Western Pacific Warm Pool Research Articles

The IPWP as a capacitor for autumn sea ice loss in Northeastern Canada

The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) has been warming due largely to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, but its impact on Arctic sea ice remains unclear. Our study finds a significant negative correlation between the IPWP index and sea ice concentration in northeastern Canada during boreal autumn (October-December). Our results suggest that IPWP warming statistically accounts for 45% of sea ice loss observed in this region. We introduce the “Arctic capacitor effect of the IPWP”, a novel concept that expounds upon the distant connection between greenhouse gas emissions and Arctic sea ice loss. Specifically, as greenhouse gases elevate temperatures in the IPWP, increasing temperature gradient and tropical convection, a planetary wavetrain is initiated. This wavetrain, along with transit eddy feedback, traverses towards the Arctic and thereby influences the strength of the Arctic vortex and its associated effects on Arctic sea ice. Our findings highlight the crucial role of tropical oceans in the broader context of global climate change, emphasizing the necessity of accounting for their impact on polar climate.

Seesaw between the westerlies and Asian monsoon regulates vegetation and climate during the last deglaciation in southern Northeast China

The history and drivers of hydroclimate changes during the last deglaciation in Northeast China remain contentious. We present a high-resolution record of vegetation and climate changes from Lake Buridun in southern Northeast China (SNEC), spanning the last ∼16 kyr. Multi-proxy reconstruction reveals a slight increase in precipitation prior to the end of Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) and forest development during the middle Bølling warming, indicating that hydrothermal conditions regulated regional vegetation. Significant fluctuations in all millennial-scale climatic events underscore the high sensitivity of SNEC to climate change. Our record aligns with high-resolution data from both SNEC and North China, showing a persistent wetting trend during the Bølling-Allerød period. This trend coincides with changes in East Asian summer monsoon intensity and Indo-Pacific warm pool heat content but contrasts with the Greenland temperature records. During the HS1 and Younger Dryas, records show a cold-dry mode in SNEC, contrasting with the cold-wet pattern in central-eastern China caused by the prolonged Meiyu season, which corresponds to the retreat of the monsoon precipitation belt and an enhanced westerly jet. Our data, along with more comprehensive records from broader regions, suggest that hydroclimate in SNEC was dominated by the low-latitude monsoon and the high-latitude westerlies during the warm and cold phases of the last deglaciation, exhibiting a seesaw-like interaction.

Tropical Intraseasonal Variability as a Leading Moisture Dynamic Mode of the Warm-Pool Background State

Abstract Tropical intraseasonal variability (ISV) is dominated by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), and its spatiotemporal characteristics vary with the Indo-Pacific warm-pool background on seasonal and longer timescales. Previous works have suggested ISV dynamics in various frameworks, whereas a unifying view remains challenging. Motivated by the recent advance in moisture mode theory, we revisit the ISV as a leading moisture mode modulated by varying background states derived from a reanalysis, using a moist linear baroclinic model (mLBM) improved with a simple convective scheme relating convective precipitation to tropospheric and boundary-layer moisture anomalies and simple cloud–radiative feedback representations. Under a boreal winter background state, this mLBM yielded a large-scale but local eastward-propagating mode with a phase speed of 3–5 m/s over the warm-pool region, resembling the MJO. Background lower-tropospheric winds and thermodynamic fields are important in determining the growth rate and periodicity of the leading mode, whose stability depends on cloud–radiative feedback and background state variations. We further demonstrate why the MJO is locally contained in the Indo-Pacific warm-pool region. The local thermal/moisture condition and Walker circulation greatly enhance its instability, but outside this region, this mode is heavily damped. Thus, the expansion/contraction of this warm-pool condition may enhance/reduce its instability and expand/reduce its domain of activity. Prescribing El Niño background causes eastward displacement of the wintertime ISV activity, reminiscent of the observed MJO modulations by El Niño. Under a summer background state, the eastward-propagating leading mode resembles the boreal summer ISV but biased, requiring further model improvements.

An intrinsic low-frequency atmospheric mode of the Indonesian-Australian summer monsoon

AbstractDeep convection in the Indo-Pacific warm pool is vital in driving global atmospheric overturning circulations. Year-to-year variations in the strength and location of warm pool precipitation can lead to significant local and downstream hydroclimatic impacts, including floods and droughts. While the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is recognized as a key factor in modulating interannual precipitation variations in this region, atmospheric internal variability is often as important. Here, through targeted atmospheric model experiments, we identify an intrinsic low-frequency atmospheric mode in the warm pool region during the austral summer, and show that its impact on seasonal rainfall is comparable to ENSO. This mode resembles the horizontal structure of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and may play a role in initiating ENSO as stochastic forcing. We show that this mode is not merely an episodic manifestation of MJO events but primarily arises from barotropic energy conversion aided by positive feedback between convection and circulation.

