Dataset Information

Skilful multi-year predictions of tropical trans-basin climate variability.

ABSTRACT: Tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies influence the atmospheric circulation, impacting climate far beyond the tropics. The predictability of the corresponding atmospheric signals is typically limited to less than 1 year lead time. Here we present observational and modelling evidence for multi-year predictability of coherent trans-basin climate variations that are characterized by a zonal seesaw in tropical sea surface temperature and sea-level pressure between the Pacific and the other two ocean basins. State-of-the-art climate model forecasts initialized from a realistic ocean state show that the low-frequency trans-basin climate variability, which explains part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation flavours, can be predicted up to 3 years ahead, thus exceeding the predictive skill of current tropical climate forecasts for natural variability. This low-frequency variability emerges from the synchronization of ocean anomalies in all basins via global reorganizations of the atmospheric Walker Circulation.

SUBMITTER: Chikamoto Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4410635 | biostudies-other | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Skilful multi-year predictions of tropical trans-basin climate variability.

Chikamoto Yoshimitsu Y Timmermann Axel A Luo Jing-Jia JJ Mochizuki Takashi T Kimoto Masahide M Watanabe Masahiro M Ishii Masayoshi M Xie Shang-Ping SP Jin Fei-Fei FF

Nature communications 20150421

Tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies influence the atmospheric circulation, impacting climate far beyond the tropics. The predictability of the corresponding atmospheric signals is typically limited to less than 1 year lead time. Here we present observational and modelling evidence for multi-year predictability of coherent trans-basin climate variations that are characterized by a zonal seesaw in tropical sea surface temperature and sea-level pressure between the Pacific and the ot ...[more]

PMID: 25897996

Similar Datasets

Project description:Patterns in functional diversity of organisms at large spatial scales can provide insight into possible responses to future climate change, but it remains a challenge to link large-scale patterns at the organismal level to their underlying physiological mechanisms. The climate variability hypothesis predicts that temperate ectotherms will be less vulnerable to climate warming than tropical ectotherms, due to their superior acclimatization capacity. However, metabolic acclimatization occurs over multiple levels of the biological hierarchy, from the enzyme and cellular level, through organ systems, to whole-organism metabolic rate. Previous studies have focused on one or a few biological hierarchy levels, leaving us without a general understanding of how metabolic acclimatization might differ between tropical and temperate species. Here, we investigate thermal acclimatization of 3 species of Takydromus lizards distributed along a broad latitudinal gradient in China, by studying metabolic modifications at the level of the whole organism, organ, mitochondria, metabolome and proteome. As predicted by the climate variability hypothesis, the 2 temperate species T. septentrionalis and T. wolteri had an enhanced acclimation response at the whole organism level compared to the tropical species T. sexlineatus, as measured by respiratory gas exchange rates. However, the mechanisms by which whole organism performance was modified was strikingly different in the 2 temperate species: widespread T. septentrionalis modified organ sizes, while the narrowly distributed T. wolteri relied on mitochondrial, proteomic and metabolomic regulation. We suggest that these 2 mechanisms of thermal acclimatization may represent general strategies used by ectotherms, with distinct ecological costs and benefits. Lacking either of these mechanisms of thermal acclimatization capacity, the tropical species is likely to have increased vulnerability to climate change.

Project description:Climate change involves increases in mean temperature and changes in temperature variability at multiple temporal scales but research rarely considers these temporal scales. The climate variability hypothesis (CVH) provides a conceptual framework for exploring the potential effects of annual scale thermal variability across climatic zones. The CVH predicts ectotherms in temperate regions tolerate a wider range of temperatures than those in tropical regions in response to greater annual variability in temperate regions. However, various other aspects of thermal regimes (e.g. diel variability), organisms' size and taxonomic identity are also hypothesised to influence thermal tolerance. Indeed, high temperatures in the tropics have been proposed as constraining organisms' ability to tolerate a wide range of temperatures, implying that high annual maximum temperatures would be associated with tolerating a narrow range of temperatures. We measured thermal regimes and critical thermal limits (CTmax and CTmin) of freshwater insects in the orders Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Plecoptera (stoneflies) and Trichoptera (caddisflies) along elevation gradients in streams in temperate and tropical regions of eastern Australia and tested the CVH by determining which variables were most correlated with thermal breadth (T br = CTmax - CTmin). Consistent with the CVH, T br tended to increase with increasing annual temperature range. T br also increased with body size and T br was generally wider in Plecoptera than in Ephemeroptera or Trichoptera. We also find some support for a related hypothesis, the climate extreme hypothesis (CEH), particularly for predicting upper thermal limits. We found no evidence that higher annual maximum temperature constrained individuals' abilities to tolerate a wide range of temperatures. The support for the CVH we document suggests that temperate organisms may be able to tolerate wider ranges of temperatures than tropical organisms. There is an urgent need to investigate other aspects of thermal regimes, such as diel temperature cycling and minimum temperature.

Dataset Information

Skilful multi-year predictions of tropical trans-basin climate variability.

Publications

Skilful multi-year predictions of tropical trans-basin climate variability.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets