skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Spatial and temporal agreement in climate model simulations of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [1];  [3];  [6];  [1];  [7]
  1. Univ. of Melbourne, VIC (Australia). School of Earth Sciences; Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Melbourne, VIC (Australia)
  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  3. Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, VIC (Australia)
  4. Met Office, Exeter (United Kingdom). Hadley Centre; Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich (United Kingdom). School of Environmental Sciences; Univ. of Gothenburg (Sweden). Dept. of Earth Sciences; Univ. of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD (Australia). International Centre for Applied Climate Sciences
  5. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Agriculture and Food, Hobart, TAS (Australia)
  6. Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Melbourne, VIC (Australia); Monash Univ., Melbourne, VIC (Australia). School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
  7. Univ. of Bern (Switzerland). Inst. of Geography. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research
+ Show Author Affiliations

Accelerated warming and hiatus periods in the long-term rise of Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) have, in recent decades, been associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). Critically, decadal climate prediction relies on the skill of state-of-the-art climate models to reliably represent these low-frequency climate variations. We undertake a systematic evaluation of the simulation of the IPO in the suite of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) models. We track the IPO in pre-industrial (control) and all-forcings (historical) experiments using the IPO tripole index (TPI). The TPI is explicitly aligned with the observed spatial pattern of the IPO, and circumvents assumptions about the nature of global warming. We find that many models underestimate the ratio of decadal-to-total variance in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). However, the basin-wide spatial pattern of positive and negative phases of the IPO are simulated reasonably well, with spatial pattern correlation coefficients between observations and models spanning the range 0.4–0.8. Deficiencies are mainly in the extratropical Pacific. Models that better capture the spatial pattern of the IPO also tend to more realistically simulate the ratio of decadal to total variance. Of the 13% of model centuries that have a fractional bias in the decadal-to-total TPI variance of 0.2 or less, 84% also have a spatial pattern correlation coefficient with the observed pattern exceeding 0.5. This result is highly consistent across both IPO positive and negative phases. This is evidence that the IPO is related to one or more inherent dynamical mechanisms of the climate system.

Research Organization:
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States); Univ. of Melbourne, VIC (Australia); Univ. of Bern (Switzerland); Met Office, Exeter (United Kingdom)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF); Australian Research Council (ARC) (Australia); Dept. for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (United Kingdom); Dept. for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (United Kingdom); Swiss National Science Foundation (NSF) (Switzerland)
Contributing Organization:
Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Melbourne, VIC (Australia); Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, VIC (Australia); Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich (United Kingdom); Univ. of Gothenburg (Sweden); Univ. of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD (Australia); Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Agriculture and Food, Hobart, TAS (Australia); Monash Univ., Melbourne, VIC (Australia)
Grant/Contract Number:
FC2-97ER62402; LP150100062; CE110001028; GA01101; PZ00P2_154802
OSTI ID:
1361666
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 4; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 50 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (40)