Disentangling seasonal and annual precipitation signals in the tropics over the Holocene: Insights from δD, alkanes and GDGTs

Rainfall seasonality in the tropics has a substantial impact on both ecosystems and human livelihoods. Yet, reconstructions of past rainfall variability have so far generally been unable to differentiate between annual and seasonal precipitation changes. Past variations in seasonality are therefore largely unknown. Here, we disentangle hydrogen isotopic (δD) signals from terrestrial leaf waxes and algae in an 8000-year peat core from Sumatra, which reflect annual versus wet season rainfall signals, respectively. We validate these results using lipid biomarkers by reconstructing vegetation dynamics via n-alkane distributions and peatland hydrological conditions using glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs), as well as biomass burning using levoglucosan concentrations in the core. Finally, we compare our proxy results to a transient climate model simulation (MPI-ESM1.2) to identify the mechanism for seasonality changes. We find that algal δD indicates stronger Indonesian-Australian Summer Monsoon (IASM) precipitation in the Mid-Holocene, between 8 and 4.2 cal ka BP. A period of alternating flooding, droughts and wildfires is reconstructed between 6 and 4.2 cal ka BP, implicating very strong monsoonal precipitation and drying out and burning during a longer and intensified dry season. We attribute this strong rainfall seasonality in the Mid-Holocene mainly to orbitally forced insolation seasonality and a strengthened IASM, consistent with the modeling results. In terms of annual rainfall, terrestrial plant δD, vegetation composition and GDGTs all indicate wetter conditions peaking between 3 and 4.5 cal ka BP, preceded by drier conditions, followed by drastic and rapid drying in the late Holocene from around 2.8 cal ka BP. Our multiproxy annual precipitation reconstruction thereby indicates the wettest overall conditions approximately 1500–2000 years later than a nearby speleothem δ18O record, which instead follows the seasonally biased algal δD in our record. We, therefore, hypothesize that speleothem reconstructions over the Holocene in parts of the tropics with low but significant seasonality may carry a stronger seasonal component than previously suggested. The data presented here contribute with new insights on how isotopic rainfall proxies in the tropics can be interpreted. Our findings resolve the seasonal versus annual components of Holocene rainfall variability in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool region, highlighting the importance of considering seasonality in rainfall reconstructions.

Drying trend in land and sea in East Asia during the warm season over the past four decades

Abstract The East Asian region is typically characterized by warm and humid conditions from late spring to summer. However, in recent decades, this region has experienced an increase in severe drying conditions, deviating from historical climatological patterns. This study investigated the precipitation-evaporation (P-E) trends across land and sea regions in East Asia (EA) during the extended summer season (April to September) from 1980 to 2022, and the key physical processes driving these trends through moisture budget decomposition and numerical experiments. The results reveal pronounced drying trends in southeastern China and the Yellow Sea and parts of the Korea Strait and Korean Peninsula over the past 43 years. The underlying physical processes driving these drying conditions differ between land and sea in EA. In southeastern China, the drying is driven by dynamic processes, particularly moisture divergence related to wind changes. This is linked to anomalous strengthening of descending motion due to the Indo-Pacific warm pool warming induced by both anthropogenic global warming and natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation-like sea surface temperature (SST) patterns. Conversely, drying in the Yellow Sea and adjacent areas is influenced by thermodynamic moisture advection. The altered humidity distribution due to global warming-induced SST patterns, which are higher over the Northwest Pacific marginal sea and lower in inland China, drives dry air transport from inland China to the Yellow Sea via background southwesterly wind. These findings enhance our understanding of the drying trend and their distinct processes in EA’s land and sea areas during the extended summer.

