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Special Session 5: Ocean-atmosphere interaction, multi-scale climate variability and their implication for biogeochemical processes |
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Tropical Atlantic SST decadal variability: the role of tropical Pacific versus Subpolar Atlantic
Tuesday 10th @ 1425-1445
Room 1
Mingfang Ting* , Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Presenter Email: ting@ldeo.columbia.edu
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| The Atlantic Multidecadal Variability, or AMV, is one of the most prominent climate modes with a multidecadal time scale. While it is not clear what mechanisms give rise to the multidecadal time scale of AMV, whether it is anthropogenically forced or caused by unforced climate variability, it is clear that the tropical component of the AMV is the one that directly influences the atmospheric circulation and the related climate anomalies. This study explores the inter-relation between tropical Atlantic SST, the tropical Pacific SST, and the subpolar Atlantic SST on decadal time scales to assess the model’s ability to accurately represent these relationships and the related climate impacts. We found that some CMIP5 models tend to have a stronger link between the tropical Atlantic and the tropical Pacific SST than observations, leading to climate impact that is dominated by the Pacific SST in these models. When the tropical Pacific influence on Atlantic SST is removed, the models and observations tend to agree better in terms of their atmospheric circulation-AMV linkages and the associated climate impacts. We also explore the mechanisms of the decadal tropical Atlantic SST generation using lag-lead multiple regressions. |
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