Changes in the variability of the North Pacific sea surface temperature caused by direct sulfate aerosol forcing in China in a coupled general circulation model

Yeh, Sang‐Wook; Kim, Won-Mo; Kim, Young Ho; Moon, Byung-Kwon; Park, Rokjin J.; Song, Chang‐Keun

doi:10.1029/2012jd017947

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…3e,f, green dots). Our conclusion that increased Chinese aerosol emissions drive a weakening of the Aleutian Low agrees with dedicated coupled model experiments 21 , but not with a previous study linking the strengthening of the Aleutian Low between the 1960s and the 1990s with increased Chinese aerosol emissions 22 . We suggest that increases in aerosol emissions over the USA during this period (Fig.…”

supporting

confidence: 84%

Role of volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols in the recent global surface warming slowdown

et al. 2016

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The rate of global mean surface temperature (GMST) warming has slowed this century despite the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. Climate model experiments [1][2][3][4] show that this slowdown was largely driven by a negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), with a smaller external contribution from solar variability, and volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols 5,6 . The prevailing view is that this negative PDO occurred through internal variability 7-11 . However, here we show that coupled models from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project robustly simulate a negative PDO in response to anthropogenic aerosols implying a potentially important role for external human influences. The recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 also contributed to the slowdown in GMST trends. Our results suggest that a slowdown in GMST trends could have been predicted in advance, and that future reduction of anthropogenic aerosol emissions, particularly from China, would promote a positive PDO and increased GMST trends over the coming years. Furthermore, the overestimation of the magnitude of recent warming by models is substantially reduced by using detection and attribution analysis to rescale their response to external factors, especially cooling following volcanic eruptions. Improved understanding of external influences on climate is therefore crucial to constrain near-term climate predictions.The recent slowdown in surface temperature warming is clearly seen in observed time series of 15-year global mean surface temperature (GMST) trends 8,9 that reached a peak in the 15-year period 1992-2006 followed by a sharp decline (black curves in Fig. 1a). This is seen in all of the leading observational data sets despite recent claims that the slowdown is eliminated by corrections to sea surface temperature biases 12 . A similar peak and decline is also simulated by all coupled models from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5, coloured curves in Fig. 1a, with thick red curve showing the ensemble mean, see Methods and Supplementary Table 1). Similar results are obtained for different trend lengths ( Supplementary Fig. 1). The modelled trends are generally larger than observed. This is an important point that will be addressed later, but we first investigate the cause of the simulated peak and decline in GMST trends.Since internal variability is unlikely to be in phase in the CMIP5 model simulations, any common signals are likely to be externally forced. We therefore investigate additional CMIP5 model simulations that are forced by different combinations of external factors (Supplementary Table 1 and Methods). These show that the sharp peak in the trend in the period 1992-2006 is caused by natural factors (Nat, green curve in Fig. 1b), and in particular the eruption of Mount Pinatubo as pointed out previously 9,13 . The reason is straightforward: the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 caused −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 −0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 a −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 b Obs. All GHGs Nat. Aero. End year...

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confidence: 84%

Role of volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols in the recent global surface warming slowdown

et al. 2016

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“…Regarding aerosol's influence, we suggest that potentially important role for change in the anthropogenic aerosol emissions from Europe and North America that drive a TBV, as well as cooling and recovery from the volcanic eruptions. Recent studies also suggest that an increasing trend in aerosol emissions from China modulates the PDO with a change in the Aleutian Low (Boo et al, ; Smith et al, ; Yeh et al, ). Although AERO ensemble mean captures a weakening of the Aleutian Low and warming of North Pacific SST for 1992–2011 as shown by above studies, the aerosol‐forced cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific (as a negative IPO/PDO) is much weaker than the observation, indicating a predominant contribution of an internal variability in this region.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant Aerosol Influence on the Recent Decadal Decrease in Tropical Cyclone Activity Over the Western North Pacific

Takahashi

Mori

2017

Geophysical Research Letters

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Over the past two decades, the number of tropical cyclones (TCs) has decreased markedly in the southeastern part of the western North Pacific (WNP) as a component of the interdecadal variation. This decrease has partially been explained by an internal low‐frequency variability of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Pacific, but influences of external forcing remain unclear. Here we show that past changes in sulfate aerosol emissions contributed approximately 60% of the observed decreasing trends in TC genesis frequency in the southeastern WNP for 1992–2011, using multiple simulations by a global climate model. This decrease was mainly attributed to the increased vertical wind shear and decreased low‐level vorticity, associated with a trans‐basin multidecadal SST change driven by aerosol forcing. The near‐future projection shows that the aerosol forcing still has some potential influence on decadal TC change, but the projected decreasing frequency is mainly due to increasing greenhouse gases forcing.

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“…Yeh et al . [] showed that aerosols from anthropogenic sources can change the temporal variability of the North Pacific SST through modifications to atmospheric circulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of aerosols in multidecadal SST variability simulations over the North Pacific

et al. 2015

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The influence of aerosol emissions on North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) variability during the twentieth century is investigated using a comparison between historical simulations with and without anthropogenic aerosol changes. The historical simulations using the Hadley Global Environment Model version 2 show that there is a common externally forced component in relation to the twentieth century North Pacific SST variability. This matches a number of important temporal and spatial characteristics of the observed multidecadal SST variability from the 1920s to 1990s, which is not found in experiments without aerosol changes. This paper explores both direct and indirect aerosol influences, and finds that in this model the aerosol-cloud interactions dominate the total aerosol forcing of the surface energy budget. These aerosol-cloud processes were not commonly included in most models in the previous (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3) generation, which may explain why the potential role of aerosols in Pacific variability has not been previously discussed. However, unlike recently reported aerosol drivers of Atlantic SST variability, the aerosol surface radiative forcing pattern does not map directly onto the historical spatial surface radiative and SST changes but is instead modulated by circulation changes to the Aleutian Low. These circulation changes share common features with previously reported studies of natural drivers of Pacific variability, suggesting that both forced and internally generated SST variability may be modulated via the same circulation response.

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Changes in the variability of the North Pacific sea surface temperature caused by direct sulfate aerosol forcing in China in a coupled general circulation model

Cited by 16 publications

References 46 publications

Role of volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols in the recent global surface warming slowdown

Role of volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols in the recent global surface warming slowdown

Significant Aerosol Influence on the Recent Decadal Decrease in Tropical Cyclone Activity Over the Western North Pacific

Influence of aerosols in multidecadal SST variability simulations over the North Pacific

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