Linking midlatitudes eddy heat flux trends and polar amplification

• Published in: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
• Main Authors: Chemke, Rei, Polvani, Lorenzo M.
• Other Authors: NSF | GEO | Division of Earth Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2020
• Subjects: Atmospheric Science; Environmental Chemistry; Global and Planetary Change; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-0111-7; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0111-7.pdf; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0111-7

Abstract Eddy heat fluxes play the important role of transferring heat from low to high latitudes, thus affecting midlatitude climate. The recent and projected polar warming, and its effects on the meridional temperature gradients, suggests a possible weakening of eddy heat fluxes. We here examine this question in reanalyses and state-of-the-art global climate models. In the Northern Hemisphere we find that the eddy heat flux has robustly weakened over the last four decades. We further show that this weakening emerged from the internal variability around the year 2000, and we attribute it to increasing greenhouse gases. In contrast, in the Southern Hemisphere we find that the eddy heat flux has robustly strengthened, and we link this strengthening to the recent multi-decadal cooling of Southern-Ocean surface temperatures. The inability of state-of-the-art climate models to simulate such cooling prevents them from capturing the observed Southern Hemisphere strengthening of the eddy heat flux. This discrepancy between models and reanalyses provides a clear example of how model biases in polar regions can affect the midlatitude climate.