Modes Of Natural Climate Variability Research Articles

Extreme summer temperature anomalies over Greenland largely result from clear-sky radiation and circulation anomalies

The polar regions have been undergoing amplified warming in recent years. In particular, Greenland has experienced anomalously warm summers with intense melt rates. We employ a surface radiation budget framework to examine the causes for positive and negative summer temperature anomaly events over Greenland from 1979 to 2021. We found a dominant contribution of the clear-sky downwelling longwave radiation and the surface albedo feedback to temperature anomalies. Atmospheric temperature perturbations dominate the effect of anomalous emissivity on clear-sky downwelling longwave radiation. In warm years, enhanced turbulent heat exchange due to increased surface temperature and diabatic warming in the troposphere induces adiabatic heating of the atmosphere, enhanced moisture advection, and a high-pressure anomaly with a blocking-like anti-cyclonic circulation anomaly following peak temperature days. Different modes of natural climate variability, in particular, related to blocking over Greenland, can further amplify or dampen the ongoing warming trend, causing extreme temperature events.

Changing effects of external forcing on Atlantic–Pacific interactions

Abstract. Recent studies have highlighted the increasingly dominant role of external forcing in driving Atlantic and Pacific Ocean variability during the second half of the 20th century. This paper provides insights into the underlying mechanisms driving interactions between modes of variability over the two basins. We define a set of possible drivers of these interactions and apply causal discovery to reanalysis data, two ensembles of pacemaker simulations where sea surface temperatures in either the tropical Pacific or the North Atlantic are nudged to observations, and a pre-industrial control run. We also utilize large-ensemble means of historical simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) to quantify the effect of external forcing and improve the understanding of its impact. A causal analysis of the historical time series between 1950 and 2014 identifies a regime switch in the interactions between major modes of Atlantic and Pacific climate variability in both reanalysis and pacemaker simulations. A sliding window causal analysis reveals a decaying El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effect on the Atlantic as the North Atlantic fluctuates towards an anomalously warm state. The causal networks also demonstrate that external forcing contributed to strengthening the Atlantic's negative-sign effect on ENSO since the mid-1980s, where warming tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures induce a La Niña-like cooling in the equatorial Pacific during the following season through an intensification of the Pacific Walker circulation. The strengthening of this effect is not detected when the historical external forcing signal is removed in the Pacific pacemaker ensemble. The analysis of the pre-industrial control run supports the notion that the Atlantic and Pacific modes of natural climate variability exert contrasting impacts on each other even in the absence of anthropogenic forcing. The interactions are shown to be modulated by the (multi)decadal states of temperature anomalies of both basins with stronger connections when these states are “out of phase”. We show that causal discovery can detect previously documented connections and provides important potential for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms driving changes in regional and global climate variability.

Early warning signal for a tipping point suggested by a millennial Atlantic Multidecadal Variability reconstruction

Atlantic multidecadal variability is a coherent mode of natural climate variability occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean, with strong impacts on human societies and ecosystems worldwide. However, its periodicity and drivers are widely debated due to the short temporal extent of instrumental observations and competing effects of both internal and external climate factors acting on North Atlantic surface temperature variability. Here, we use a paleoclimate database and an advanced statistical framework to generate, evaluate, and compare 312 reconstructions of the Atlantic multidecadal variability over the past millennium, based on different indices and regression methods. From this process, the best reconstruction is obtained with the random forest method, and its robustness is checked using climate model outputs and independent oceanic paleoclimate data. This reconstruction shows that memory in variations of Atlantic multidecadal variability have strongly increased recently—a potential early warning signal for the approach of a North Atlantic tipping point.

Relationship of the brightness temperature anomalies of the lower troposphere with the climate indices on the Southern Urals

This paper presents an analysis of the average monthly temperature of the lower troposphere (TLT) according to satellite sensing data for the period 1979–2017 in the Southern Urals. In order to study the space-time structure of TLT, the method of decomposition of the temperature series into empirical orthogonal components (EOC) was used. A correlation analysis of the link between the identified EOC for winter and summer seasons and indices of large-scale modes of natural climate variability in the Northern hemisphere was carried out. The first leading EOC, which describes a negative temperature trend, makes the major contribution to the overall variability. For winter, the leading mode is associated with the North Atlantic oscillation. For summer, a significant contribution of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation and the index of the Arctic sea ice concentration anomalies is revealed, which can be used to improve the reliability of the future scenarios of the regional climate change. The results suggest a significant impact of natural climatic variability on the temperature regime and a possible difficulty in identifying the anthropogenic component of climate change in the studied region.