Future increase in extreme El Niño supported by past glacial changes

El Niño events, the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, amplify climate variability throughout the world1. Uncertain climate model predictions limit our ability to assess whether these climatic events could become more extreme under anthropogenic greenhouse warming2. Palaeoclimate records provide estimates of past changes, but it is unclear if they can constrain mechanisms underlying future predictions3–5. Here we uncover a mechanism using numerical simulations that drives consistent changes in response to past and future forcings, allowing model validation against palaeoclimate data. The simulated mechanism is consistent with the dynamics of observed extreme El Niño events, which develop when western Pacific warm pool waters expand rapidly eastwards because of strongly coupled ocean currents and winds6,7. These coupled interactions weaken under glacial conditions because of a deeper mixed layer driven by a stronger Walker circulation. The resulting decrease in ENSO variability and extreme El Niño occurrence is supported by a series of tropical Pacific palaeoceanographic records showing reduced glacial temperature variability within key ENSO-sensitive oceanic regions, including new data from the central equatorial Pacific. The model–data agreement on past variability, together with the consistent mechanism across climatic states, supports the prediction of a shallower mixed layer and weaker Walker circulation driving more frequent extreme El Niño genesis under greenhouse warming.

Multi-proxy reconstruction of climate changes from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age in Southeast China

Exploring climate fluctuations across geological eras provides crucial historical context for addressing contemporary global climate challenges. This research leverages multi-proxies records analytical techniques, including pollen and charcoal analysis, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and assessments of humification degree and loss on ignition (LOI), alongside paleoclimate simulations based on an alpine peat bog in Jiangxi Province, Southeast China. The study aims to provide a comprehensive review of vegetation evolution, climatic shifts, East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) intensity, and the potential drivers behind EASM behavior over the past two millennia. Our findings reveal a significant transition in precipitation and temperature patterns from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, 960–1420 CE) to the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1420–1850 CE). A distinct pattern emerges, highlighting particularly wet periods occurring between 960–1050 CE, 1190–1250 CE, and 1350–1400 CE, as well as significant droughts during 1430–1550 CE, 1590–1650 CE, 1680–1720 CE, and 1750–1800 CE. When compared to our temperature reconstruction series and precipitation data, a clear correlation emerges—wet phases align with warmer period characteristic of the MCA. Based on our simulation results, we suggest that ENSO oscillations and the Indo-Pacific warm pool played a substantial role in driving climate dynamics from the MCA to the LIA.

Vertical distribution of microplastics in the Western Pacific Warm Pool: In situ results comparison of different sampling method

Marine microplastics (MPs) are recognized as a growing severe environmental concern. The vertical distribution pattern of MPs in the ocean is still elusive. Meanwhile, different sampling methods have been deployed in previous studies, resulting in difficulties in compiling data. In this study, for the first time, we explored ocean interior MP pollution in the Western Pacific Warm Pool simultaneously using both a CTD (Conductivity-temperature-depth) sampler and a large-volume in-situ filtration system. At the same sampling station, the average abundance of microplastics in the water column obtained by the two sampling methods was 0.37 ± 0.44 n/m3 (in-situ filtration) and 115.12 ± 64.13 n/m3 (CTD), respectively, which showed significant differences. Both methods found that the main chemical composition and shape of MPs were PET and fiber. Ocean current was identified as the dominant factor that impacted the horizontal distribution of MPs in the study area. The abundance of MPs in the surface layer was 5.4–703.8 times higher than that of the water column. The similar physical and chemical properties of MPs in the surface water and water column indicated that MPs in the water column originate from the sustained release from the surface layer.

The vertical calcification mode of planktonic foraminifera in the Western Pacific Warm Pool

A thorough knowledge of the ecology of planktonic foraminifera throughout the water column is necessary for a reliable reconstruction of the paleooceanographic environment of the upper-middle water column. However, little is known about the planktonic foraminifera in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP), especially for the deep dwelling species. Here we present the stable oxygen isotope (δ18O) data of eight species collected from vertically stratified plankton tows across 0–500 m water depth from 5 sites in the WPWP during autumn, the vertical mode of foraminiferal calcification is explored. Vertical plankton tows provide more detailed information than other materials, it indicates a wider depth range of foraminiferal calcification than the other sample types. All the species exhibit a complex vertical calcification process that the majority of specimens precipitate their tests out of the depth at which they were obtained. It could be connected to the intricate hydrological conditions in the WPWP and/or the foraminiferal ontogenetic trajectory. Calcification depth range of the investigated species is substantially smaller than their living depth, and most of them prefer to calcify inside the abundant layers. Additionally, we found no clear correlation between foraminiferal test size and shell δ18O for any of the species that were studied at any of the locations.

