Strengthening tropical Pacific zonal sea surface temperature gradient consistent with rising greenhouse gases
Strengthening tropical Pacific zonal sea surface temperature gradient consistent with rising greenhouse gases
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DOI：
10.1038/s41558-019-0505-x
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发表时间：
2019-07-01
影响因子：
30.7
通讯作者：
Zhang, Honghai
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Seager, Richard;Cane, Mark;Zhang, Honghai
如厄尔尼诺现象所示，热带太平洋强烈影响区域气候及其在世界范围内的变化(1-3)。它还调节了全球气温上升的速度，以应对温室气体的上升(4)。热带太平洋对不断上升的温室气体的反应影响到世界所有人口。最先进的气候模型预测，不断上升的温室气体减少了赤道太平洋从西向东由暖到冷的海面温度梯度(5)。然而，在自然界中，随着温室气体浓度的急剧上升，这种梯度在最近几十年里有所加强(5)。20年来，模型和观测之间的这种明显差异一直困扰着气候研究界。在这里，通过回到热带海洋-大气系统的基本动力学和热力学，并避免模型偏差的来源，我们表明，热带太平洋动力学的简约公式产生了与观测一致的响应，并可归因于温室气体上升。我们用同样的动力学来证明，最先进的模型中的错误变暖是他们赤道冷舌偏冷的结果。最先进的模型未能捕捉到正确的反应，这给它们对许多对热带太平洋海面温度敏感的区域的气候变化预测带来了严重误差。
As exemplified by El Nino, the tropical Pacific Ocean strongly influences regional climates and their variability worldwide(1-3). It also regulates the rate of global temperature rise in response to rising GHGs(4). The tropical Pacific Ocean response to rising GHGs impacts all of the world's population. State-of-the-art climate models predict that rising GHGs reduce the west-to-east warm-to-cool sea surface temperature gradient across the equatorial Pacific(5). In nature, however, the gradient has strengthened in recent decades as GHG concentrations have risen sharply(5). This stark discrepancy between models and observations has troubled the climate research community for two decades. Here, by returning to the fundamental dynamics and thermodynamics of the tropical ocean-atmosphere system, and avoiding sources of model bias, we show that a parsimonious formulation of tropical Pacific dynamics yields a response that is consistent with observations and attributable to rising GHGs. We use the same dynamics to show that the erroneous warming in state-of-the-art models is a consequence of the cold bias of their equatorial cold tongues. The failure of state-of-the-art models to capture the correct response introduces critical error into their projections of climate change in the many regions sensitive to tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures.