Publications

Projected tropical precipitation changes by the end of the century include increased net precipitation over the Pacific Ocean and drying over the Indian Ocean, prompting ongoing debate about the underlying mechanisms. Previous studies argued for the importance of the zonal circulation in the longitudinally dependent tropical precipitation response, as the meridional circulation is often defined and analyzed as the zonal mean. Here we show that the projected changes in the meridional circulation are highly longitudinally dependent, and explain the zonally dependent changes in net precipitation. Our analysis exposes a zonal shift in the ascending branch of the meridional circulation, associated with a strengthened net precipitation over the central Pacific and weakened precipitation in the Indo Pacific. The zonal circulation has minor influence on these projected tropical precipitation changes. These results point to the importance of monitoring the longitudinal changes in the meridional circulation for improving our preparedness for climate change impacts.

By accounting for most of the poleward atmospheric heat and moisture transport in the tropics, the Hadley circulation largely affects the latitudinal patterns of precipitation and temperature at low latitudes. To increase our preparednesses for human-induced climate change, it is thus critical to accurately assess the response of the Hadley circulation to anthropogenic emissions(1-3). However, at present, there is a large uncertainty in recent Northern Hemisphere Hadley circulation strength changes(4). Not only do climate models simulate a weakening of the circulation(5), whereas atmospheric reanalyses mostly show an intensification of the circulation(4-8), but atmospheric reanalyses were found to have artificial biases in the strength of the circulation(5), resulting in unknown impacts of human emissions on recent Hadley circulation changes. Here we constrain the recent changes in the Hadley circulation using sea-level pressure measurements and show that, in agreement with the latest suite of climate models, the circulation has considerably weakened over recent decades. We further show that the weakening of the circulation is attributable to anthropogenic emissions, which increases our confidence in human-induced tropical climate change projections. Given the large climate impacts of the circulation at low latitudes, the recent human-induced weakening of the flow suggests wider consequences for the regional tropical-subtropical climate.

The latitudinal position of mid-latitude storm tracks has large climate impacts affecting the distribution of precipitation, temperature, humidity, and winds over the extratropics. By the end of this century, climate models project a poleward shift of summer mid-latitude storm tracks in the Southern Hemisphere. Most previous mechanisms for the poleward shift of the storm tracks focused on the role of atmospheric temperature changes. However, the relative roles of other climate system components in the projected storm tracks’ shift have not been examined to date. Here it is shown that thermodynamic ocean coupling is responsible for the future poleward shift of the storm tracks as it overcomes the effect of dynamic ocean coupling to shift the storm tracks equatorward. These results stress the importance of using full-physics ocean models to investigate the future shift of the storm tracks, and of better monitoring ocean coupling processes to improve our preparedness for future climate changes.

By modulating the distribution of heat, precipitation and moisture, the Hadley cell holds large climate impacts at low and subtropical latitudes. Here we show that the interannual variability of the annual mean Hadley cell strength is ~ 30% less in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. Using a hierarchy of ocean coupling experiments, we find that the smaller variability in the Northern Hemisphere stems from dynamic ocean coupling, which has opposite effects on the variability of the Hadley cell in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres; it acts to increase the variability in the Southern Hemisphere, which is inversely linked to equatorial upwelling, and reduce the variability in the Northern Hemisphere, which shows a direct relation with the subtropical wind-driven overturning circulation. The important role of ocean coupling in modulating the tropical circulation suggests that further investigation should be carried out to better understand the climate impacts of ocean-atmosphere coupling at low latitudes.

The expansion of Antarctic sea ice since 1979 in the presence of increasing greenhouse gases remains one of the most puzzling features of current climate change. Some studies have proposed that the formation of the ozone hole, via the Southern Annular Mode, might explain that expansion, and a recent paper highlighted a robust causal link between summertime Southern Annular Mode (SAM) anomalies and sea ice anomalies in the subsequent autumn. Here we show that many models are able to capture this relationship between the SAM and sea ice, but also emphasize that the SAM only explains a small fraction of the year-to-year variability. Finally, examining multidecadal trends, in models and in observations, we confirm the findings of several previous studies and conclude that the SAM–and thus the ozone hole–are not the primary drivers of the sea ice expansion around Antarctica in recent decades.