Proposal and application of a convective wind gustiness parameterization based on convective available potential energy

Wind gustiness is an effective approach for addressing mesoscale enhancement in estimating air-sea interface fluxes. In this study, an improved convective gustiness parameterization scheme based on convective available potential energy (CAPE) is formulated utilizing reanalysis data and wind observations from moored buoys. This new parameterization was examined by implementing it in the air-sea flux transfer scheme within the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model (NCAR CESM) version 2.1.3 and contrasting it with a previously proposed scheme based on convective precipitation rate. The results indicate a significant reduction in negative biases of surface winds and latent heat fluxes over the tropical Indian Ocean and western Pacific during summer with the implementation of either gustiness scheme, resulting in an average increase in latent heat flux of approximately 9 W·m− 2. Specifically, the CAPE-based scheme shows a more favorable impact in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool region, whereas the precipitation-based scheme exhibits inferior performance in the western Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone. Further analysis reveals that the inclusion of the gustiness scheme distinctly alters surface evaporation and latent heat flux, influencing vertical motion in the area with active convective activity and effectively improving precipitation simulations by up to 18%. Moreover, the CAPE-based scheme reduces the bias in summer precipitation simulations by approximately 5% more than the precipitation-based scheme.

Responses of Lower-Stratospheric Water Vapor to Regional Sea Surface Temperature Changes

Abstract The variability of stratospheric water vapor (SWV) plays a crucial role in stratospheric chemistry and Earth’s energy budget, strongly influenced by sea surface temperature (SST). In this study, we systematically investigate the response of lower-SWV (LSWV) to regional sea surface temperature changes using idealized SST patch experiments within a climate model. The results indicate that LSWV is most sensitive to tropical sea surface temperature, with the strongest response occurring in late autumn and early winter. Warming of the tropical Indian Ocean and western Pacific (WP) leads to stratospheric drying, while warming of the tropical Atlantic (TA) and eastern Pacific results in stratospheric moistening. The drying impact on LSWV due to warming in the western Pacific Ocean exceeds the wet effect in the eastern Pacific Ocean by approximately 60%. The variations in tropical SST influence LSWV by modulating the temperature at the tropical tropopause layer, especially over the Indo-Pacific warm pool through Matsuno–Gill responses. Furthermore, the response of LSWV to tropical SST changes exhibits nonnegligible nonlinearity, which indicates the importance of nonlinearity in determining the LSWV response to global surface warming. Significance Statement In this study, we explore how changes in the temperature of the ocean’s surface can affect the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Understanding this relationship is important because water vapor in the stratosphere can influence both our climate and the chemistry of the atmosphere. Using a climate model, we found that water vapor in the lower stratosphere is especially responsive to temperature changes in tropical ocean regions. Specifically, when the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific get warmer, the stratosphere tends to get drier. On the other hand, warming in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific leads to more moisture in the stratosphere. The way these changes add up is complex and not simply a sum of individual parts, especially in tropical warm pool regions. Our findings have implications for how we understand and predict the impacts of climate change on stratospheric water vapor.

Long-term changes in the Western Pacific Warm Pool upper-water structure over the last 4 Ma

Earth's climate underwent secular structural evolution and cooling since the Pliocene Warmth, punctuated by increasing thermal gradients between the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) and the surrounding cooler regions of Eastern Pacific Cold Tongue and extra-tropics. One key mechanism for deciphering the climate evolution since Pliocene is the shoaling of the ocean thermocline, but much remains unknown about the upper-water structure of the western Pacific Warm Pool, the heat engine of the climate system, and its linkage to global ocean circulations. Here, by a newly made series of millennial-resolved δ18O and δ13C records of paired mixed-layer and thermocline dwelling planktonic foraminifera from IODP Site U1489 drilled in the center of WPWP, the trends of cooling and respired carbon content decreasing in the WPWP thermocline since ∼4 Ma are revisited and diagnosed. Our data allows us to propose that, the tropical Pacific upper-water circulation cell had shoaled and shrunk and the vertical mixing from deeper waters may have increased, since the Pliocene. Development towards a modern-style Warm Pool was initially onset at ∼3.1 and finalized at ∼0.7 Ma, respectively.

