1 Correction to: Climate Dynamics (2022) 59:433–454 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06136-0

In the original version of the article, Sect. 5.2. Conclusions was mislabelled as Sect. 6 with incorrect format. The following is the correct format of conclusions:


5.2 Conclusions


The future projection of the winter SLP in the northeastern Pacific and the northeastern Atlantic has a large inter-model spread, which covaries with the large-scale SST gradients and the total Arctic sea ice extent. In this study, sensitivity experiments using CAM4 and IFS have revealed that atmospheric responses to the same SST and SIC perturbation patterns (related to the SLP uncertainties) are generally large, with more coherent responses over the oceans (in terms of the sign of response) than remote regions (especially the continental regions). Specifically, we have learnt the following points:

  1. (1)

    Possible dynamics responsible for the SLP uncertainty in the ten CMIP5 models:

    • The uncertainty in the forced SLP response over the northeastern Pacific is significantly larger than the uncertainty related to internal climate variability. Uncertainties in the SST response to global warming (i.e., SST perturbation) can better explain this uncertainty in SLP, through tropical–midlatitude interaction and the propagation of a Rossby wavetrain towards North America. The relative contribution from the tropical and extratropical Pacific should be investigated in future;

    • The uncertainty in the forced SLP response over the northeastern Atlantic is of similar strength as internal climate variability and is even weaker than it at high latitudes. This uncertainty is better explained by the combined effect of SST and SIC perturbations. It appears to be related to a Rossby wavetrain from the North Pacific and with local air-sea interaction, with the first more important in CAM4 and the second more important in IFS. The relative contribution from the inter-basin teleconnection between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic and the local air-sea interaction deserves future work.

  2. (2)

    The spatial pattern of AGCM simulations is not the same as the CMIP5 inter-model difference. The discrepancy suggests that future projections of the winter SLP might only have slight improvements by constraining only the SST and SIC projections. We should investigate other factors contributing to the inter-model spread in the winter SLP (e.g., differences among AGCMs and in representing coupled dynamics) in order to provide more accurate climate projections.

  3. (3)

    The uncertainties over the northern hemisphere continents and at high latitudes appear to depend sensitively on the atmospheric model. Furthermore, the response to SST and SIC perturbations can be non-linear in some models (e.g., IFS), while quite linear in others (e.g., CAM4). Further work is required to understand the uncertainties arising from atmospheric model differences. We should be cautious when using a single climate model to understand the physical mechanism responsible for the uncertainty in future climate projections from multiple models.

One limitation of our study is that the uncertainty in future climate projections is computed from only ten CMIP5 models with only three ensemble members, where these models have more substantial weakening in the Icelandic low than the whole CMIP5 models. The SLP pattern from the inter-model EOF analysis, as well as the corresponding SST and SIC patterns, might also be sensitive to the number of models. Ideally, more models with more ensemble members are required to separate the forced response from the internal climate variability, especially for the northeastern Atlantic and the Arctic. Nevertheless, we believe the results here should motivate further studies to understand the inter-model spread of the future climate projections, e.g. using large ensembles as mentioned in Deser et al. (2020) and Peings et al. 2021. Our results suggest it is important to better assess the relative contribution of tropical and extratropical SST to the spread in future climate projections, as well as the role of the eddy forcing. It is also important to study the role of ocean dynamics (Woollings et al. 2012; Omrani et al. 2016), the troposphere–stratosphere interaction using more high-top models (three out of ten in this study) (Charlton-Perez et al. 2013; Manzini et al. 2014; Omrani et al. 2014; De and Wu 2019), internal climate variability (Deser et al. 2012, 2020) and forced variability to the future climate projections, especially over the North Atlantic and high latitudes.

The original article has been corrected.