The projected weakening of the Northern Hemisphere Hadley cell will have large climatic impacts at low latitudes. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this weakening. In order to isolate and assess their relative importance, we here use the abrupt 4 × CO₂ experiment of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, as this forcing separates the different mechanisms which respond on different time scales. We find that the Hadley circulation responds relatively quickly to quadrupling CO₂ concentrations, reaching its steady-state value after less than a decade. This fast response demonstrates that the weakening could not be solely due to the much slower increase in surface temperature. In addition, we show that the Hadley cell's weakening results from a combination of an increase in tropical static stability, partially offset by an increase in the latitudinal gradient of latent heating.

Atmospheric waves control the weather and climate variability, by affecting winds, temperature, and precipitation. It is thus critical to assess their future response to anthropogenic emissions. Most previous studies investigated the projected regional changes in the intensity of atmospheric waves, by pooling across waves with different scales. However, the waves' projected changes might vary with their scale, and thus, their future climate impacts might also be scale dependent. Here we show that both in the tropics and midlatitudes while large waves will get stronger, small waves will get weaker by the end of this century. Thus, investigating the response of atmospheric waves to human activity by pooling across all wave scales masks the future climate impacts of large waves. We further reveal that the opposite response of large and small waves stems from the opposite effect of static stability and zonal wind on the growth rate of the different waves.

In spite of the unabated emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, sea‐ice around Antarctica has increased over most of the satellite era. Such an increase is not captured by climate models, which simulate a melting over the same period. Over the last few years, moreover, the observed sea‐ice trends have drastically changed, and this might act to cancel the models‐observations discrepancy. Here we show that in spite of the very recent Antarctic sea‐ice trend changes, such discrepancy still exists. Analyzing multiple large ensembles of model simulations, we elucidate the origin of the models‐observations discrepancy. We show that internal variability cannot account for the discrepancy, which therefore is likely to stem from biases in the models' forced response to the external forcing. These biases, we show, reside in thermodynamic ocean‐atmosphere coupling, as models fail to simulate the trends in surface heat fluxes from reanalyses over the period 1979‐2019.

Eddy heat fluxes play the important role of transferring heat from low to high latitudes, thus affecting midlatitude climate. The recent and projected polar warming, and its effects on the meridional temperature gradients, suggests a possible weakening of eddy heat fluxes. We here examine this question in reanalyses and state-of-the-art global climate models. In the Northern Hemisphere we find that the eddy heat flux has robustly weakened over the last four decades. We further show that this weakening emerged from the internal variability around the year 2000, and we attribute it to increasing greenhouse gases. In contrast, in the Southern Hemisphere we find that the eddy heat flux has robustly strengthened, and we link this strengthening to the recent multi-decadal cooling of Southern-Ocean surface temperatures. The inability of state-of-the-art climate models to simulate such cooling prevents them from capturing the observed Southern Hemisphere strengthening of the eddy heat flux. This discrepancy between models and reanalyses provides a clear example of how model biases in polar regions can affect the midlatitude climate.

Future emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are projected to result in significant circulation changes. One of the most important changes is the widening of the tropical belt, which has great societal impacts. Several mechanisms (changes in surface temperature, eddy phase speed, tropopause height, and static stability) have been proposed to explain this widening. However, the coupling between these mechanisms has precluded elucidating their relative importance. Here, the abrupt quadrupled-CO2 simulations of phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are used to examine the proposed mechanisms. The different time responses of the different mechanisms allow us to disentangle and evaluate them. As suggested by earlier studies, the Hadley cell edge is found to be linked to changes in subtropical baroclinicity. In particular, its poleward shift is accompanied by an increase in subtropical static stability (i.e., a decrease in temperature lapse rate) with increased CO2 concentrations. These subtropical changes also affect the eddy momentum flux, which shifts poleward together with the Hadley cell edge. Transient changes in tropopause height, eddy phase speed, and surface temperature, however, were found not to accompany the poleward shift of the Hadley cell edge. The widening of the Hadley cell, together with the increase in moisture content, accounts for most of the expansion of the dry zone. Eddy moisture fluxes, on the other hand, are found to play a minor role in the expansion of the dry zone.

