Abstract
The surface air temperature (SAT) exhibits pronounced warming over West Antarctica in recent decades, especially in austral spring and winter. Using a 30-member ensemble of simulations by Community Earth System Model (CESM), two reanalysis datasets, and observed station data, this study investigates the relative contributions of internally generated low-frequency climate variability and externally forced climate change to the austral winter SAT trend in Antarctica. Although these simulations share the same external forcing, the SAT trends during 1979–2005 show large diversity among the individual members in the CESM ensemble simulations, suggesting that internally generated variability contributes a considerable part to the multidecadal SAT change in Antarctica. Quantitatively, the total forced contribution to the SAT (1979–2005) change is about 0.53 k/27 yr, and the internal variability can be strong enough to double or cancel the externally forced warming trend. A method called “dynamical adjustment” is utilized to further divide the forced response. We find both the forced thermodynamically-induced and the forced dynamically-induced SAT trends are positive over all the regions in Antarctica, with the regional mean values of 0.20 k /27 yr and 0.33 k/27 yr, respectively. The diversity of SAT trends among the simulations is closely linked to a Southern hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM)-like atmospheric circulation multidecadal change in the Southern Hemisphere. When there exists a positive–negative seesaw of pressure trend between Antarctica and the mid-latitudes, the SAT trend is positive over most of Antarctica but negative over the Antarctic Peninsula, and vice versa. The SAM-like atmospheric circulation multidecadal change mainly arises from atmospheric internal variability rather than remote tropical Sea Surface Temperature (SST).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Xichen Li and Renguang Wu for many useful discussions. We also thank Letian Gu for reviewing a draft of this manuscript and Ruyu Gan for sharing the CESM1 dataset. The study is jointly supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0605904 and 2019YFA0606703), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20060502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41425086, 41831175, 41661144016, 41706026, 41506003, and 41731173), and Key Deployment Project of Centre for Ocean Mega-Research of Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (COMS2019Q03).
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Wang, Y., Huang, G. & Hu, K. Internal variability in multidecadal trends of surface air temperature over antarctica in austral winter in model simulations. Clim Dyn 55, 2835–2847 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05412-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05412-1