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| Titel |
The recent global-warming hiatus: What is the role of the Pacific variability? |
| VerfasserIn |
Hervé Douville, Aurore VOLDOIRE |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250102100
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-1380.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The observed global mean surface air temperature (GMST) has not risen over the
last 15 years, spurring outbreaks of skepticism regarding the nature of global
warming and challenging the upper-range transient response of the current-generation
global climate models. Recent numerical studies have however
tempered the relevance of the observed pause in global warming by highlighting
the key role of the tropical Pacific internal variability. Here we first show that
many climate models overestimate the influence of the El Niño Southern
Oscillation on GMST, thereby shedding doubt on their ability to capture the
tropical Pacific contribution to the hiatus. Moreover, we highlight that model
results are quite sensitive to the experimental design. We argue that overriding the
surface wind stress is more suitable than nudging the sea surface temperature for
controlling the tropical Pacific ocean heat uptake and, thereby, the multi-decadal
variability of GMST. Using the former technique, our model captures several
aspects of the recent climate evolution, including the weaker slowdown of global
warming over land and the transition towards a negative phase of the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation. Yet, the recent global warming is still overestimated, not only
over the recent 1998-2012 hiatus period but also over former decades, thereby
suggesting that the model might be too sensitive to the prescribed radiative
forcings. |
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