The observed partitioning of poleward heat transport between atmospheric and oceanic heat transports (AHT and OHT) is compared to that in coupled climate models. Poleward OHT in the models is biased low in both hemispheres, with the largest biases in the Southern Hemisphere extratropics. Poleward AHT is biased high in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in the vicinity of the peak AHT near 40$^\circ$N. The significant model biases are persistent across three model generations (CMIP3, CMIP5, CMIP6) and are insensitive to the satellite radiation and atmospheric reanalyses products used to derive observational estimates of AHT and OHT. Model biases in heat transport partitioning are consistent with biases in the spatial structure of energy input to the ocean and atmosphere. Specifically, larger than observed model evaporation in the tropics adds excess energy to the atmosphere that drives enhanced poleward AHT at the expense of weaker OHT

The influence of climate feedbacks on regional hydrological changes under warming is poorly understood. Here, a moist energy balance model (MEBM) with a Hadley Cell parameterization is used to isolate the influence of climate feedbacks on changes in zonal-mean precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E) under greenhouse-gas forcing. It is shown that cloud feedbacks act to narrow bands of tropical P-E and increase P-E in the deep tropics. The surface-albedo feedback shifts the location of maximum tropical P-E and increases P-E in the polar regions. The intermodel spread in the P-E changes associated with feedbacks arises mainly from cloud feedbacks, with the lapse-rate and surface-albedo feedbacks playing important roles in the polar regions. The P-E change associated with cloud feedback locking in the MEBM is similar to that of a climate model with inactive cloud feedbacks. This work highlights the unique role that climate feedbacks play in causing deviations from the “wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-drier” paradigm.

A document by Yuan-Jen Lin. Click on the document to view its contents.

Arctic warming under increased CO2 peaks in winter, but is influenced by summer forcing via seasonal ocean heat storage. Yet changes in atmospheric heat transport into the Arctic have mainly been investigated in the annual mean or winter, with limited focus on other seasons. We investigate the full seasonal cycle of poleward heat transport modelled with increased CO2 or with individually applied Arctic sea-ice loss and global sea-surface warming. We find that a winter reduction in dry heat transport is driven by Arctic sea-ice loss and warming, while a summer increase in moist heat transport is driven by sub-Arctic warming and moistening. Intermodel spread in Arctic warming controls spread in seasonal poleward heat transport. These seasonal changes and their intermodel spread are well-captured by down-gradient diffusive heat transport. While changes in moist and dry heat transport compensate in the annual-mean, their opposite seasonality may support non-compensating effects on Arctic warming.

The lapse-rate feedback is the dominant driver of stronger warming in the Arctic than the Antarctic in simulations with increased CO2. While Antarctic surface elevation has been implicated in promoting a weaker Antarctic lapse-rate feedback, the mechanisms in which elevation impacts the lapse-rate feedback are still unclear. Here we suggest that weaker Antarctic warming under CO2 forcing stems from shallower, less intense climatological inversions due to limited atmospheric heat transport above the ice sheet elevation and elevation-induced katabatic winds. In slab ocean model experiments with flattened Antarctic topography, stronger climatological inversions support a stronger lapse-rate feedback and annual-mean Antarctic warming comparable to the Arctic under CO2 doubling. Unlike the Arctic, seasonality in warming over flat Antarctica is mainly driven by a negative shortwave cloud feedback which exclusively dampens summer warming, with a smaller contribution from the winter-enhanced lapse-rate feedback.

Water mass transformation (WMT) in the North Atlantic plays a key role in driving the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its variability. Here, we analyze subpolar North Atlantic WMT in high- and low-resolution versions of the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) and investigate whether differences in resolution and climatological WMT impact low-frequency AMOC variability and the atmospheric response to this variability. We find that high-resolution simulations reproduce the WMT found in a reanalysis-forced high-resolution ocean simulation more accurately than low-resolution simulations. We also find that the low-resolution simulations, including one forced with the same atmospheric reanalysis data, have larger biases in surface heat fluxes, sea-surface temperatures, and salinities compared to the high-resolution simulations. Despite these major climatological differences, the mechanisms of low-frequency AMOC variability are similar in the high- and low-resolution versions of CESM1. The Labrador Sea WMT plays a major role in driving AMOC variability, and a similar North Atlantic Oscillation-like sea-level pressure pattern leads AMOC changes. However, the high-resolution simulation shows a pronounced atmospheric response to the AMOC variability not found in the low-resolution version. The consistent role of Labrador Sea WMT in low-frequency AMOC variability across high- and low-resolution coupled simulations, including a simulation which accurately reproduces the WMT found in an atmospheric-reanalysis-forced high-resolution ocean simulation, suggests that the mechanisms may be similar in nature.

We investigate the dependence of radiative feedback on the pattern of sea-surface temperature (SST) change in fourteen Atmospheric General Circulation Models (AGCMs) forced with observed variations in SST and sea-ice over the historical record from 1871 to near-present. We find that over 1871-1980, the Earth warmed with feedbacks largely consistent and strongly correlated with long-term climate sensitivity feedbacks (diagnosed from corresponding atmosphere-ocean GCM abrupt-4xCO2 simulations). Post 1980 however, the Earth warmed with unusual trends in tropical Pacific SSTs (enhanced warming in the west, cooling in the east) that drove climate feedback to be uncorrelated with – and indicating much lower climate sensitivity than – that expected for long-term CO2 increase. We show that these conclusions are not strongly dependent on the AMIP II SST dataset used to force the AGCMs, though the magnitude of feedback post 1980 is generally smaller in eight AGCMs forced with alternative HadISST1 SST boundary conditions. We quantify a ‘pattern effect’ (defined as the difference between historical and long-term CO2 feedback) equal to 0.44 ± 0.47 [5-95%] W m-2 K-1 for the time-period 1871-2010, which increases by 0.05 ± 0.04 W m-2 K-1 if calculated over 1871-2014. Assessed changes in the Earth’s historical energy budget are in agreement with the AGCM feedback estimates. Furthermore satellite observations of changes in top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes since 1985 suggest that the pattern effect was particularly strong over recent decades, though this may be waning post 2014 due to a warming of the eastern Pacific.