Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The eastward shift of the Walker Circulation in response to global warming and its relationship to ENSO variability

  • Published:
Climate Dynamics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study investigates the global warming response of the Walker Circulation and the other zonal circulation cells (represented by the zonal stream function), in CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate models. The changes in the mean state are presented as well as the changes in the modes of variability. The mean zonal circulation weakens in the multi model ensembles nearly everywhere along the equator under both the RCP4.5 and SRES A1B scenarios. Over the Pacific the Walker Circulation also shows a significant eastward shift. These changes in the mean circulation are very similar to the leading mode of interannual variability in the tropical zonal circulation cells, which is dominated by El Niño Southern Oscillation variability. During an El Niño event the circulation weakens and the rising branch over the Maritime Continent shifts to the east in comparison to neutral conditions (vice versa for a La Niña event). Two-thirds of the global warming forced trend of the Walker Circulation can be explained by a long-term trend in this interannual variability pattern, i.e. a shift towards more El Niño-like conditions in the multi-model mean under global warming. Further, interannual variability in the zonal circulation exhibits an asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña events. El Niño anomalies are located more to the east compared with La Niña anomalies. Consistent with this asymmetry we find a shift to the east of the dominant mode of variability of zonal stream function under global warming. All these results vary among the individual models, but the multi model ensembles of CMIP3 and CMIP5 show in nearly all aspects very similar results, which underline the robustness of these results. The observed data (ERA Interim reanalysis) from 1979 to 2012 shows a westward shift and strengthening of the Walker Circulation. This is opposite to what the results in the CMIP models reveal. However, 75 % of the trend of the Walker Circulation can again be explained by a shift of the dominant mode of variability, but here towards more La Niña-like conditions. Thus in both climate change projections and observations the long-term trends of the Walker Circulation seem to follow to a large part the pre-existing dominant mode of internal variability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bayr T, Dommenget D (2013a) The tropospheric land-sea warming contrast as the driver of tropical sea level pressure changes. J Clim 26:1387–1402. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00731.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bayr T, Dommenget D (2013b) Comparing the spatial structure of variability in two datasets against each other on the basis of EOF-modes. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1708-x

  • Bengtsson L, Hodges KI (2009) On the evaluation of temperature trends in the tropical troposphere. Clim Dyn 36:419–430. doi:10.1007/s00382-009-0680-y

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bretherton CS, Widmann M, Dymnikov VP, Wallace JM, Bladé I (1999) The effective number of spatial degrees of freedom of a time-varying field. J Clim 12:1990–2009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clement AC, Seager R, Cane MA, Zebiak SE (1996) An ocean dynamical thermostat. J Clim 9:2190–2196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiNezio PN, Clement AC, Vecchi GA, Soden BJ, Kirtman BP, Lee S-K (2009) Climate response of the equatorial pacific to global warming. J Clim 22:4873–4892. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2982.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiNezio PN, Clement A, Vecchi GA, Soden B, Broccoli AJ, Otto-Bliesner BL, Braconnot P (2011) The response of the Walker circulation to Last Glacial Maximum forcing: Implications for detection in proxies. Paleoceanography 26. doi:10.1029/2010PA002083

  • DiNezio PN, Vecchi GA, Clement AC (2013) Detectability of changes in the Walker circulation in response to global warming. J Clim 130114154537002, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00531.1

  • Dommenget D, Bayr T, Frauen C (2013) Analysis of the non-linearity in the pattern and time evolution of El Niño southern oscillation. Clim Dyn 40:2825–2847. doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1475-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frauen C, Dommenget D (2010) El Niño and La Niña amplitude asymmetry caused by atmospheric feedbacks. Geophys Res Lett 37:L18801. doi:10.1029/2010GL044444

    Google Scholar 

  • Haarsma RJ, Selten F (2012) Anthropogenic changes in the Walker circulation and their impact on the extra-tropical planetary wave structure in the Northern Hemisphere. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1308-1

  • Hastenrath S (1985) Climate and circulation of the tropics. D. Reisel Publishing Company, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Held IM, Soden BJ (2006) Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. J Clim 19:5686–5699. doi:10.1175/JCLI3990.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoerling MP, Kumar A, Zhong M (1997) El Niño, La Niña, and the nonlinearity of their teleconnections. J Clim 10:1769–1786. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<1769:ENOLNA>2.0.CO;2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kang I-S, Kug J-S (2002) El Niño and La Niña sea surface temperature anomalies: asymmetry characteristics associated with their wind stress anomalies. J Geophys Res 107:4372. doi:10.1029/2001JD000393

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knutson TR, Manabe S (1995) Time-mean response over the tropical Pacific to increased c0 2 in a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. J Clim 8:2181–2199. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(1995)008<2181:TMROTT>2.0.CO;2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kosaka Y, Xie S-P (2013) Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature12534

    Google Scholar 

  • Latif, M, Keenlyside NS (2009) El Niño/Southern Oscillation response to global warming. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(49): 20578–20583

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • L’Heureux ML, Lee S, Lyon B (2013) Recent multidecadal strengthening of the Walker circulation across the tropical Pacific. Nat Clim Change 3:1–6. doi:10.1038/nclimate1840

    Google Scholar 

  • Luo J–J, Sasaki W, Masumoto Y (2012) Indian Ocean warming modulates Pacific climate change. Natl Acad Sci, Proc. doi:10.1073/pnas.1210239109

