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Three Regimes of Temperature Distribution Change Over Dry Land, Moist Land, and Oceanic Surfaces
Author(s) -
Duan Suqin Q.,
Findell Kirsten L.,
Wright Jonathon S.
Publication year - 2020
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 - 10.1029/2020gl090997
Subject(s) - downwelling , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , climatology , sensible heat , flux (metallurgy) , global warming , dry land , latent heat , evapotranspiration , climate change , upwelling , geology , meteorology , chemistry , geography , oceanography , ecology , organic chemistry , agronomy , biology
Climate model simulations project different regimes of summertime temperature distribution changes under a quadrupling of CO 2 for dry land, moist land, and oceanic surfaces. The entire temperature distribution shifts over dry land surfaces, while moist land surfaces feature an elongated upper tail of the distribution, with extremes increasing more than the corresponding means by ∼20% of the global mean warming. Oceanic surfaces show weaker warming relative to land surfaces, with no significant elongation of the upper tail. Dry land surfaces show little change in turbulent sensible (SH) or latent (LH) fluxes, with new balance reached with compensating adjustments among downwelling and upwelling radiative fluxes. By contrast, moist land surfaces show enhanced partitioning of turbulent flux toward SH, while oceanic surfaces show enhanced partitioning toward LH. Amplified warming of extreme temperatures over moist land surfaces is attributed to suppressed evapotranspiration and larger Bowen ratios.