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The tropical Pacific as a key pacemaker of the variable rates of global warming

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 669–673 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global mean surface temperature change over the past 120 years resembles a rising staircase1,2: the overall warming trend was interrupted by the mid-twentieth-century big hiatus and the warming slowdown2,3,4,5,6,7,8 since about 1998. The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation9,10 has been implicated in modulations of global mean surface temperatures6,11, but which part of the mode drives the variability in warming rates is unclear. Here we present a successful simulation of the global warming staircase since 1900 with a global ocean–atmosphere coupled model where tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures are forced to follow the observed evolution. Without prescribed tropical Pacific variability, the same model, on average, produces a continual warming trend that accelerates after the 1960s. We identify four events where the tropical Pacific decadal cooling markedly slowed down the warming trend. Matching the observed spatial and seasonal fingerprints we identify the tropical Pacific as a key pacemaker of the warming staircase, with radiative forcing driving the overall warming trend. Specifically, tropical Pacific variability amplifies the first warming epoch of the 1910s–1940s and determines the timing when the big hiatus starts and ends. Our method of removing internal variability from the observed record can be used for real-time monitoring of anthropogenic warming.

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Figure 1: Annual GMST and its trend.
Figure 2: A spatial fingerprint of the IPO.
Figure 3: A seasonal fingerprint of the IPO.
Figure 4: Estimates of forced GMST anomalies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory model developers for making the coupled model version 2.1 available. Y.K. is supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology through Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists 15H05466 and the Arctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS) Project, and by the Japanese Ministry of Environment through the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund 2-1503. S.-P.X. is supported by the US National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan

    Yu Kosaka

  2. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive MC 0206, La Jolla, California 92093, USA

    Shang-Ping Xie

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  1. Yu Kosaka
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Contributions

Y.K. and S.-P.X. designed the study and wrote the paper. Y.K. performed the model experiments and analysis in consultation with S.-P.X.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yu Kosaka or Shang-Ping Xie.

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Kosaka, Y., Xie, SP. The tropical Pacific as a key pacemaker of the variable rates of global warming. Nature Geosci 9, 669–673 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2770

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