Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Abstract
Abstract Observed surface air temperatures over the contiguous U.S. for the second half of the twentieth century showed a slight cooling over the southeastern part of the country, the so‐called “warming hole,” while temperatures over the rest of the country warmed. This pattern reversed after 2000. Climate model simulations show that the disappearance of the warming hole in the early 2000s is likely associated with the transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) phase from positive to negative in the tropical Pacific in the late 1990s, coincident with the early 2000s slowdown of the warming trend in globally averaged surface air temperature. Analysis of a specified convective heating anomaly sensitivity experiment in an atmosphere‐only model traces the disappearance of the warming hole to negative sea surface temperature anomalies and consequent negative precipitation and convective heating anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean associated with the negative phase of the IPO after 2000.
- Authors:
-
- National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder Colorado USA
- National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder Colorado USA, Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne Victoria Australia
- Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne Victoria Australia
- Publication Date:
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1785805
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FC02-97ER62402
- Resource Type:
- Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Volume: 42 Journal Issue: 13; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Citation Formats
Meehl, Gerald A., Arblaster, Julie M., and Chung, Christine T. Y. Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1002/2015GL064586.
Meehl, Gerald A., Arblaster, Julie M., & Chung, Christine T. Y. Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064586
Meehl, Gerald A., Arblaster, Julie M., and Chung, Christine T. Y. Tue .
"Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064586.
@article{osti_1785805,
title = {Disappearance of the southeast U.S. “warming hole” with the late 1990s transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation},
author = {Meehl, Gerald A. and Arblaster, Julie M. and Chung, Christine T. Y.},
abstractNote = {Abstract Observed surface air temperatures over the contiguous U.S. for the second half of the twentieth century showed a slight cooling over the southeastern part of the country, the so‐called “warming hole,” while temperatures over the rest of the country warmed. This pattern reversed after 2000. Climate model simulations show that the disappearance of the warming hole in the early 2000s is likely associated with the transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) phase from positive to negative in the tropical Pacific in the late 1990s, coincident with the early 2000s slowdown of the warming trend in globally averaged surface air temperature. Analysis of a specified convective heating anomaly sensitivity experiment in an atmosphere‐only model traces the disappearance of the warming hole to negative sea surface temperature anomalies and consequent negative precipitation and convective heating anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean associated with the negative phase of the IPO after 2000.},
doi = {10.1002/2015GL064586},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 13,
volume = 42,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jul 14 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Tue Jul 14 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064586
Works referenced in this record:
Influence of Modes of Climate Variability on Global Temperature Extremes
journal, August 2008
- Kenyon, Jesse; Hegerl, Gabriele C.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 21, Issue 15
Mechanisms Contributing to the Warming Hole and the Consequent U.S. East–West Differential of Heat Extremes
journal, September 2012
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Arblaster, Julie M.; Branstator, Grant
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 25, Issue 18
Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling
journal, August 2013
- Kosaka, Yu; Xie, Shang-Ping
- Nature, Vol. 501, Issue 7467
Attribution of the Seasonality and Regionality in Climate Trends over the United States during 1950–2000
journal, May 2009
- Wang, Hailan; Schubert, Siegfried; Suarez, Max
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 22, Issue 10
The Dynamical Simulation of the Community Atmosphere Model Version 3 (CAM3)
journal, June 2006
- Hurrell, James W.; Hack, James J.; Phillips, Adam S.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, Issue 11
Multidecadal Climate Variability and the “Warming Hole” in North America: Results from CMIP5 Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Climate Simulations*
journal, May 2013
- Kumar, Sanjiv; Kinter, James; Dirmeyer, Paul A.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 11
Externally Forced and Internally Generated Decadal Climate Variability Associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
journal, September 2013
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Hu, Aixue; Arblaster, Julie M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 18
Relating the strength of the tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO) to the phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)
journal, October 2012
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Arblaster, Julie M.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 39, Issue 20
Is a Decline of AMOC Causing the Warming Hole above the North Atlantic in Observed and Modeled Warming Patterns?
