The hammam effect or how a warm ocean enhances large scale atmospheric predictability

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Faranda, Davide, Alvarez-Castro, M Carmen, Messori, Gabriele, Rodrigues, David, Yiou, Pascal
• Other Authors: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Extrèmes : Statistiques, Impacts et Régionalisation (ESTIMR), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ), Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02334273; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02334273/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02334273/file/2019_Faranda_et_al_NatureComm.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09305-8

International audience The atmosphere's chaotic nature limits its short-term predictability. Furthermore, there is little knowledge on how the difficulty of forecasting weather may be affected by anthro-pogenic climate change. Here, we address this question by employing metrics issued from dynamical systems theory to describe the atmospheric circulation and infer the dynamical properties of the climate system. Specifically, we evaluate the changes in the sub-seasonal predictability of the large-scale atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic for the historical period and under anthropogenic forcing, using centennial reanalyses and CMIP5 simulations. For the future period, most datasets point to an increase in the atmo-sphere's predictability. AMIP simulations with 4K warmer oceans and 4 × atmospheric CO 2 concentrations highlight the prominent role of a warmer ocean in driving this increase. We term this the hammam effect. Such effect is linked to enhanced zonal atmospheric patterns, which are more predictable than meridional configurations.