Abstract
An atmospheric general circulation model was forced with observed interannual changes in the global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the period 1982 to 1993. The simulated seasonal surface air temperature patterns over land areas closely resemble the observed. Over most of the globe, the patterns also resemble those associated with El Niño events and are also reproduced in simulations with weak warm tropical SSTs near the date line. An exception is northern Asia, where the mechanisms for the observed warming are unclear. The results suggest that enhanced air-sea interactions resulting from recent, more persistent warm oceanic conditions in the tropics contributed to the observed global warming trend during this period.
Keywords
Related Publications
On the Roles of Tropical and Midlatitude SSTs in Forcing Interannual to Interdecadal Variability in the Winter Northern Hemisphere Circulation
Three numerical experiments have been conducted to explore the relative roles of midlatitude and tropical SSTs in producing atmospheric variability. In these experiments, anomal...
Surface Climate Variations over the North Atlantic Ocean during Winter: 1900–1989
The low-frequency variability of the surface climate over the North Atlantic during winter is described, using 90 years of weather observations from the Comprehensive Ocean–Atmo...
Interdecadal Variations in North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and Associated Atmospheric Conditions
Evidence is presented for a distinct Pattern Of ocean-atmosphere relationship associated with interdecadal variability in the North Atlantic region. Using a century of surface m...
Climatology of Global Precipitation:
The present review paper outlines the state of the art of recent observational studies conducted by Japanese Climatologists on global- to synoptic-scale precipitation in terms o...
Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation Features of Warm and Cold Episodes in the Tropical Pacific
Ship observations of sea surface temperature (SST), sea level pressure and surface wind, and satellite measurements of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) (an indicator of deep tr...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1994
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 266
- Issue
- 5185
- Pages
- 632-634
- Citations
- 79
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
Cite This
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.266.5185.632