Influence of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) on Convectively Coupled Kelvin and Mixed Rossby-Gravity Waves

Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is a mode of natural climate variability that arises from a zonal-dipole structure in interannual variations of the tropical Indian Ocean. Understanding the influence of IOD on atmospheric circulation is important in order to improve weather forecasts and climate predictions in the Tropics and the extratropics on time scales beyond a few days. This study investigates the role of IOD on convectively coupled equatorial wave (CCEW) activity, including Kelvin and MRG waves and examines the potential links between them. The results show that positive IOD event leads to enhance Kelvin wave and MRG wave activities over the eastern Africa and southern Indian Ocean. On the other hand, it suppresses Kelvin and MRG wave activities over the eastern Indian Ocean and the Maritime continent. It is also shown that IOD’s influence on Kelvin and MRG waves activity is non-dependent to ENSO activity. These results highlight the importance of IOD in generating Kelvin and MRG waves in the tropics.

North American megadroughts in the Common Era: reconstructions and simulations

During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), Western North America experienced episodes of intense aridity that persisted for multiple decades or longer. These megadroughts are well documented in many proxy records, but the causal mechanisms are poorly understood. General circulation models (GCMs) simulate megadroughts, but do not reproduce the temporal clustering of events during the MCA, suggesting they are not caused by the time history of volcanic or solar forcing. Instead, GCMs generate megadroughts through (1) internal atmospheric variability, (2) sea‐surface temperatures, and (3) land surface and dust aerosol feedbacks. While no hypothesis has been definitively rejected, and no GCM has accurately reproduced all features (e.g., timing, duration, and extent) of any specific megadrought, their persistence suggests a role for processes that impart memory to the climate system (land surface and ocean dynamics). Over the 21st century, GCMs project an increase in the risk of megadrought occurrence through greenhouse gas forced reductions in precipitation and increases in evaporative demand. This drying is robust across models and multiple drought indicators, but major uncertainties still need to be resolved. These include the potential moderation of vegetation evaporative losses at higher atmospheric [CO2], variations in land surface model complexity, and decadal to multidecadal modes of natural climate variability that could delay or advance onset of aridification over the the next several decades. Because future droughts will arise from both natural variability and greenhouse gas forced trends in hydroclimate, improving our understanding of the natural drivers of persistent multidecadal megadroughts should be a major research priority. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:411–432. doi: 10.1002/wcc.394This article is categorized under: Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Paleoclimate Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models

Frequency of marine heatwaves in the North Atlantic and North Pacific since 1950

AbstractExtreme and large‐scale warming events in the ocean have been dubbed marine heatwaves, and these have been documented in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This paper examines the intensity, duration, and frequency of positive sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans over the period 1950–2014 using an objective definition for marine heatwaves based on their probability of occurrence. Small‐area anomalies occur more frequently than large‐area anomalies, and this relationship can be characterized by a power law distribution. The relative frequency of large‐ versus small‐area anomalies, represented by the power law slope parameter, is modulated by basin‐scale modes of natural climate variability and anthropogenic warming. Findings suggest that the probability of marine heatwaves is a trade‐off between size, intensity, and duration and that region specific variability modulates the frequency of these events.

Global trend analysis of the MODIS drought severity index

Abstract. Recently, Mu et al. (2013) compiled an open access database of a remotely sensed global drought severity index (DSI) based on MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite measurements covering a continuous period of 12 years. The highest spatial resolution is 0.05° × 0.05° in the geographic band between 60° S and 80° N latitudes (more than 4.9 million locations over land). Here we present a global trend analysis of these satellite-based DSI time series in order to identify geographic locations where either positive or negative trends are statistically significant. Our main result is that 17.34 % of land areas exhibit significant trends of drying or wetting, and these sites constitute geographically connected regions. Since a DSI value conveys local characterization at a given site, we argue that usual field significance tests cannot provide more information about the observations than the presented analysis. The relatively short period of 12 years hinders linking the trends to global climate change; however, we think that the observations might be related to slow (decadal) modes of natural climate variability or anthropogenic impacts.

