Assessing the impact of suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability in a coupled climate model.

ABSTRACT: The Southern Ocean exerts a strong influence on global climate, regulating the storage and transport of heat, freshwater and carbon throughout the world's oceans. While the majority of previous studies focus on how wind changes influence Southern Ocean circulation patterns, here we set out to explore potential feedbacks from the ocean to the atmosphere. To isolate the role of oceanic variability on Southern Hemisphere climate, we perform coupled climate model experiments in which Southern Ocean variability is suppressed by restoring sea surface temperatures (SST) over 40°-65°S to the model's monthly mean climatology. We find that suppressing Southern Ocean SST variability does not impact the Southern Annular Mode, suggesting air-sea feedbacks do not play an important role in the persistenc

SUBMITTER: Purich A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8585967 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature