Abstract
The study examines the influence of external climate forcings, and atmosphere–ocean–sea–ice coupled interaction on the Southern Hemisphere (SH) atmospheric circulation variability. We analysed observed and simulated changes in view of Antarctic sea–ice and Southern Ocean surface temperature trends over recent decades. The experiment embraces both idealised and comprehensive methods that involves an Earth System Model (ESM) prototype. The sensitivity experiment is conducted in a manner that decomposes the signatures of sea–ice, sea surface temperature and feedback mechanisms. The results reveal that the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) multidecadal variability is found to be modulated by coupled interactions whereas its sub-seasonal to interannual vacillation seems to follow a random trajectory. The latter may strengthen the notion that its predictability is limited even with the use of ESMs. Most of the atmospheric circulation variability and recent changes may be explained by the ocean thermal forcing and coupled interactions. However, the influence of sea–ice forcing alone is largely indistinguishable and predominantly localised in nature. The result also confirms that the Antarctic dipole-like sea–ice pattern, a leading climate mode in the SH, has intensified in the last three decades irrespective of season. The probable indication is that processes within the Southern Ocean may play a key role, which deserves further investigation.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) for providing computational facility. The work is supported by the National Research foundation (NRF, Grant No: 114689) through the Alliance for Collaboration on Climate & Earth Systems Science (ACCESS). We also acknowledge the iDEWS project, which supported the study under the auspices of the Japan Science and Technology Agency/Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development through the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), and the ACCESS in South Africa. The authors also wish to thank the anonymous reviews for their valuable comments. Mostly, NCAR Command Language (NCL) was used for analysis and plotting (https://www.ncl.ucar.edu).
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Beraki, A.F., Morioka, Y., Engelbrecht, F.A. et al. Examining the impact of multiple climate forcings on simulated Southern Hemisphere climate variability. Clim Dyn 54, 4775–4792 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05253-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05253-y