The Representation of the Southern Annular Mode Signal in the Brazilian Earth System Model

The Southern Annular Mode (SAM, also known as the Antarctic Oscillation—AAO) explains most of the climate variability in the Southern Hemisphere. A ring pattern in mean sea level pressure (MSLP) or 500 hPa geopotential height around Antarctica characterizes SAM. Differences of MSLP values between SH...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmosphere
Main Authors: Luciana F. Prado, Ilana Wainer, Ronald B. de Souza
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021
Subjects:
Southern Annular Mode
model evaluation
mean sea level pressure
temperature
precipitation
South America
Meteorology. Climatology
QC851-999
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12081045
https://doaj.org/article/fc359a9fa22c4ac7a8fb372e5941db82
Description
Summary:The Southern Annular Mode (SAM, also known as the Antarctic Oscillation—AAO) explains most of the climate variability in the Southern Hemisphere. A ring pattern in mean sea level pressure (MSLP) or 500 hPa geopotential height around Antarctica characterizes SAM. Differences of MSLP values between SH mid and high latitudes define positive and negative SAM phases with impacts on mean atmospheric circulation. Thus, investigating how different models represent SAM is of paramount importance, as it can improve their ability to describe or even predict most of the SH climate variability. Here we examine how the Brazilian Earth System Model (BESM) represents SAM’s signal compared with observations, reanalysis, and other climate models contributing to the Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Project version 5 (CMIP5). We also evaluate how SAM relates to the South American surface temperature and precipitation and discuss the models’ limitations and biases compared with reanalysis data.

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