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Mechanisms of internally generated decadal-to-multidecadal variability of SST in the Atlantic Ocean in a coupled GCM

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Abstract

Mechanisms of the internally generated decadal-to-multidecadal variability of SST in the Atlantic Ocean are investigated in a long control simulation of the Community Climate System Model version 3 with constant external forcing. The interactive ensemble (IE) coupling strategy, with an ensemble of atmospheric GCMs (AGCM) coupled to an ocean model, a sea-ice model and a land model, is used to diagnose the roles of various processes in the coupled GCM (CGCM). The noise components of heat flux, wind stress and fresh water flux of the control simulation, determined from the CGCM surface fluxes by subtracting the SST-forced surface fluxes, estimated as the ensemble mean of AGCM simulations, are applied at the ocean surface of the IE in different regions and in different combinations. The IE simulations demonstrate that the climate variability in the control simulation is predominantly forced by noise. The local noise forcing is found to be responsible for the SST variability in the Atlantic Ocean, with noise heat flux and noise wind stress playing a critical role. The control run Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) index is decomposed into interannual, decadal and multidecadal modes based on the ensemble empirical mode decomposition. The AMV multidecadal mode, a combination of 50- and 100-year modes, is examined in detail. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern in the atmosphere, dominated by the noise component, forces the multidecadal mode through noise heat flux and noise wind stress. The noise wind stress forcing on the multidecadal mode is associated with ocean dynamics, including gyre adjustment and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMV decadal mode is also found to be related to noise NAO forcing. The associated ocean dynamics are connected with both noise heat flux and noise wind stress, but the AMOC related to the decadal mode is more likely to be forced by noise heat flux. For both multidecadal and decadal modes, the atmospheric response to SST, including the SST-forced heat flux and SST-forced wind stress, acts as a damping.

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Acknowledgments

The contributions of Chen and Schneider were supported by NSF Grants ATM-0653123 and AGS-1137902. Chen was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41405052). Schneider was also supported by NSF Grants ATM-0830068 and ATM-0830062, NOAA Grant NA09OAR4310058, and NASA Grant NNX09AN50G. Chen and Wu were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91437216). Chen was also supported by the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (No. S8113045001). The NCAR CISL and the NASA HEC Program provided computer resources for the simulations. Data analyses and plotting were done using GrADS. We would like to thank Dr. Gokhan Danabasoglu and Dr. Martha Buckley for useful comments. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments on this work. This is publication No. 049 of the Earth System Modeling Center (ESMC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth System Modeling Center and Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Hua Chen & Zhiwei Wu

  2. Department of Atmospheric Oceanic and Earth Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Edwin K. Schneider

  3. Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, Institute of Global Environment and Society, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Edwin K. Schneider

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  1. Hua Chen
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Correspondence to Hua Chen.

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Chen, H., Schneider, E.K. & Wu, Z. Mechanisms of internally generated decadal-to-multidecadal variability of SST in the Atlantic Ocean in a coupled GCM. Clim Dyn 46, 1517–1546 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2660-8

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