Abstract
Spatial variations in ocean warming have been linked to regional changes in tropical cyclones1, precipitation2,3 and monsoons4. But development of reliable regional climate projections for climate change mitigation and adaptation remains challenging5. The presence of anthropogenic aerosols, which are highly variable in space and time, is thought to induce spatial patterns of climate response that are distinct from those of well-mixed greenhouse gases4,6,7,8,9. Using CMIP5 climate simulations that consider aerosols and greenhouse gases separately, we show that regional responses to changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols are similar over the ocean, as reflected in similar spatial patterns of ocean temperature and precipitation. This similarity suggests that the climate response to radiative changes is relatively insensitive to the spatial distribution of these changes. Although anthropogenic aerosols are largely confined to the Northern Hemisphere, simulations that include aerosol forcing predict decreases in temperature and westerly wind speed that reach the pristine Southern Hemisphere oceans. Over land, the climate response to aerosol forcing is more localized, but larger scale spatial patterns are also evident. We suggest that the climate responses induced by greenhouse gases and aerosols share key ocean–atmosphere feedbacks, leading to a qualitative resemblance in spatial distribution.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Vecchi, G. A. & Soden, B. J. Effect of remote sea surface temperature change on tropical cyclone potential intensity. Nature 450, 1066–1070 (2007).
Giannini, A., Saravanan, R. & Chang, P. Oceanic forcing of Sahel Rainfall on interannual to interdecadal timescales. Science 302, 1027–1030 (2003).
Xie, S-P. et al. Global warming pattern formation: Sea surface temperature and rainfall. J. Clim. 23, 966–986 (2010).
Chung, C. E. & Ramanathan, V. Weakening of North India sea surface temperature gradient and the monsoon rainfall in India and the Sahel. J. Clim. 19, 2036–2045 (2006).
Kerr, R. A. Time to adapt to a warming world, but where’s the science? Science 334, 1052–1053 (2011).
Menon, S., Hansen, J., Nazarenko, L. & Luo, Y. Climate effect of black carbon aerosols in China and India. Science 297, 2250–2253 (2002).
Lau, K. M., Kim, M. K. & Kim, K. M. Asian summer monsoon anomalies induced by aerosol direct forcing: The role of the Tibetan Plateau. Clim. Dyn. 26, 855–864 (2006).
Bollasina, M. A., Ming, Y. & Ramaswamy, V. Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon. Science 334, 502–505 (2011).
Rotstayn, L. D. & Lohmann, U. Tropical rainfall trends and the indirect aerosol effect. J. Clim. 15, 2103–2116 (2002).
Forster, P. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).
Andrews, T., Forster, P. M. & Gregory, J. M. A surface energy perspective on climate change. J. Clim. 22, 2557–2570 (2009).
Rosenfeld, D. et al. Flood or drought: How do aerosols affect precipitation? Science 321, 1309–1313 (2008).
Boer, G. J. & Yu, B. Climate sensitivity and response. Clim. Dyn. 20, 415–429 (2003).
Sobel, A. H., Held, I. M. & Bretherton, C. S. The ENSO signal in tropical tropospheric temperature. J. Clim. 15, 2702–2706 (2002).
Johnson, N. C. & Xie, S-P. Changes in the sea surface temperature threshold for tropical convection. Nature Geosci. 3, 842–845 (2010).
Yoshimori, M. & Broccoli, A. J. Equilibrium response of an atmosphere-mixed layer ocean model to different radiative forcing agents: Global and zonal mean response. J. Clim. 21, 4399–4423 (2008).
Ming, Y. & Ramaswamy, V. A model investigation of aerosol-induced changes in tropical circulation. J. Clim. 24, 5125–5133 (2011).
Liu, Z., Vavrus, S., He, F., Wen, N. & Zhong, Y. Rethinking tropical ocean response to global warming: The enhanced equatorial warming. J. Clim. 18, 4684–4700 (2005).
Manabe, S. & Stouffer, R. J. Role of ocean in global warming. J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn 85, 385–403 (2007).
Ming, Y., Ramaswamy, V. & Chen, G. A model investigation of aerosol-induced changes in boreal winter extratropical circulation. J. Clim. 24, 6077–6091 (2011).
Lu, J. & Zhao, B. The role of oceanic feedback in the climate response to doubling CO2 . J. Clim. 25, 7544–7563 (2012).
Ma, J. & Xie, S-P. Regional patterns of sea surface temperature change: A source of uncertainty in future projections of precipitation and atmospheric circulation. J. Clim. 26, 2482–2501 (2013).
Alexander, M. A., Vimont, D. J., Chang, P. & Scott, J. D. The impact of extratropical atmospheric variability on ENSO: Testing the seasonal footprinting mechanism using coupled model experiments. J. Clim. 23, 2885–2901 (2010).
Chiang, J. C. H. & Friedman, A. R. Extratropical cooling, interhemispheric thermal gradients, and tropical climate change. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 40, 383–412 (2012).
Kang, S. M., Held, I. M., Frierson, D. M. W. & Zhao, M. The response of the ITCZ to extratropical thermal forcing: idealized slab-ocean experiments with a GCM. J. Clim. 21, 3521–3532 (2008).
Frierson, D. M. W. & Hwang, Y-T. Extratropical influence on ITCZ shifts in slab ocean simulations of global warming. J. Clim. 25, 720–733 (2012).
Hansen, J. et al. Efficacy of climate forcings. J. Geophys. Res 110, D18104 (2005).
Shindell, D. T., Voulgarakis, A., Faluvegi, G. & Milly, G. Precipitation response to regional radiative forcing. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 6969–6982 (2012).
Deser, C., Knutti, R., Solomon, S. & Phillips, A. S. Communication of the role of natural variability in future North American climate. Nature Clim. Change 2, 775–779 (2012).
Sen, P. K. Estimates of the regression coefficient based on Kendall’s tau. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 63, 1379–1389 (1968).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the NSF (ATM-0854365), the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB955600), the NOAA Climate Program Office (NA10OAR4310250), the China Scholarship Council and JAMSTEC.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
S-P.X. and B.L. designed the study, conducted analysis and wrote the paper. They contributed equally. B.X. carried out the tropospheric temperature perturbation experiments.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 2767 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xie, SP., Lu, B. & Xiang, B. Similar spatial patterns of climate responses to aerosol and greenhouse gas changes. Nature Geosci 6, 828–832 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1931
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1931
This article is cited by
-
Large-scale climate response to regionally confined extratropical cooling: effect of ocean dynamics
Climate Dynamics (2023)
-
Scattering and absorbing aerosols in the climate system
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2022)
-
Different climate response persistence causes warming trend unevenness at continental scales
Nature Climate Change (2022)
-
Asymmetric responses of the meridional ocean heat transport to climate warming and cooling in CESM
Climate Dynamics (2022)
-
Precipitation variability over India during the 20th and 21st centuries: investigating natural and anthropogenic drivers
Climatic Change (2022)