Southern westerlies in LGM and future (RCP4.5) climates

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: Chavaillaz, Y., Codron, F., Kageyama, M.
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), 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)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Modélisation du climat (CLIM), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-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)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA))
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2013
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; Antarc*; Antarctic; Ice Sheet; Sea ice; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01103540; https://hal.science/hal-01103540/document; https://hal.science/hal-01103540/file/cp-9-517-2013.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-517-2013

International audience Mid-latitude westerlies are a major component of the atmospheric circulation and understanding their behaviour under climate change is important for understanding changes in precipitation, storms and atmosphere-ocean momentum, heat and CO2 exchanges. The Southern Hemisphere westerlies have been particularly studied in terms of the latter aspects, since the Southern Ocean is a key region for the global oceanic circulation as well as for CO2 uptake. In this study, we analyse, mainly in terms of jet stream position, the behaviour of the southern westerlies for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 000 yr ago, which is the last past cold extreme) and for a future climate, obtained after stabilisation of the RCP4.5 scenario. The a priori guess would be that the behaviour of the westerly jet stream would be similar when examining its changes from LGM to pre-industrial (PI) conditions and from PI to RCP4.5, i.e. in both cases a poleward shift in response to global warming. We show that this is in fact not the case, due to the impact of altitude changes of the Antarctic ice sheet and/or to sea ice cover changes. © Author(s) 2013.