Research Institute for Global Change and Application Laboratory, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Nov 13;109(46):18701-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1210239109. Epub 2012 Oct 29.
It has been widely believed that the tropical Pacific trade winds weakened in the last century and would further decrease under a warmer climate in the 21st century. Recent high-quality observations, however, suggest that the tropical Pacific winds have actually strengthened in the past two decades. Precise causes of the recent Pacific climate shift are uncertain. Here we explore how the enhanced tropical Indian Ocean warming in recent decades favors stronger trade winds in the western Pacific via the atmosphere and hence is likely to have contributed to the La Niña-like state (with enhanced east-west Walker circulation) through the Pacific ocean-atmosphere interactions. Further analysis, based on 163 climate model simulations with centennial historical and projected external radiative forcing, suggests that the Indian Ocean warming relative to the Pacific's could play an important role in modulating the Pacific climate changes in the 20th and 21st centuries.
人们普遍认为，在上个世纪，热带太平洋信风减弱，在 21 世纪更温暖的气候条件下，信风将会进一步减弱。然而，最近高质量的观测结果表明，在过去二十年中，热带太平洋风实际上已经增强。近期太平洋气候转变的确切原因尚不确定。在这里，我们通过大气探讨了最近几十年印度洋变暖增强如何通过大气有利于西太平洋更强的信风，从而可能通过海洋-大气相互作用有助于类似拉尼娜的状态（增强东西向沃克环流）。进一步的分析，基于 163 个气候模式模拟，具有百年历史和预测的外部辐射强迫，表明相对于太平洋，印度洋变暖可能在调节 20 世纪和 21 世纪太平洋气候变化方面发挥重要作用。
