The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability
Abstract
Decadal climate predictability in the North Atlantic is largely related to ocean low frequency variability, whose sensitivity to initial conditions is not very well understood. Recently, three-dimensional oceanic temperature anomalies optimally perturbing the North Atlantic Mean Temperature (NAMT) have been computed via an optimization procedure using a linear adjoint to a realistic ocean general circulation model. The spatial pattern of the identified perturbations, localized in the North Atlantic, has the largest magnitude between 1000 and 4000 m depth. In the present study, the impacts of these perturbations on NAMT, on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and on climate in general are investigated in a global coupled model that uses the same ocean model as was used to compute the three-dimensional optimal perturbations. In the coupled model, these perturbations induce AMOC and NAMT anomalies peaking after 5 and 10 years, respectively, generally consistent with the ocean-only linear predictions. To further understand their impact, their magnitude was varied in a broad range. For initial perturbations with a magnitude comparable to the internal variability of the coupled model, the model response exhibits a strong signature in sea surface temperature and precipitation over North America and the Sahel region. The existence and impactsmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
- National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (United Kingdom)
- Univ. of Southampton, Southampton (United Kingdom)
- Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France). LOCEAN Lab. Inst. Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL)
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
- Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France). LOCEAN Lab. Inst. Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL)
- Univ. of Bordeaux, Pessac (France). Environnements et Paléoenvironnements Océaniques et Continentaux (EPOC)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1507092
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0016538
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Climate Dynamics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 51; Journal Issue: 5-6; Journal ID: ISSN 0930-7575
- Publisher:
- Springer-Verlag
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Decadal climate predictability; Initial condition uncertainties; Linear optimal perturbations; North Atlantic variability; Atlantic meridional overturning circulation; IPSL-CM5A
Citation Formats
Germe, Agathe, Sévellec, Florian, Mignot, Juliette, Fedorov, Alexey, Nguyen, Sébastien, and Swingedouw, Didier. The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1007/s00382-017-4016-z.
Germe, Agathe, Sévellec, Florian, Mignot, Juliette, Fedorov, Alexey, Nguyen, Sébastien, & Swingedouw, Didier. The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-4016-z
Germe, Agathe, Sévellec, Florian, Mignot, Juliette, Fedorov, Alexey, Nguyen, Sébastien, and Swingedouw, Didier. Tue .
"The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-4016-z. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1507092.
@article{osti_1507092,
title = {The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability},
author = {Germe, Agathe and Sévellec, Florian and Mignot, Juliette and Fedorov, Alexey and Nguyen, Sébastien and Swingedouw, Didier},
abstractNote = {Decadal climate predictability in the North Atlantic is largely related to ocean low frequency variability, whose sensitivity to initial conditions is not very well understood. Recently, three-dimensional oceanic temperature anomalies optimally perturbing the North Atlantic Mean Temperature (NAMT) have been computed via an optimization procedure using a linear adjoint to a realistic ocean general circulation model. The spatial pattern of the identified perturbations, localized in the North Atlantic, has the largest magnitude between 1000 and 4000 m depth. In the present study, the impacts of these perturbations on NAMT, on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and on climate in general are investigated in a global coupled model that uses the same ocean model as was used to compute the three-dimensional optimal perturbations. In the coupled model, these perturbations induce AMOC and NAMT anomalies peaking after 5 and 10 years, respectively, generally consistent with the ocean-only linear predictions. To further understand their impact, their magnitude was varied in a broad range. For initial perturbations with a magnitude comparable to the internal variability of the coupled model, the model response exhibits a strong signature in sea surface temperature and precipitation over North America and the Sahel region. The existence and impacts of these ocean perturbations have important implications for decadal prediction: they can be seen either as a source of predictability or uncertainty, depending on whether the current observing system can detect them or not. In fact, comparing the magnitude of the imposed perturbations with the uncertainty of available ocean observations such as Argo data or ocean state estimates suggests that only the largest perturbations used in this study could be detectable. This highlights the importance for decadal climate prediction of accurate ocean density initialisation in the North Atlantic at intermediate and greater depths.},
doi = {10.1007/s00382-017-4016-z},
journal = {Climate Dynamics},
number = 5-6,
volume = 51,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Dec 19 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Tue Dec 19 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}
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