Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, 94305, CA, USA.
Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, 08540, NJ, USA.
Nat Commun. 2018 Aug 14;9(1):3247. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05735-y.
Despite distinct geographic distributions of top-of-the-atmosphere radiative forcing, anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols have been found to produce similar patterns of climate response in atmosphere-and-ocean coupled climate model simulations. Understanding surface energy flux changes, a crucial pathway by which atmospheric forcing is communicated to the ocean, is a vital bridge to explaining the similar full atmosphere-and-ocean responses to these disparate forcings. Here we analyze the fast, atmosphere-driven change in surface energy flux caused by present-day greenhouse gases vs aerosols to elucidate its role in shaping the subsequent slow, coupled response. We find that the surface energy flux response patterns achieve roughly two-thirds of the anti-correlation seen in the fully coupled response, driven by Rossby waves excited by symmetric changes to the land-sea contrast. Our results suggest that atmosphere and land surface processes are capable of achieving substantial within-hemisphere homogenization in the climate response to disparate forcers on fast, societally-relevant timescales.
尽管大气顶辐射强迫具有明显的地理分布特征，但在大气-海洋耦合气候模式模拟中发现，人为温室气体和气溶胶产生了相似的气候响应模式。了解地表能量通量变化是大气强迫向海洋传递的关键途径，也是解释这些不同强迫对整个大气-海洋响应相似性的重要桥梁。在这里，我们分析了由现代温室气体与气溶胶引起的地表能量通量的快速、大气驱动变化，以阐明其在塑造随后的缓慢、耦合响应中的作用。我们发现，地表能量通量响应模式实现了完全耦合响应中看到的反相关的大约三分之二，这是由陆地-海洋对比的对称变化激发的罗斯贝波驱动的。我们的结果表明，在快速的、与社会相关的时间尺度上，大气和陆面过程有能力在气候对不同强迫的响应中实现半球内的实质性均匀化。
