Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling
The magnitude of global warming is controlled by climate feedbacks associated with various aspects of the climate system, such as clouds. The global climate feedback is the net effect of these feedbacks, and its temporal evolution is thought to depend on the tropical Pacific sea surface temperature...
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ftimperialcol:oai:spiral.imperial.ac.uk:10044/1/106429 2023-10-09T21:56:00+02:00 Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling Kang, SM Ceppi, P Yu, Y Kang, I-S 2023-07-21 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106429 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC Nature Geoscience 1752-0894 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106429 doi:10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 780 775 Journal Article 2023 ftimperialcol https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 2023-09-14T22:43:45Z The magnitude of global warming is controlled by climate feedbacks associated with various aspects of the climate system, such as clouds. The global climate feedback is the net effect of these feedbacks, and its temporal evolution is thought to depend on the tropical Pacific sea surface temperature pattern. However, current coupled climate models fail to simulate the pattern observed in the Pacific between 1979 and 2013 and its associated anomalously negative feedback. Here we demonstrate a mechanism whereby the Southern Ocean controls the global climate feedback. Using climate model experiments in which Southern Ocean sea surface temperatures are restored to observations, we show that accounting for recent Southern Ocean cooling—which is absent in coupled climate models—halves the bias in the global climate feedback by removing the cloud component bias. This global impact is mediated by a teleconnection to the Southeast Pacific, where remote sea surface temperature anomalies cause a strong stratocumulus cloud feedback. We propose that this Southern Ocean-driven pattern effect is underestimated in most climate models, owing to an overly weak stratocumulus cloud feedback. Addressing this bias may shift climate sensitivities to higher values than currently simulated as the Southern Ocean undergoes accelerated warming in future projections. Article in Journal/Newspaper Southern Ocean Imperial College London: Spiral Southern Ocean Pacific Nature Geoscience 16 9 775 780 |
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Open Polar |
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Imperial College London: Spiral |
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ftimperialcol |
language |
English |
description |
The magnitude of global warming is controlled by climate feedbacks associated with various aspects of the climate system, such as clouds. The global climate feedback is the net effect of these feedbacks, and its temporal evolution is thought to depend on the tropical Pacific sea surface temperature pattern. However, current coupled climate models fail to simulate the pattern observed in the Pacific between 1979 and 2013 and its associated anomalously negative feedback. Here we demonstrate a mechanism whereby the Southern Ocean controls the global climate feedback. Using climate model experiments in which Southern Ocean sea surface temperatures are restored to observations, we show that accounting for recent Southern Ocean cooling—which is absent in coupled climate models—halves the bias in the global climate feedback by removing the cloud component bias. This global impact is mediated by a teleconnection to the Southeast Pacific, where remote sea surface temperature anomalies cause a strong stratocumulus cloud feedback. We propose that this Southern Ocean-driven pattern effect is underestimated in most climate models, owing to an overly weak stratocumulus cloud feedback. Addressing this bias may shift climate sensitivities to higher values than currently simulated as the Southern Ocean undergoes accelerated warming in future projections. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kang, SM Ceppi, P Yu, Y Kang, I-S |
spellingShingle |
Kang, SM Ceppi, P Yu, Y Kang, I-S Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
author_facet |
Kang, SM Ceppi, P Yu, Y Kang, I-S |
author_sort |
Kang, SM |
title |
Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
title_short |
Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
title_full |
Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
title_fullStr |
Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
title_full_unstemmed |
Recent global climate feedback controlled by Southern Ocean cooling |
title_sort |
recent global climate feedback controlled by southern ocean cooling |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106429 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 |
geographic |
Southern Ocean Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean Pacific |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_source |
780 775 |
op_relation |
Nature Geoscience 1752-0894 http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/106429 doi:10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01256-6 |
container_title |
Nature Geoscience |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
775 |
op_container_end_page |
780 |
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1779320290886549504 |