    Google Scholar 

  • Meehl G, Washington W (1996) El Niño-like climate change in a model with increased atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Nature 382:56–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meehl GA, Covey C, Delworth T, Latif M, McAvaney B, Mitchell JFB, Stouffer RJ, Taylor KE (2007) THE WCRP CMIP3 multimodel dataset: a new era in climate change research. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 88:1383. doi:10.1175/BAMS-88-9-1383

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meng Q, Latif M, Park W, Keenlyside NS, Semenov VA, Martin T (2011) Twentieth century Walker Circulation change: data analysis and model experiments. Clim Dyn 1–17. doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1047-8

  • North GR, Bell TL, Cahalan RF (1982) Sampling errors in the estimation of empirical orthogonal functions. Mon Weather Rev 110:699–706

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Philander S (1990) El Niño, La Niña, and the southern oscillation. Academic, San Diego

    Google Scholar 

  • Philip S, van Oldenborgh GJ (2009) Significant atmospheric nonlinearities in the ENSO Cycle. J Clim 22:4014–4028. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2716.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Power SB, Kociuba G (2010) The impact of global warming on the Southern Oscillation Index. Clim Dyn 37:1745–1754. doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0951-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Power SB, Kociuba G (2011) What caused the observed 20th century weakening of the Walker circulation? J Clim. 110629145325000. doi:10.1175/2011JCLI4101.1

  • Power S, Casey T, Folland C, Colman A, Mehta V (1999) Inter-decadal modulation of the impact of ENSO on Australia. Clim Dyn 15:319–324

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodgers KB, Friederichs P, Latif M (2004) Tropical Pacific decadal variability and its relation to decadal modulations of ENSO. J Clim 17:3761–3774. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<3761:TPDVAI>2.0.CO;2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwendike J, Govekar P, Reeder MJ, Wardle R, Berry GJ, Jakob C (2014) Local partitioning of the overturning circulation in the tropics and the connection to the Hadley and Walker circulation. J Geophys Res Atmos. doi:10.1002/2013JD020742

    Google Scholar 

  • Simmons A, Uppala S, Dee D, Kobayashi S (2007) ERA-Interim: new ECMWF reanalysis products from 1989 onwards. ECMWF Newsl 110:25–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh MS, O’Gorman PA (2012) Upward shift of the atmospheric general circulation under global warming: theory and Simulations. J Clim 25:8259–8276. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00699.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sohn BJ, Park S-C (2010) Strengthened tropical circulations in past three decades inferred from water vapor transport. J Geophys Res 115:D15112. doi:10.1029/2009JD013713

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solomon A, Newman M (2012) Reconciling disparate twentieth-century Indo-Pacific ocean temperature trends in the instrumental record. Nat Clim Change 2:691–699. doi:10.1038/nclimate1591

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor KE, Stouffer RJ, Meehl GA (2012) An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 93:485–498. doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tokinaga H, Xie S-P, Deser C, Kosaka Y, Okumura YM (2012a) Slowdown of the Walker circulation driven by tropical Indo-Pacific warming. Nature 491:439–443. doi:10.1038/nature11576

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tokinaga H, Xie S-P, Timmermann A, McGregor S, Ogata T, Kubota H, Okumura YM (2012b) Regional patterns of tropical Indo-Pacific climate change: evidence of the Walker circulation weakening*. J Clim 25:1689–1710. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00263.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vecchi GA, Soden BJ (2007) Global warming and the weakening of the tropical circulation. J Clim 20:4316–4340. doi:10.1175/JCLI4258.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vecchi GA, Soden BJ, Wittenberg AT, Held IM, Leetmaa A, Harrison MJ (2006) Weakening of tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation due to anthropogenic forcing. Nature 441:73–76. doi:10.1038/nature04744

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yu J-Y, Kim ST (2011) Reversed spatial asymmetries between El Niño and La Niña and their linkage to decadal ENSO modulation in CMIP3 models. J Clim. 110506133859050. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11-0024.1

  • Yu B, Zwiers FW (2010) Changes in equatorial atmospheric zonal circulations in recent decades. Geophys Res Lett 37:L05701

    Google Scholar 

  • Yu B, Zwiers FW, Boer GJ, Ting MF (2012) Structure and variances of equatorial zonal circulation in a multimodel ensemble. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-012-1372-6

Download references

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the World Climate Research Program’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling, the individual modeling groups of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5) and ECMWF for providing the data sets. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through project DO1038/5-1, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science (CE110001028), the ARC project “Beyond the linear dynamics of the El Nino Southern Oscillation” (DP120101442), the RACE Project of BMBF, the NACLIM Project of the European Union and the Australian Climate Change Science Program. We thank Hanh Nguyen for providing the code to calculate the zonal stream function and Hardi Bordbar, Sabine Haase and the anonymous reviewers for discussion and useful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105, Kiel, Germany

    Tobias Bayr & Thomas Martin

  2. School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Dietmar Dommenget

  3. Bureau of Meteorology, CAWCR, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

    Scott B. Power

Authors
  1. Tobias Bayr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dietmar Dommenget
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Thomas Martin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Scott B. Power
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tobias Bayr.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bayr, T., Dommenget, D., Martin, T. et al. The eastward shift of the Walker Circulation in response to global warming and its relationship to ENSO variability. Clim Dyn 43, 2747–2763 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2091-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2091-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation