Changes in zonal surface temperature gradients and Walker circulations in a wide range of climates

Journal of Climate

Volumn 24, Issue 17, 2011, Pages 4757-4768

  Merlis, Timothy M ^a   Schneider, Tapio ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

Atmospheric circulation; General circulation models; Surface temperature; Tropics; Walker circulation

Indexed keywords

ASYMMETRIC COMPONENT; ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION; ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS; CLIMATE WARMS; COMPENSATING ERRORS; GENERAL CIRCULATION MODEL; HYDROLOGICAL CYCLES; LONG WAVES; LOW LATITUDES; OCEAN ENERGY; OPTICAL THICKNESS; OVERTURNING CIRCULATION; PRECIPITATION RATES; SCALING RELATIONSHIPS; SPECIFIC HUMIDITY; SURFACE ENERGY BUDGET; SURFACE TEMPERATURE; SURFACE TEMPERATURE GRADIENT; SURFACE TEMPERATURES; SYSTEMATIC TEST; TROPICAL CLIMATES; WALKER CIRCULATION;

ATMOSPHERIC HUMIDITY; CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE MODELS; COMPUTER SIMULATION; ESTIMATION; GREENHOUSE GASES; HURRICANE EFFECTS; SURFACE CHEMISTRY; SURFACE PROPERTIES; THERMAL GRADIENTS; TROPICS;

ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE;

ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODEL; CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE MODELING; ENERGY BUDGET; ERROR ANALYSIS; HUMIDITY; OVERTURN; SURFACE ENERGY; SURFACE TEMPERATURE; TEMPERATURE GRADIENT; TROPICAL METEOROLOGY; WALKER CIRCULATION; ZONAL FLOW;