One of the most robust responses of the climate system to future greenhouse gas emissions is the melting of Arctic sea ice. It is thus essential to elucidate its impacts on other components of the climate system. Here we focus on the response of the annual mean Hadley cell (HC) to Arctic sea ice loss using a hierarchy of model configurations: atmosphere only, atmosphere coupled to a slab ocean, and atmosphere coupled to a full-physics ocean. In response to Arctic sea ice loss, as projected by the end of the 21st century, the HC shows negligible changes in the absence of ocean-atmosphere coupling. In contrast, by warming the Northern Hemisphere thermodynamic coupling weakens the HC and expands it northward. However, dynamic coupling acts to cool the Northern Hemisphere which cancels most of this weakening and narrows the HC, thus opposing its projected expansion in response to increasing greenhouse gases.Plain Language Summary The climate's response to anthropogenic emissions comprises different feedbacks of the different components in the climate system. One of the robust responses to increased greenhouse gases is the melting of Arctic sea ice, which is found to have large effects on the hydrological circulation in the atmosphere. Here we examine the effect of Arctic sea ice loss on the tropical circulation. We find that under Arctic sea ice loss ocean heat transport acts to transfer the Arctic signal to the tropics and to contract the tropical circulation. This contraction opposes the projected widening of the tropical circulation and thus shows that Arctic sea ice loss acts as a negative internal feedback in the response of the tropical circulation to increased greenhouse gases.

The large uncertainty in estimating the global aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) is one of the major challenges the climate community faces for climate projection. While the global-mean ARF may affect global quantities such as surface temperature, its spatial distribution may result in local thermodynamical and, thus, dynamical changes. Future changes in aerosol emissions distribution could further modulate the atmospheric circulation. Here, the effects of the spatial distribution of the direct anthropogenic ARF are studied using an idealized global circulation model, forced by a range of estimated-ARF amplitudes, based on the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service data. The spatial distribution of the estimated-ARF is globally decomposed, and the effects of the different modes on the circulation are studied. The most dominant spatial distribution feature is the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere in comparison to the Southern Hemisphere. This induces a negative meridional temperature gradient around the equator, which modulates the mean fields in the tropics. The ITCZ weakens and shifts southward, and the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere Hadley cell strengthens (weakens). The localization of the ARF in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes shifts the subtropical jet poleward and strengthens both the eddy-driven jet and Ferrel cell, because of the weakening of high-latitude eddy fluxes. Finally, the larger aerosol concentration in Asia compared to North America results in an equatorial superrotating jet. Understanding the effects of the different modes on the general circulation may help elucidate the circulation's future response to the projected changes in ARF distribution.

The projected changes in temperature due to global warming will have a profound effect on the behaviour of midlatitude eddies. Using an idealized moist global circulation model, the atmospheric barotropic energy balance is studied over a wide range of climates. The barotropic energy cycle is found to shift poleward as the long-wave optical thickness increases in concert with the poleward shift of the static stability, driven by the poleward shift of the upper-level baroclinicity. The baroclinic-barotropic conversion (barotropization) shows a non-monotonic behaviour at midlatitudes as the climate becomes warmer, and reaches a maximum value around present-day climate with lower values for colder and warmer climates. This is found to be associated with the non-monotonic behaviour of the stratification. Similar to the barotropization, the strength of the inverse energy cascade also shows a non-monotonic behaviour as the climate becomes warmer. However, the inverse energy cascade does not shift poleward, but rather corresponds to the uniform latitudinal distribution of the quasi-geostrophic supercriticality through all climates. The eddy-mean flow interactions increase and transfer kinetic energy from the eddies to the mean flow at low and high latitudes, and from the mean flow to the eddies at midlatitudes, as the climate becomes warmer. This occurs mostly due to the decrease of the latitudinal extent of the mean flow at high latitudes, which increases and shifts equatorward the meridional shear of the barotropic mean zonal wind. The findings of this study imply that under global warming the eddy flow is dominated by eddy-mean flow interactions and has a more baroclinic nature.

