The Forcing of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation*

Schneider, Niklas; Cornuelle, Bruce D.

doi:10.1175/jcli3527.1

Cited by 438 publications

(345 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…The PDO is defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly over the North Pacific ([20°N), and the leading principal component (PC1) is referred to as the PDO index (e.g., Mantua et al 1997;Minobe 1997;Zhang et al 1997;Garreaud and Battisti 1999; see review papers by Alexander 2010;Liu 2012). It is significantly correlated with ENSO (e.g., Alexander et al 2002;Newman et al 2003;Deser et al 2004;Schneider and Cornuelle 2005;Vimont 2005). On decadal timescales, the PDO is highly correlated with ENSO (Zhang and Church 2012) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), a basin-wide decadal climate mode associated with decadal SST variability in the Pacific (e.g., Power et al 1999;Folland et al 2002;Meehl and Hu 2006).…”

Section: Pdo-related Sea Level Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

et al. 2016

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Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth's climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modes and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this paper, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.

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Section: Pdo-related Sea Level Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

et al. 2016

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“…During warm ENSO conditions, the cyclonic circulation of the Aleutian Low typically strengthens, raising coastal SSTs by increasing net downward turbulent surface heat fluxes and reducing wind-driven vertical mixing, particularly in winter when winds are most vigorous (11)(12)(13). The dynamical origins of PDO variability are demonstrated by studies that have successfully reproduced the PDO index as a linear function of current Aleutian Low/ENSO forcing and SST persistence, explaining its temporal variability from monthly to multidecadal time scales (9,10,14,15).…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…NE Pacific coastal SSTs, in connection to the PDO, vary in response to atmospheric forcing by the North Pacific Aleutian Low pressure cell, as well as remote forcing by the tropical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (9,10). During warm ENSO conditions, the cyclonic circulation of the Aleutian Low typically strengthens, raising coastal SSTs by increasing net downward turbulent surface heat fluxes and reducing wind-driven vertical mixing, particularly in winter when winds are most vigorous (11)(12)(13).…”

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confidence: 99%

Atmospheric controls on northeast Pacific temperature variability and change, 1900–2012

Johnstone

Mantua

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Over the last century, northeast Pacific coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and land-based surface air temperatures (SATs) display multidecadal variations associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, in addition to a warming trend of ∼0.5-1°C. Using independent records of sea-level pressure (SLP), SST, and SAT, this study investigates northeast (NE) Pacific coupled atmosphere-ocean variability from 1900 to 2012, with emphasis on the coastal areas around North America. We use a linear stochastic time series model to show that the SST evolution around the NE Pacific coast can be explained by a combination of regional atmospheric forcing and ocean persistence, accounting for 63% of nonseasonal monthly SST variance (r = 0.79) and 73% of variance in annual means (r = 0.86). We show that SLP reductions and related atmospheric forcing led to century-long warming around the NE Pacific margins, with the strongest trends observed from 1910-1920 to 1940. NE Pacific circulation changes are estimated to account for more than 80% of the 1900-2012 linear warming in coastal NE Pacific SST and US Pacific northwest (Washington, Oregon, and northern California) SAT. An ensemble of climate model simulations run under the same historical radiative forcings fails to reproduce the observed regional circulation trends. These results suggest that natural internally generated changes in atmospheric circulation were the primary cause of coastal NE Pacific warming from 1900 to 2012 and demonstrate more generally that regional mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also extend to century time scales.ocean-atmosphere coupling | Pacific climate | western US temperature | climate change

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“…Whether or not the PDO is independent of ENSO is uncertain, but an active area of research. Some researchers (Newman et al, 2003;Schneider and Cornuelle, 2005;Newman, 2007) have argued that ENSO drives the PDO, i.e. that El Niño (La Niña) drives the positive (negative) phase of the PDO.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

GCM projections for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation under greenhouse forcing for the early 21st century

Lapp

Jacques

Barrow

et al. 2011

Intl Journal of Climatology

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ABSTRACT:The climatology and hydrology of western North America display strong periodic cycles which are correlated with the low-frequency Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO's signature is seen throughout the entire North Pacific region, with related significant associations to hydrology and ecology in western North America and northeastern Asia. Therefore, the status of the PDO in a warmer world caused by anthropogenic climate change is of great interest. We developed early 21st-century projections of the PDO, using data from archived runs of the most recent high-resolution global climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (Phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project). Because of the geographical adjacency and hypothesized interactions between the PDO and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and between the PDO and the North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation (NAO/AO), we also developed concurrent projections of ENSO and the NAO and examined their relationships with the projected PDO. For the B1, A1B and A2 Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) emission scenarios, the PDO projections for 2000-2050 showed a weak multi-model mean shift towards more occurrences of the negative phase PDO, which becomes statistically significant for the time period 2000-2099. However, not all the models showed a consistent shift to negative PDO conditions.

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The Forcing of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation*

Cited by 438 publications

References 62 publications

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

Atmospheric controls on northeast Pacific temperature variability and change, 1900–2012

GCM projections for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation under greenhouse forcing for the early 21st century

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