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Seasonally dependent responses of subtropical highs and tropical rainfall to anthropogenic warming

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Abstract

The subtropical highs are semi-permanent atmospheric features that strengthen during April–September, exerting a large influence on regional rainfall1,2,3,4,5. Previous studies have focused on the changes of subtropical highs during their peak season (June–August)6,7,8, but little is known about their changes in other seasons. Here, a suite of multi-model simulations are used to demonstrate the robust seasonally dependent responses of subtropical highs and tropical rainfall to anthropogenic warming. The zonal-mean subtropical highs in the Northern Hemisphere are shown to strengthen more during April–June than July–September, with opposite responses for the Southern Hemisphere counterparts. These responses are closely related to a southward shift of tropical rainfall in April–June relative to July–September, manifesting in a seasonal delay of tropical rainfall and monsoon onset in the Northern Hemisphere9,10. Such seasonality is found to occur in response to elevated latent energy demand in the hemisphere warming up seasonally, as dictated by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. The interhemispheric energy contrast drives a southward shift of tropical rainfall that strengthens the Hadley cell and zonal-mean subtropical highs in the Northern Hemisphere in April–June relative to July–September. These changes scale linearly with warming, with increasing implications for projecting climate changes in the tropics and subtropics as warming continues.

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Fig. 1: Seasonal dependence of the changes in the zonal-mean subtropical highs under global warming.
Fig. 2: The seasonal delay of tropical precipitation under global warming.
Fig. 3: The difference of zonal-mean precipitation and atmospheric circulation changes between AMJ and JAS under global warming.
Fig. 4: The difference in atmospheric energy change between AMJ and JAS under the indirect SST warming.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research as part of the Regional and Global Climate Modeling Program. This work has benefited from discussions with Z. Feng, R. A. Houze Jr, C. He and W. Zhou. PNNL is operated for the Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Program’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling, which is responsible for CMIP, and thank the climate modelling groups (listed in Supplementary Table 1) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the US DOE’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) provides coordinating support and led the development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

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  1. Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Fengfei Song, L. Ruby Leung, Jian Lu & Lu Dong

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  1. Fengfei Song
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  2. L. Ruby Leung
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  3. Jian Lu
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Contributions

L.R.L. and F.S. designed the research. F.S. performed the analysis alongside discussions with all other authors. F.S. and L.D. performed the theoretical derivation. J.L. contributed to improving the analysis and interpretation. F.S. wrote the first draft of this paper. All authors discussed and commented on the paper.

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Correspondence to Fengfei Song or L. Ruby Leung.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Figures 1–14

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Song, F., Leung, L.R., Lu, J. et al. Seasonally dependent responses of subtropical highs and tropical rainfall to anthropogenic warming. Nature Clim Change 8, 787–792 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0244-4

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