journal, December 2012
- Drijfhout, Sybren; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan; Cimatoribus, Andrea
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 25, Issue 24
Climatic effects of 1950–2050 changes in US anthropogenic aerosols – Part 2: Climate response
journal, January 2012
- Leibensperger, E. M.; Mickley, L. J.; Jacob, D. J.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 7
Critical influence of the pattern of Tropical Ocean warming on remote climate trends
journal, January 2010
- Shin, Sang-Ik; Sardeshmukh, Prashant D.
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 36, Issue 7-8
Can CGCMs Simulate the Twentieth-Century “Warming Hole” in the Central United States?
journal, September 2006
- Kunkel, Kenneth E.; Liang, Xin-Zhong; Zhu, Jinhong
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, Issue 17
Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: A new data set from 1850
journal, January 2006
- Brohan, P.; Kennedy, J. J.; Harris, I.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 111, Issue D12
On the potential of extratropical SST anomalies for improving climate predictions
journal, November 2014
- Kumar, Arun; Wang, Hui
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 44, Issue 9-10
Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods
journal, September 2011
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Arblaster, Julie M.; Fasullo, John T.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 1, Issue 7
An Improved In Situ and Satellite SST Analysis for Climate
journal, July 2002
- Reynolds, Richard W.; Rayner, Nick A.; Smith, Thomas M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 15, Issue 13
Equifinality, data assimilation, and uncertainty estimation in mechanistic modelling of complex environmental systems using the GLUE methodology
journal, August 2001
- Beven, Keith; Freer, Jim
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 249, Issue 1-4
Multimodel Assessment of Regional Surface Temperature Trends: CMIP3 and CMIP5 Twentieth-Century Simulations
journal, November 2013
- Knutson, Thomas R.; Zeng, Fanrong; Wittenberg, Andrew T.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 22
Attribution of the United States “warming hole”: Aerosol indirect effect and precipitable water vapor
journal, November 2014
- Yu, Shaocai; Alapaty, Kiran; Mathur, Rohit
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Intermodel Variability and Mechanism Attribution of Central and Southeastern U.S. Anomalous Cooling in the Twentieth Century as Simulated by CMIP5 Models
journal, August 2013
- Pan, Zaitao; Liu, Xiaodong; Kumar, Sanjiv
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 17
Spatial and seasonal patterns in climate change, temperatures, and precipitation across the United States
journal, April 2009
- Portmann, R. W.; Solomon, S.; Hegerl, G. C.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, Issue 18
Altered hydrologic feedback in a warming climate introduces a “warming hole”: ALTERED FEEDBACK IN A WARMING CLIMATE
journal, September 2004
- Pan, Zaitao; Arritt, Raymond W.; Takle, Eugene S.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, Issue 17
Decadal phase change in large-scale sea level and winds in the Indo-Pacific region at the end of the 20th century
journal, January 2008
- Lee, Tong; McPhaden, Michael J.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, Issue 1
The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system
journal, April 2011
- Dee, D. P.; Uppala, S. M.; Simmons, A. J.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 137, Issue 656
General circulation model simulations of recent cooling in the east-central United States
journal, January 2002
- Robinson, Walter A.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 107, Issue D24
Evaluation of Temperature and Precipitation Trends and Long-Term Persistence in CMIP5 Twentieth-Century Climate Simulations
journal, June 2013
- Kumar, Sanjiv; Merwade, Venkatesh; Kinter, James L.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 12
Inter-decadal modulation of the impact of ENSO on Australia
journal, May 1999
- Power, S.; Casey, T.; Folland, C.
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 15, Issue 5
The Mid-1970s Climate Shift in the Pacific and the Relative Roles of Forced versus Inherent Decadal Variability
journal, February 2009
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Hu, Aixue; Santer, Benjamin D.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 22, Issue 3