Interdecadal modulation of Australian rainfall journal February 2002
Zonal structure and variability of the Western Pacific dynamic warm pool edge in CMIP5 journal September 2013
ENSO-Like Variability: 1900–2013 journal December 2015
Tree-ring estimates of Pacific decadal climate variability journal December 2001
On the Asian expression of the PDO journal January 2006
Decadal modulation of global surface temperature by internal climate variability journal April 2015
Changes of Pacific decadal variability in the twentieth century driven by internal variability, greenhouse gases, and aerosols journal December 2014
The impact of global warming on the pacific decadal oscillation and the possible mechanism journal December 2013
Pacific interdecadal variability driven by tropical–extratropical interactions journal August 2013
North Pacific decadal variability in the CMIP5 last millennium simulations journal February 2016
Relative influences of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and ENSO on the South Pacific Convergence Zone journal January 2002
North Pacific Decadal Variability and Climate Change in the IPCC AR4 Models journal June 2011
Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown journal February 2016
Mora et al. reply journal July 2014
A Tripole Index for the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation journal March 2015
Climate-informed stochastic hydrological modeling: Incorporating decadal-scale variability using paleo data: CLIMATE-INFORMED STOCHASTIC HYDROLOGICAL MODELING journal November 2011
Bayesian PCA for reconstruction of historical sea surface temperatures conference June 2009
Bayesian modelling and ensemble reconstruction of mid-scale spatial variability in North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures for 1850-2008
  • Karspeck, Alicia R.; Kaplan, Alexey; Sain, Stephan R.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 138, Issue 662 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.900
journal August 2011
Multi-decadal variability of flood risk: MULTI-DECADAL VARIABILITY OF FLOOD RISK journal January 2003
Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling journal August 2013
GCM projections for the Pacific Decadal Oscillation under greenhouse forcing for the early 21st century journal May 2011
Drivers of decadal hiatus periods in the 20th and 21st centuries journal August 2014
Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming journal August 2014
Relating the strength of the tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO) to the phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) journal October 2012
Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods journal September 2011
The Mid-1970s Climate Shift in the Pacific and the Relative Roles of Forced versus Inherent Decadal Variability journal February 2009
Initialized decadal prediction for transition to positive phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation journal June 2016
Megadroughts in the Indian Monsoon Region and Southwest North America and a Mechanism for Associated Multidecadal Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies journal May 2006
CMIP5 multi-model hindcasts for the mid-1970s shift and early 2000s hiatus and predictions for 2016-2035: Meehl and Teng: Initialized hindcasts and predictions journal March 2014
Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming journal September 2014
An Evaluation of Reproducibility of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in the CMIP3 Simulations journal January 2009
Natural climate variability and teleconnections to precipitation over the Pacific-North American region in CMIP3 and CMIP5 models: CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN CMIP5 MODELS journal May 2013
Inter-decadal modulation of the impact of ENSO on Australia journal May 1999
Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006 journal February 2015
The Forcing of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation journal November 2005
Assessing General Circulation Model Simulations of Atmospheric Teleconnection Patterns journal August 2009
How sensitive are the Pacific–tropical North Atlantic teleconnections to the position and intensity of El Niño-related warming? journal June 2015
Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram journal April 2001
Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength journal December 2014
Tropical Pacific and Northern Hemisphere influences on the coherence of Pacific Decadal Oscillation reconstructions: CLIMATE INFLUENCES ON PDO INTER-RECONSTRUCTION COHERENCE journal March 2014

Cited By (12)

Southern African summer-rainfall variability, and its teleconnections, on interannual to interdecadal timescales in CMIP5 models journal March 2019
What Caused the Global Surface Warming Hiatus of 1998–2013? journal March 2017
The Signature of Oceanic Processes in Decadal Extratropical SST Anomalies journal August 2018
Uncertainty in near-term global surface warming linked to tropical Pacific climate variability journal April 2019
Possible causes of data model discrepancy in the temperature history of the last Millennium journal May 2018
Unstable relationship between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and eastern China summer precipitation: Insights from the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age journal February 2020
Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia's major climatic regions journal January 2017
Using paleoclimate reconstructions to analyse hydrological epochs associated with Pacific decadal variability journal January 2018
Using paleoclimate reconstructions to analyse hydrological epochs associated with Pacific Decadal Variability journal April 2018
Possible causes of data model discrepancy in the temperature history of the last Millennium text January 2018
Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era text January 2019
Moving beyond the catchment scale: Value and opportunities in large‐scale hydrology to understand our changing world journal March 2020

Similar Records

Externally Forced and Internally Generated Decadal Climate Variability Associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Journal Article · Mon Sep 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Journal of Climate · OSTI ID:1361666
+2 more
Contributions of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation to Global Ocean Heat Content Distribution
Journal Article · Mon Jan 22 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Journal of Climate · OSTI ID:1361666
Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Journal Article · Tue Jul 14 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geophysical Research Letters · OSTI ID:1361666

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Pacific Decadal Variability
IPO
PDO
CMIP5
model evaluation