Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model
Abstract The Southern Ocean exerts a strong influence on global climate, regulating the storage and transport of heat, freshwater and carbon throughout the world’s oceans. While the majority of previous studies focus on how wind changes influence Southern Ocean circulation patterns, here we set out...
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crspringernat:10.1038/s41598-021-01306-2 2023-05-15T18:17:53+02:00 Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model Purich, Ariaan Boschat, Ghyslaine Liguori, Giovanni ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01306-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01306-2.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01306-2 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Scientific Reports volume 11, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 Multidisciplinary journal-article 2021 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01306-2 2022-01-04T08:44:51Z Abstract The Southern Ocean exerts a strong influence on global climate, regulating the storage and transport of heat, freshwater and carbon throughout the world’s oceans. While the majority of previous studies focus on how wind changes influence Southern Ocean circulation patterns, here we set out to explore potential feedbacks from the ocean to the atmosphere. To isolate the role of oceanic variability on Southern Hemisphere climate, we perform coupled climate model experiments in which Southern Ocean variability is suppressed by restoring sea surface temperatures (SST) over 40°–65°S to the model’s monthly mean climatology. We find that suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability does not impact the Southern Annular Mode, suggesting air–sea feedbacks do not play an important role in the persistence of the Southern Annular Mode in our model. Suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability does lead to robust mean-state changes in SST and sea ice. Changes in mixed layer processes and convection associated with the SST restoring lead to SST warming and a sea ice decline in southern high latitudes, and SST cooling in midlatitudes. These results highlight the impact non-linear processes can have on a model’s mean state, and the need to consider these when performing simulations of the Southern Ocean. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sea ice Southern Ocean Springer Nature (via Crossref) Southern Ocean Scientific Reports 11 1 |
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English |
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Multidisciplinary Purich, Ariaan Boschat, Ghyslaine Liguori, Giovanni Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
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Multidisciplinary |
description |
Abstract The Southern Ocean exerts a strong influence on global climate, regulating the storage and transport of heat, freshwater and carbon throughout the world’s oceans. While the majority of previous studies focus on how wind changes influence Southern Ocean circulation patterns, here we set out to explore potential feedbacks from the ocean to the atmosphere. To isolate the role of oceanic variability on Southern Hemisphere climate, we perform coupled climate model experiments in which Southern Ocean variability is suppressed by restoring sea surface temperatures (SST) over 40°–65°S to the model’s monthly mean climatology. We find that suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability does not impact the Southern Annular Mode, suggesting air–sea feedbacks do not play an important role in the persistence of the Southern Annular Mode in our model. Suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability does lead to robust mean-state changes in SST and sea ice. Changes in mixed layer processes and convection associated with the SST restoring lead to SST warming and a sea ice decline in southern high latitudes, and SST cooling in midlatitudes. These results highlight the impact non-linear processes can have on a model’s mean state, and the need to consider these when performing simulations of the Southern Ocean. |
author2 |
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Purich, Ariaan Boschat, Ghyslaine Liguori, Giovanni |
author_facet |
Purich, Ariaan Boschat, Ghyslaine Liguori, Giovanni |
author_sort |
Purich, Ariaan |
title |
Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
title_short |
Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
title_full |
Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
title_fullStr |
Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
title_full_unstemmed |
Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model |
title_sort |
assessing the impact of suppressing southern ocean sst variability in a coupled climate model |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01306-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01306-2.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01306-2 |
geographic |
Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean |
genre |
Sea ice Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Sea ice Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Scientific Reports volume 11, issue 1 ISSN 2045-2322 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01306-2 |
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Scientific Reports |
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11 |
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1 |
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1766193296929980416 |