Unconventional cold vortex as precursor to historic early summer heatwaves in North China 2023

In mid-June to July 2023, North China witnessed extreme heatwaves, marked by intense near-surface warming with an advanced seasonal cycle of local air temperature. An unconventional upper-tropospheric cold vortex in early June, deviating from conventional “heat dome” patterns, preceded the heatwave extremes. The zonal SSTA gradient in Indo-Pacific warm pool initially suppressed Indian summer monsoon convection, which stimulated the cold vortex around North China via a tropical-extratropical teleconnection. This anomaly intensified the air-land thermal contrast, leading to increased sensible heating and reduced soil moisture in situ. The drier soil conditions maintained and further augmented sensible heating, escalating surface air temperature, and culminating in extraordinary heatwaves. The air column was then destabilized to mitigate the upper-level cold vortex. Historical records corroborate the extremity of the air-sea interactions in 2023. The ECMWF real-time subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) forecasts successfully capture the air-land feedback in both cold vortex and heatwave stages, albeit with an underestimation of heatwave intensity due to biases in soil moisture anomalies. Consequently, the initial cold vortex condition and air-land-sea interactions yield S2S predictability to the historic 2023 heatwaves in North China.

Variability and Dynamics of the Kuroshio and Mindanao Current during the 2010/11 La Niña and in Late 2012

Abstract Variability of two Pacific western boundary currents (WBCs)—the Kuroshio and the Mindanao Current—during the strong 2010/11 La Niña event is investigated using ship-based hydrographic observations and moored current-meter data collected off the east coasts of the Philippines. The geostrophic currents calculated using the hydrographic data show that, during the 2010/11 La Niña winter, the Kuroshio decreased by ∼10 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), whereas the Mindanao Current increased by ∼5–10 Sv, relative to the normal winter in late 2012. The interannual variability based on the hydrographic data is confirmed by moored current-meter measurements and satellite altimeter geostrophic currents. A coastally trapped Kelvin wave model is used to explain the interannual variability of the two WBCs during the different ENSO phases. The good comparison of the simulated sea level anomalies around the Philippines with the altimeter data suggests that the interannual variability of the WBCs is associated with Kelvin wave propagation from the Sulawesi–Sulu Seas clockwise around the Philippine Archipelago. We identified that the Kelvin waves are excited by downwelling equatorial Rossby waves propagating into the Indonesian Seas during the La Niña. The transport anomalies of the WBCs are comparable to the total meridional transport anomalies integrated across the interior North Pacific Ocean, suggesting the importance of the WBCs in the heat charge–discharge processes of the western Pacific warm pool during ENSO events. Significance Statement The two western boundary currents (WBCs)—the Kuroshio and the Mindanao Current—play the role of closing the subtropical and tropical gyre circulation of the Pacific Ocean. Their variability during ENSO is unknown. Existing studies based on numerical modeling suggest that their variability is highly correlated with ENSO, with the Kuroshio stronger and Mindanao Current weaker during La Niña and vice versa during El Niño. Here, we use in situ hydrographic observations combined with mooring and satellite altimeter data to show that the Kuroshio transport decreases and the Mindanao Current transport increases during the 2010/11 La Niña, the dynamics of which are controlled by the Kelvin wave propagation from the Sulawesi–Sulu Seas clockwise around the Philippine Archipelago. The result is important for the warm pool dynamics during ENSO.

Decrease in MJO Predictability Following Indo–Pacific Warm Pool Expansion

AbstractThe characteristics of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) have changed and are projected to continue changing with the expansion of the Indo–Pacific warm pool, which is the Earth's largest region of warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs). However, the likelihood of a change in MJO predictability following warm pool expansion remains unaddressed. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of warm pool expansion on MJO variability and predictability using the highly idealized aquaplanet configuration of Community Earth System Model 2 (CESM2). By expanding the warm pool in the Indo–Pacific, MJO‐like waves become more regionally confined, short‐lived convective events with weaker magnitude and less robust eastward propagating signals, possibly due to stronger zonal SST gradients and wider meridional widths of the warm pool. Perfect‐model ensemble forecast experiments revealed that the MJO predictability decreased by approximately 5 days, the forecast error proliferated, and the signal rapidly reduced following warm pool expansion.

