS-g2 climate system simulates, but underestimates, the oceanic channel dynamics between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. FGOALS-g2 is shown to produce lag correlations between the SZWAs over the western equatorial Pacific in fall and the cold tongue SSTAs at the one-year time lag that are too strong to be realistic in comparison with observations. The analyses suggest that the atmospheric bridge over the Indo-Pacific Ocean is overestimated in the FGOALS-g2 coupled climate model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future physical and chemical changes to the ocean are likely to significantly affect the distribution and productivity of many marine species. Tuna are of particular importance in the tropical Pacific, as they contribute significantly to the livelihoods, food and economic security of island states. Changes in water properties and circulation will impact on tuna larval dispersal, preferred habitat distributions and the trophic systems that support tuna populations throughout the region. Using recent observations and ocean projections from the CMIP3 and preliminary results from CMIP5 climate models, we document the projected changes to ocean temperature, salinity, stratification and circulation most relevant to distributions of tuna. Under a business-as-usual emission scenario, projections indicate a surface intensified warming in the upper 400 m and a large expansion of the western Pacific Warm Pool, with most surface waters of the central and western equatorial Pacific reaching temperatures warmer than 29 °C by 2100. These changes are likely to alter the preferred habitat of tuna, based on present-day thermal tolerances, and in turn the distribution of spawning and foraging grounds. Large-scale shoaling of the mixed layer and increases in stratification are expected to impact nutrient provision to the biologically active layer, with flow-on trophic effects on the micronekton. Several oceanic currents are projected to change, including a strengthened upper equatorial undercurrent, which could modify the supply of bioavailable iron to the eastern Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical and empirical studies have suggested that an underestimate of the ENSO asymmetry may be accompanied by a climatologically smaller and warmer western Pacific warm pool. In light of this suggestion, simulations of the tropical Pacific climate by 19 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) climate models that do not use flux adjustment were evaluated. Our evaluation revealed systematic biases in both the mean state and ENSO statistics. The mean state in most of the models had a smaller and warmer warm pool. This common bias in the mean state was accompanied by a common bias in the simulated ENSO statistics: a significantly weak asymmetry between the two phases of ENSO. Moreover, despite the generally weak ENSO asymmetry simulated by all models, a positive correlation between the magnitude of the bias in the simulated warm-pool size and the magnitude of the bias in the simulated ENSO asymmetry was found. These findings support the suggested link between ENSO asymmetry and the tropical mean state-the climatological size and temperature of the warm pool in particular. Together with previous studies, these findings light up a path to improve the simulation of the tropical Pacific mean state by climate models: enhancing the asymmetry of ENSO in the climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussed are the results of studying an evolution of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Pacific Ocean using the data of computation of ETA and WRF NMM mesoscale numerical atmospheric models. Computed are the trajectories of TCs and the fields of meteorological variables in the typhoons, of the wind speed and kinetic energy in the subtropical jet stream during the development of Parma, Melor, and Lupit typhoons. Carried out are the analysis and comparison of computed fields of pressure, wind, kinetic energy, and trajectories of TCs obtained using these models and their comparison with the actual fields. It is demonstrated that both models computed rather well the complex trajectories and the fields of wind and kinetic energy varying in the course of the interaction. Proposed is an explanation of processes taking place during the interaction between the vortices and the subtropical jet stream and the polar front. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 40 years integration output of two atmospheric general circulation models (GAMIL/IAP and HadAM3/UKMO) forced with identical prescribed seasonally-varying sea surface temperature, this study examines the effect of the observed Indian-western Pacific Ocean (IWP) warming on the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks. Both models indicate that the observed IWP warming tends to cause both the North Pacific storm track (NPST) and the North Atlantic storm track (NAST) to move northward. Such a consistent effect on the two storm tracks is closely associated with the changes in the low-level atmospheric baroclinicity, high-level jet stream and upper-level geopotential height. The IWP warming can excite a wavelike circum-global teleconnection in the geopotential height that gives rise to an anticyclonic anomaly over the midlatitude North Pacific and a positive-phase NAO anomaly over the North Atlantic. These geopotential height anomalies tend to enhance upper-level zonal westerly winds north of the climatological jet axes and increase low-level baroclinicity and eddy growth rates, thus favoring transient eddy more active north of the climatological storm track axes, responsible for the northward shift of the both storm tracks. The IWP warming-induced northward shift of the NAST is quite similar to the observed, suggesting that the IWP warming can be one of the key factors to cause decadal northward shift of the NAST since the 1980s. However, the IWP warming-induced northward shift of the NPST is completely opposite to the observed, implying that the observed southward shift of the NPST since the 1980s would be primarily attributed to other reasons, although the IWP warming can have a cancelling effect against those reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study defines the concepts of wind onset and wind withdrawal to describe the abrupt seasonal variations of wind direction and circulation of the Asian monsoon. The patterns of wind onset and withdrawal show that the earliest wind onset in the tropical monsoon regions is found over equator around 70°–100°E and the southernmost South China Sea (SCS) and western Kalimantan, and the wind withdrawal shows a southward progression in tropics compared to the wind onset. A notable temporal boundary is found around 25°N in the subtropical western North Pacific (WNP), which may be related to the northward advance and southward retreat of the western Pacific subtropical high. The angle amplitudes of wind vectors in wind onset and withdrawal have distinct regional differences in Asian monsoon regions. Since the process of monsoon onset (withdrawal) may include several onsets of different variables without simultaneity, the relationships of the wind onset and withdrawal with the abrupt change of other variables (e.g. reversal of zonal wind, reversal of meridional wind, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), precipitation) are investigated. The results indicate that the temporal discrepancies in different monsoon regions confirmed the asynchronous onsets. It also implies that the wind onset might be a good omen for monsoon precipitation in most regions since it is slightly earlier than rainy season onset. Seven Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) models from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) are validated against observations mentioned above. Generally, the simulations of the multi-model ensemble mean are better than any individual model results. And the simulations of wind withdrawal are better than those of wind onset. For wind onset, IAP-FGOALS-1.0g, MIROC3.2 (medres) and MPI-ECHAM5 simulate reasonably well. For wind retreat, most models can capture the behaviors in tropics. However, there are still some discrepancies in a few models to simulate the dates of sudden change of monsoon wind direction. Moreover, most of models cannot reproduce the onset and withdrawal of both rainfall and OLR. The relationship between these discrepancies and the shortcomings of precipitation simulation is crucial for further investigating in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]