Distinct Responses of North Pacific and North Atlantic Summertime Subtropical Anticyclones to Global Warming

Abstract

Abstract The subtropical North Pacific and North Atlantic are controlled by basin-scale anticyclones in boreal summer. Based on a novel metric regarding the strengths of the rotational and the divergent circulation of anticyclones, we investigated the possible future responses in the intensity of these two subtropical anticyclones to global warming. While the North Atlantic subtropical anticyclone (NASA) is projected to strengthen, the North Pacific subtropical anticyclone (NPSA) is projected to weaken, in terms of both the rotational and the divergent circulation. The distinct responses of the NPSA and NASA are corroborated by the models participating in the fifth and sixth phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), under both intermediate and high emission scenarios. We further investigated the possible mechanism for their distinct responses by decomposing the effect of greenhouse gas forcing into the direct effect of increased CO2 concentration and the indirect effect through sea surface temperature (SST). The intensified NASA results from the CO2 direct forcing while the weakened NPSA is dominated by the SST warming. The CO2 direct forcing enhances the NASA by increasing land–ocean thermal contrast anchored by the largest subtropical continental area, the Eurasian–African continent. Both the uniform SST warming and the change in SST pattern act to weaken the NPSA by increasing the latent heating over the subtropical North Pacific basin, as suggested by atmospheric component model simulations. The distinct responses of the NPSA and the NASA may lead to zonal asymmetry of the subtropical climate change.