Mechanisms of early and late summer precipitation in Southwest China: dynamic and thermodynamic processes

This study investigates dynamic and thermodynamic components of moisture flux convergence in Southwest China (SW-MFC) and their underlying physical mechanisms during early and late summer. Using precipitation observation and CRA-40 reanalysis datasets from 1979 to 2023, the results show that both dynamic and thermodynamic processes modulate the SW-MFC in early summer (May-June), with dynamics playing a pivotal role. In contrast, the precipitation anomaly in late summer (July-August) is predominantly driven by the dynamic factors. Meanwhile, the large-scale circulation over the northern Indian Peninsula significantly modulates the SW-MFC. In early summer, anomalous convection around the Maritime Continent with the tripole sea surface temperature (SST) mode in the tropical Indo-Pacific can trigger the formation of “double ring” vertical zonal circulation cells. A large-scale westerly anomaly at the lower troposphere over the northern Arabian Sea foster cyclone strengthening over the northern Indian Peninsula, enhancing southerly moisture transport and increasing precipitation over Southwest China. During the late summer, large-scale dipole SST pattern between the subtropical central-eastern Pacific and the Indo-Pacific warm pool generates significant easterly anomalies towards the Maritime Continent. The SST gradient stimulates an extensive anticyclonic shear zone over the western equatorial Pacific, with an intensified low-pressure zone to its north. This atmospheric pattern over Southwest China and Indian Peninsula can form a vertical circulation circle that largely intensifies widespread precipitation. Numerical model experiments can reproduce the mechanisms of tropical Indo-Pacific joint effects on the Southwest precipitation in both early and late summer, providing a theoretical basis for understanding and forecasting summer precipitation over Southwest China.

Changes in Indo-Pacific Warm Pool hydroclimate and vegetation during the last deglaciation

Drying across much of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has been widely recognized from interpretations of sedimentological, geochemical, and paleoecological records. Reconstructions of precipitation isotopic compositions have emerged as a powerful tool to reconstruct rainfall amount in many tropical regions, yet it has proven difficult to reconcile precipitation isotope records from the IPWP with records of widespread drying. To evaluate the signals preserved in precipitation isotope records, we produced new hydrogen and carbon isotope records from Lake Towuti and Lake Matano in Sulawesi, Indonesia using long-chain n-alkanes. We then compared these new records to existing n-alkanoic acid records from the same lakes and compiled available marine runoff, salinity, leaf wax hydrogen isotope (δ2Hwax), and leaf wax carbon isotope (δ13Cwax) records in the IPWP. During the last deglaciation, marine runoff and salinity proxies reveal that precipitation amount began to increase dramatically between ∼12.3 ka at the end of the Younger Dryas. A principal component analysis of precipitation isotope records indicates a shift from more 2H-enriched to 2H-depleted waxes at ∼12.3 ka as sea level rise inundates most of the Sunda and Sahul shelves, coincident with runoff and salinity proxies, suggesting precipitation isotopes respond strongly to rainfall amount in this region. Over 70% of IPWP δ13Cwax records show a transition from more to less 13C-enriched waxes beginning about 19.9 ka, prior to the reconstructed increases in precipitation. We suggest that vegetation shifted in response to the changing seasonality of precipitation. The dramatic changes in the IPWP during the last deglaciation highlight the capacity for the region to experience dynamic changes in precipitation, vegetation, and atmospheric circulation.

Tracking the variability of the western Pacific warm pool heat content over 1980–2020

Tracking the variability of the western Pacific warm pool heat content over 1980–2020

Crucial role of sea surface temperature warming patterns in near-term high-impact weather and climate projection

Recent studies indicate that virtually all global climate models (GCMs) have had difficulty simulating sea surface temperature (SST) trend patterns over the past four decades. GCMs produce enhanced warming in the eastern Equatorial Pacific (EPAC) and Southern Ocean (SO) warming, while observations show intensified warming in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) and slight cooling in the eastern EPAC and SO. Using Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory’s latest higher resolution atmospheric model and coupled prediction system, we show the model biases in SST trend pattern have profound implications for near-term projections of high-impact storm statistics, including the frequency of atmospheric rivers (AR), tropical storms (TS) and mesoscale convection systems (MCS), as well as for hydrological and climate sensitivity. If the future SST warming pattern continues to resemble the observed pattern from the past few decades rather than the GCM simulated/predicted patterns, our results suggest (1) a drastically different future projection of high-impact storms and their associated hydroclimate changes, especially over the Western Hemisphere, (2) a stronger global hydrological sensitivity, and (3) substantially less global warming due to stronger negative feedback and lower climate sensitivity. The roles of SST trend patterns over the EPAC, IPWP, SO, and the North Atlantic tropical cyclone Main Development Region (AMDR) are isolated, quantified, and used to understand the simulated differences. Specifically, SST trend patterns in the EPAC and AMDR are crucial for modeled differences in AR and MCS frequency, while those in the IPWP and AMDR are essential for differences in TS frequency over the North Atlantic.