Cloud-aerosol interactions are considered as one of the largest sources of uncertainties in the study of climate change. Here another possible cloud-aerosol effect on climate is proposed. A series of large eddy simulations (LES) with bin microphysics reveal a sensitivity of the total atmospheric water vapor amount to aerosol concentration. Under polluted conditions the rain is suppressed and the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases with time compared to clean precipitating conditions. Theoretical examination of this aerosol effect on water vapor transport from the subtropics to the tropics, and hence on the equatorial rain and Hadley circulation, is conducted using an idealized general circulation model (GCM). It is shown that a reduction in the subtropical rain amount results in increased water vapor advection to the tropics and enhanced equatorial rain and Hadley circulation. This joins previously proposed mechanisms on the radiative aerosol effect on the general circulation.

The effect of eddy-eddy interactions on zonal and meridional macroturbulent scales is investigated over a wide range of eddy scales, using high-resolution idealized GCM simulations with and without eddy-eddy interactions. The wide range of eddy scales is achieved through systematic variation of the planetary rotation rate and thus multiple-jet planets. It is found that not only are eddy-eddy interactions not essential for the formation of jets, but the existence of eddy-eddy interactions decreases the number of eddy-driven jets in the atmosphere. The eddy-eddy interactions have little effect on the jet scale, which in both types of simulations coincides with the Rhines scale through all latitudes. The decrease in the number of jets in the presence of eddy-eddy interactions occurs because of the narrowing of the latitudinal region where zonal jets appear. This narrowing occurs because eddy-eddy interactions are mostly important at latitudes poleward of where the Rhines scale is equal to the Rossby deformation radius. Thus, once eddy-eddy interactions are removed, the conversion from baroclinic to barotropic eddy kinetic energy increases, and eddy-mean flow interactions intrude into these latitudes and maintain additional jets there. The eddy-eddy interactions are found to increase the energy-containing zonal scale so it coincides with the jets' scale and thus make the flow more isotropic. While the conversion scale coincides with the most unstable scale, the Rossby deformation radius does not provide a good indication to these scales in both types of simulations.

Poleward migration of eddy-driven jets is found to occur in the extratropics when the subtropical and eddy-driven jets are clearly separated, as achieved by simulations at high-rotation rates. The poleward migration of these eddy-driven baroclinic jets over time is consistent with variation of eddy momentum flux convergence and baroclinicity across the width of the jet. We demonstrate this using a high-resolution idealized GCM where we systematically examine the eddy-driven jets over a wide range of rotation rates (up to 16 times the rotation rate of Earth). At the flanks of the jets, the poleward migration is caused by a poleward bias in baroclinicity across the width of the jet, estimated through measures such as Eady growth rate and supercriticality. The poleward biased baroclinicity is due to the meridional variation of the Coriolis parameter, which causes a poleward bias of the eddy momentum flux convergence. At the core of the jets, the poleward biased eddy momentum flux convergence relative to the mean jet deflects over time the baroclinicity and the jets poleward. As the rotation rate is increased, and more (narrower) jets emerge the migration rate becomes smaller due to less eddy momentum flux convergence over the narrower baroclinic zones. We find a linear relation between the migration rate of the jets and the net eddy momentum flux convergence across the jets. This poleward migration might be related to the slow poleward propagation of temporal anomalies of zonal winds observed in the upper troposphere.

In-situ aircraft measurements of aerosol chemical and cloud microphysical properties were conducted during the CalWater campaign in February and March 2011 over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the coastal waters of central California. The main objective was to elucidate the impacts of aerosol properties on clouds and precipitation forming processes. In order to accomplish this, we compared contrasting cases of clouds that ingested aerosols from different sources. The results showed that clouds containing pristine oceanic air had low cloud drop concentrations and started to develop rain 500 m above their base. This occurred both over the ocean and over the Sierra Nevada, mainly in the early morning when the radiatively cooled stable continental boundary layer was decoupled from the cloud base. Supercooled rain dominated the precipitation that formed in growing convective clouds in the pristine air, up to the -21 degrees C isotherm level.A contrasting situation was documented in the afternoon over the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, when the clouds ingested high pollution aerosol concentrations produced in the Central Valley. This led to slow growth of the cloud drop effective radius with height and suppressed and even prevented the initiation of warm rain while contributing to the development of ice hydrometeors in the form of graupel. Our results show that cloud condensation and ice nuclei were the limiting factors that controlled warm rain and ice processes, respectively, while the unpolluted clouds in the same air mass produced precipitation quite efficiently. These findings provide the motivation for deeper investigations into the nature of the aerosols seeding clouds. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.