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Decadal predictability of tropical Indo‐Pacific Ocean temperature trends due to anthropogenic forcing in a coupled climate model
Author(s) -
Solomon Amy,
Newman Matthew
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2010gl045978
Subject(s) - predictability , climatology , forcing (mathematics) , el niño southern oscillation , environmental science , pacific decadal oscillation , sea surface temperature , climate model , climate change , oceanography , geology , physics , quantum mechanics
This study quantifies the impact of ENSO on the decadal predictability of tropical Indo‐Pacific Ocean trends in a very large ensemble of NCAR CCSM3 anthropogenically‐forced (A1B scenario) simulations, by decomposing upper ocean temperatures into “ENSO” and “non‐ENSO” variability. On decadal time scales, the ENSO pattern primarily contributes to the ensemble spread and has a trend whose amplitude is not predictable. However, the non‐ENSO component of the trend has much smaller spread and is predictable after 10 years, much sooner than the total trend, which is predictable after 25 years. The non‐ENSO component of the trend explains 96% of the total trend and has a structure that is distinct from ENSO, including cooling in the South Pacific due to increased southeast trades, warming of the warm pool, and strengthening of the equatorial Pacific near‐surface temperature gradient superimposed upon a uniform warming.