North Atlantic Oscillation influences on Turkish lake levels

AbstractThe North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a large‐scale mode of natural climate variability governing the path of Atlantic mid‐latitude storm tracks and precipitation regimes in the Atlantic and Mediterranean sectors. The primary focus of this study is to investigate the variability of lake levels in seven lakes scattered across Turkey using the method of continuous wavelet transforms and global spectra. The long winter (December, January, February and March) lake‐level series and the NAO index (NAOI) series were subjected to wavelet transform. The global wavelet spectrum (energy spectrum of periodicities) of lake levels and winter NAOI anomalies, in most cases, revealed a significant correlation. It was shown that the Tuz, Sapanca, and Uluabat lakes reflect much stronger influences of the NAO than the other four lakes. In contrast, weak correlations were found in the coastal areas of the Mediterranean and eastern Turkey. The periodic structures of Turkish lake levels in relation to the NAO revealed a spectrum between the 1‐year and 10‐year scale level. Although the periodicities of more than 10‐year scale levels were detected, explaining significant relations between the NAO and these long‐term periodicities remains a challenging task. The results of this study are consistent with the earlier studies concerning the teleconnection between the NAO and climate variables in Turkey. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The influence of Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillation on precipitation regime in Serbia

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the most significant large-scale mode of natural climate variability on the Northern Hhemisphere and Arctic Oscillation (AO) is its supplement. Both have large impacts on weather and climate in the North Atlantic region and surrounding continents including Europe. NAO and AO phases cause specific already defined changes in distribution of climate elements in wide area. The cross-correlation between daily precipitation data on stations in Serbia and NAO daily index plus AO daily index for the period 1951-2003 is analysed in this paper. Number of cross correlation coefficients have been calculated and the highest values were obtained for daily precipitation in Serbia with the AO index in winter, ranging from -0.44 to – 0.38. The analyses of trend for two periods 1961-2006 and 1980-2006 for the whole year and during winter months only, at 21 stations in Serbia have been performed, too. Very high positive trend for precipitation was obtained for many places in Serbia especially in Vojvodina. The results also indicate to non-homogeneities in the region and influence of NAO during winter.

North Atlantic influence on Tigris-Euphrates streamflow

Changes in streamflow of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers are shown to be associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a large-scale mode of natural climate variability which governs the path of Atlantic mid-latitude storm tracks and precipitation in the eastern Mediterranean. Composite indices of Turkish winter (December–March, DJFM) temperature and precipitation are developed which capture the interannual–decadal climate variability for the Tigris–Euphrates headwater region, a significant source of freshwater for Turkey, Syria and Iraq. These indices are significantly correlated with the NAO, with 27% of the variance in precipitation accounted for by this natural mechanism. As evidenced by the recent widespread drought events of 1984, 1989 and 1990, the Tigris–Euphrates streamflow also exhibits significant, ∼±40% variability, associated with extrema. Copyright © 2000 Royal Meteorological Society

Signature of recent climate change in frequencies of natural atmospheric circulation regimes

A crucial question in the global-warming debate concerns the extent to which recent climate change is caused by anthropogenic forcing or is a manifestation of natural climate variability1. It is commonly thought that the climate response to anthropogenic forcing should be distinct from the patterns of natural climate variability. But, on the basis of studies of nonlinear chaotic models with preferred states or ‘regimes’, it has been argued2,3 that the spatial patterns of the response to anthropogenic forcing may in fact project principally onto modes of natural climate variability. Here we use atmospheric circulation data from the Northern Hemisphere to show that recent climate change can be interpreted in terms of changes in the frequency of occurrence of natural atmospheric circulation regimes. We conclude that recent Northern Hemisphere warming may be more directly related to the thermal structure of these circulation regimes than to any anthropogenic forcing pattern itself. Conversely, the fact that observed climate change projects onto natural patterns cannot be used as evidence of no anthropogenic effect on climate. These results may help explain possible differences between trends in surface temperature and satellite-based temperature in the free atmosphere4,5,6.