Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes
The oceans are a well-known source of natural variability in the climate system, although their ability to account for inter-annual variations of temperature and precipitation extremes over land remains unclear. In this study, the role of sea-surface temperature (SST)-forcing is investigated for var...
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ftunswworks:oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/unsworks_51219 2024-05-19T07:48:22+00:00 Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes Dittus, AJ Karoly, DJ Donat, MG Lewis, SC Alexander, LV 2018-09-01 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_51219 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 unknown Elsevier http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE160100092 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_51219 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 metadata only access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb CC-BY-NC-ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ urn:ISSN:2212-0947 Weather and Climate Extremes, 21, 1-9 13 Climate Action anzsrc-for: 0401 Atmospheric Sciences journal article http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501 2018 ftunswworks https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 2024-05-01T00:11:20Z The oceans are a well-known source of natural variability in the climate system, although their ability to account for inter-annual variations of temperature and precipitation extremes over land remains unclear. In this study, the role of sea-surface temperature (SST)-forcing is investigated for variability and trends in a range of commonly used temperature and precipitation extreme indices over the period 1959 to 2013. Using atmospheric simulations forced by observed SST and sea-ice concentrations (SIC) from three models participating in the Climate of the Twentieth Century Plus (C20C+) Project, results show that oceanic boundary conditions drive a substantial fraction of inter-annual variability in global average temperature extreme indices, as well as, to a lower extent, for precipitation extremes. The observed trends in temperature extremes are generally well captured by the SST-forced simulations although some regional features such as the lack of warming in daytime warm temperature extremes over South America are not reproduced in the model simulations. Furthermore, the models simulate too strong increases in warm day frequency compared to observations over North America. For extreme precipitation trends, the accuracy of the simulated trend pattern is regionally variable, and a thorough assessment is difficult due to the lack of locally significant trends in the observations. This study shows that prescribing SST and SIC holds potential predictability for extremes in some (mainly tropical) regions at the inter-annual time-scale. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sea ice UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks Weather and Climate Extremes 21 1 9 |
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UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales): UNSWorks |
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language |
unknown |
topic |
13 Climate Action anzsrc-for: 0401 Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
13 Climate Action anzsrc-for: 0401 Atmospheric Sciences Dittus, AJ Karoly, DJ Donat, MG Lewis, SC Alexander, LV Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
topic_facet |
13 Climate Action anzsrc-for: 0401 Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
The oceans are a well-known source of natural variability in the climate system, although their ability to account for inter-annual variations of temperature and precipitation extremes over land remains unclear. In this study, the role of sea-surface temperature (SST)-forcing is investigated for variability and trends in a range of commonly used temperature and precipitation extreme indices over the period 1959 to 2013. Using atmospheric simulations forced by observed SST and sea-ice concentrations (SIC) from three models participating in the Climate of the Twentieth Century Plus (C20C+) Project, results show that oceanic boundary conditions drive a substantial fraction of inter-annual variability in global average temperature extreme indices, as well as, to a lower extent, for precipitation extremes. The observed trends in temperature extremes are generally well captured by the SST-forced simulations although some regional features such as the lack of warming in daytime warm temperature extremes over South America are not reproduced in the model simulations. Furthermore, the models simulate too strong increases in warm day frequency compared to observations over North America. For extreme precipitation trends, the accuracy of the simulated trend pattern is regionally variable, and a thorough assessment is difficult due to the lack of locally significant trends in the observations. This study shows that prescribing SST and SIC holds potential predictability for extremes in some (mainly tropical) regions at the inter-annual time-scale. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dittus, AJ Karoly, DJ Donat, MG Lewis, SC Alexander, LV |
author_facet |
Dittus, AJ Karoly, DJ Donat, MG Lewis, SC Alexander, LV |
author_sort |
Dittus, AJ |
title |
Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
title_short |
Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
title_full |
Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
title_fullStr |
Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
title_sort |
understanding the role of sea surface temperature-forcing for variability in global temperature and precipitation extremes |
publisher |
Elsevier |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_51219 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 |
genre |
Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Sea ice |
op_source |
urn:ISSN:2212-0947 Weather and Climate Extremes, 21, 1-9 |
op_relation |
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE160100092 http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/unsworks_51219 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 |
op_rights |
metadata only access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb CC-BY-NC-ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2018.06.002 |
container_title |
Weather and Climate Extremes |
container_volume |
21 |
container_start_page |
1 |
op_container_end_page |
9 |
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1799466596020781056 |