EID: 80053159527     PISSN: 08948755     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1175/2011JCLI4042.1     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Back, L. E., and C. S. Bretherton, 2006: Geographic variability in the export of moist static energy and vertical motion profiles in the tropical Pacific.Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L17810, doi:10.1029/2006GL026672.
2. Betts, A. K., 1998: Climate-convection feedbacks: Some further issues. Climatic Change, 39, 35-38.
3. Betts, A. K., and W. L. Ridgway, 1989: Climatic equilibrium of the atmospheric convective boundary layer over a tropical ocean. J. Atmos. Sci., 46, 2621-2641.
4. Bordoni, S., 2007: On the role of eddies in monsoonal circulations: Observations and theory. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 195 pp.
5. Bordoni, S., and T. Schneider, 2008: Monsoons as eddy-mediated regime transitions of the tropical overturning circulation. Nat. Geosci., 1, 515-519.
6. Charney, J. G., 1963: A note on large-scale motions in the tropics. J. Atmos. Sci., 20, 607-609.
7. Clement, A. C., R. Seager, M. A. Cane, and S. E. Zebiak, 1996: An ocean dynamical thermostat. J. Climate, 9, 2190-2196.
8. DiNezio, P. N., A. C. Clement, G. A. Vecchi, B. J. Soden, B. P. Kirtman, and S. K. Lee, 2009: Climate response of the equatorial Pacific to global warming. J. Climate, 22, 4873-4892.
9. Fedorov, A. V., P. S. Dekens, M. McCarthy, A. C. Ravelo, P. B. DeMenocal, M. Barreiro,R. C. Pacanowski, and S. G. Philander, 2006: The Pliocene paradox (mechanisms for a permanent El Niño). Science, 312, 1485-1489.
10. Frierson, D. M. W., 2007: The dynamics of idealized convection schemes and their effect on the zonally averaged tropical circulation. J. Atmos. Sci., 64, 1959-1976.
11. Frierson, D. M. W., I. M. Held, and P. Zurita-Gotor, 2006: A gray-radiation aquaplanet moist GCM. Part I: Static stability and eddy scale. J. Atmos. Sci., 63, 2548-2566.
12. Hartmann, D. L., and K. Larson, 2002: An important constraint on tropical cloud-climate feedback. Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 1951, doi:10.1029/2002GL015835.
13. Held, I. M., and B. J. Soden, 2006: Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. J. Climate, 19, 5686-5699.
14. Held, I. M., M. Winton, K. Takahashi, T. Delworth, F. Zeng, and G. K. Vallis, 2010: Probing the fast and slow components of global warming by returning abruptly to preindustrial forcing. J. Climate, 23, 2418-2427.
15. Iribarne, J. V., and W. L. Godson, 1981: Atmospheric Thermodynamics. 2nd ed. Geophys. Astrophys. Monogr., Vol. 6, D. Reidel, 259 pp.
16. 2 in a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. J. Climate, 8, 2181-2199.
17. Levine, X. J., and T. Schneider, 2011: Response of the Hadley circulation to climate change in an aquaplanet GCM coupled to a simple representation of ocean heat transport. J. Atmos. Sci., 68, 769-783.
18. Lindzen, R. S., and S. Nigam, 1987: On the role of sea surface temperature gradients in forcing low-level winds and convergence in the tropics. J. Atmos. Sci., 44, 2418-2436.
19. Meehl, G. A., and Coauthors, 2007: Global climate projections. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, S. Solomon et al., Eds., Cambridge University Press, 747-845.
20. O'Gorman, P. A., and C. J. Muller, 2010: How closely do changes in surface and column water vapor follow Clausius-Clapeyron scaling in climate change simulations? Environ. Res. Lett., 5, 025207, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/025207.
21. O'Gorman, P. A., and T. Schneider, 2008a: Energy of midlatitude transient eddies in idealized simulations of changed climates. J. Climate, 21, 5797-5806.
22. O'Gorman, P. A., and T. Schneider, 2008b: The hydrological cycle over a wide range of climates simulated with an idealized GCM. J. Climate, 21, 3815-3832.
23. Peters, M. E., Z. Kuang, and C. C. Walker, 2008: Analysis of atmospheric energy transport in ERA-40 and implications for simple models of the mean tropical circulation. J. Climate, 21, 5229-5241.
24. Pierrehumbert, R. T., 2010: Principles of Planetary Climate. Cambridge University Press, 688 pp.
25. Schneider, T., P. A. O'Gorman, and X. J. Levine, 2010: Water vapor and the dynamics of climate changes. Rev. Geophys., 48, RG3001, doi:10.1029/2009RG000302.
26. Sobel, A. H., 2007: Simple models of ensemble-averaged tropical precipitation and surface wind, given the sea surface temperature. The Global Circulation of the Atmosphere, T. Schneider and A. H. Sobel, Eds., Princeton University Press, 219-251.
27. Sobel, A. H., J. Nilsson, and L. M. Polvani, 2001: The weak temperature gradient approximation and balanced tropical moisture waves. J. Atmos. Sci., 58, 3650-3665.
28. Sobel, A. H., E. D. Maloney, G. Bellon, and D. M. Frierson, 2010: Surface fluxes and tropical intraseasonal variability: A reassessment. J. Adv. Earth Model. Syst., 2, 1-27.
29. Trenberth, K. E., J. M. Caron, and D. P. Stepaniak, 2001: The atmospheric energy budget and implications for surface fluxes and ocean heat transports. Climate Dyn., 17, 259-276.
30. Vecchi, G. A., and B. J. Soden, 2007: Global warming and the weakening of the tropical circulation. J. Climate, 20, 4316-4340.
31. Vecchi, G. A., B. J. Soden, A. T. Wittenberg, I. M. Held, A. Leetmaa, and M. J. Harrison, 2006: Weakening of tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation due to anthropogenic forcing. Nature, 441, 73-76.
32. Wunsch, C., 2009: A perpetually running ENSO in the Pliocene? J. Climate, 22, 3506-3510.
33. Xie, S.-P., C. Deser, G. A. Vecchi, J. Ma, H. Teng, and A. T. Wittenberg, 2010: Global warming pattern formation: Sea surface temperature and rainfall. J. Climate, 23, 966-986.