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1.
We present a 271-year record of Sr/Ca variability in a coral from Rarotonga in the South Pacific gyre. Calibration with monthly sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite and ship measurements made in a grid measuring 1 degrees by 1 degrees over the period from 1981 to 1997 indicates that this Sr/Ca record is an excellent proxy for SST. Comparison with SST from ship measurements made since 1950 in a grid measuring 5 degrees by 5 degrees also shows that the Sr/Ca data accurately record decadal changes in SST. The entire Sr/Ca record back to 1726 shows a distinct pattern of decadal variability, with repeated decadal and interdecadal SST regime shifts greater than 0. 75 degrees C. Comparison with decadal climate variability in the North Pacific, as represented by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation index (1900-1997), indicates that several of the largest decadal-scale SST variations at Rarotonga are coherent with SST regime shifts in the North Pacific. This hemispheric symmetry suggests that tropical forcing may be an important factor in at least some of the decadal variability observed in the Pacific Ocean.  相似文献   

2.
The cause of decadal climate variability over the North Pacific Ocean and North America is investigated by the analysis of data from a multidecadal integration with a state-of-the-art coupled ocean-atmosphere model and observations. About one-third of the low-frequency climate variability in the region of interest can be attributed to a cycle involving unstable air-sea interactions between the subtropical gyre circulation in the North Pacific and the Aleutian low-pressure system. The existence of this cycle provides a basis for long-range climate forecasting over the western United States at decadal time scales.  相似文献   

3.
Climate in the tropical North Atlantic is controlled largely by variations in the strength of the trade winds, the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and sea surface temperatures. A high-resolution study of Caribbean sediments provides a subdecadally resolved record of tropical upwelling and trade wind variability spanning the past 825 years. These results confirm the importance of a decadal (12- to 13-year) mode of Atlantic variability believed to be driven by coupled tropical ocean-atmosphere dynamics. Although a well-defined interdecadal mode of variability does not appear to be characteristic of the tropical Atlantic, there is evidence that century-scale variability is substantial. The tropical Atlantic may also have been involved in a major shift in Northern Hemisphere climate variability that took place about 700 years ago.  相似文献   

4.
It is widely assumed that variations in Earth's radiative energy budget at large time and space scales are small. We present new evidence from a compilation of over two decades of accurate satellite data that the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) tropical radiative energy budget is much more dynamic and variable than previously thought. Results indicate that the radiation budget changes are caused by changes in tropical mean cloudiness. The results of several current climate model simulations fail to predict this large observed variation in tropical energy budget. The missing variability in the models highlights the critical need to improve cloud modeling in the tropics so that prediction of tropical climate on interannual and decadal time scales can be improved.  相似文献   

5.
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the cold tongue of the eastern equatorial Pacific exert powerful controls on global atmospheric circulation patterns. We examined climate variability in this region from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the present, using a SST record reconstructed from magnesium/calcium ratios in foraminifera from sea-floor sediments near the Galápagos Islands. Cold-tongue SST varied coherently with precession-induced changes in seasonality during the past 30,000 years. Observed LGM cooling of just 1.2 degrees C implies a relaxation of tropical temperature gradients, weakened Hadley and Walker circulation, southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and a persistent El Ni?o-like pattern in the tropical Pacific. This is contrasted with mid-Holocene cooling suggestive of a La Ni?a-like pattern with enhanced SST gradients and strengthened trade winds. Our results support a potent role for altered tropical Pacific SST gradients in global climate variations.  相似文献   

6.
Cores of coral reef frameworks along an upwelling gradient in Panamá show that reef ecosystems in the tropical eastern Pacific collapsed for 2500 years, representing as much as 40% of their history, beginning about 4000 years ago. The principal cause of this millennial-scale hiatus in reef growth was increased variability of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its coupling with the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The hiatus was a Pacific-wide phenomenon with an underlying climatology similar to probable scenarios for the next century. Global climate change is probably driving eastern Pacific reefs toward another regional collapse.  相似文献   

7.
The month-to-month variability of tropical temperatures is larger in the troposphere than at Earth's surface. This amplification behavior is similar in a range of observations and climate model simulations and is consistent with basic theory. On multidecadal time scales, tropospheric amplification of surface warming is a robust feature of model simulations, but it occurs in only one observational data set. Other observations show weak, or even negative, amplification. These results suggest either that different physical mechanisms control amplification processes on monthly and decadal time scales, and models fail to capture such behavior; or (more plausibly) that residual errors in several observational data sets used here affect their representation of long-term trends.  相似文献   

8.
Is El Nino changing?   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
Recent advances in observational and theoretical studies of El Nino have shed light on controversies concerning the possible effect of global warming on this phenomenon over the past few decades and in the future. El Nino is now understood to be one phase of a natural mode of oscillation-La Nina is the complementary phase-that results from unstable interactions between the tropical Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere. Random disturbances maintain this neutrally stable mode, whose properties depend on the background (time-averaged) climate state. Apparent changes in the properties of El Nino could reflect the importance of random disturbances, but they could also be a consequence of decadal variations of the background state. The possibility that global warming is affecting those variations cannot be excluded.  相似文献   

9.
Oxygen (O(2)) is a critical constraint on marine ecosystems. As oceanic O(2) falls to hypoxic concentrations, habitability for aerobic organisms decreases rapidly. We show that the spatial extent of hypoxia is highly sensitive to small changes in the ocean's O(2) content, with maximum responses at suboxic concentrations where anaerobic metabolisms predominate. In model-based reconstructions of historical oxygen changes, the world's largest suboxic zone, in the Pacific Ocean, varies in size by a factor of 2. This is attributable to climate-driven changes in the depth of the tropical and subtropical thermocline that have multiplicative effects on respiration rates in low-O(2) water. The same mechanism yields even larger fluctuations in the rate of nitrogen removal by denitrification, creating a link between decadal climate oscillations and the nutrient limitation of marine photosynthesis.  相似文献   

10.
Records of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (P(CO(2))) and Antarctic temperature have revealed an intriguing change in the magnitude of interglacial warmth and P(CO(2)) at around 430,000 years ago (430 ka), but the global climate repercussions of this change remain elusive. Here, we present a stalagmite-based reconstruction of tropical West Pacific hydroclimate from 570 to 210 ka. The results suggest similar regional precipitation amounts across the four interglacials contained in the record, implying that tropical hydroclimate was insensitive to interglacial differences in P(CO(2)) and high-latitude temperature. In contrast, during glacial terminations, drying in the tropical West Pacific accompanied cooling events in northern high latitudes. Therefore, the tropical convective heat engine can either stabilize or amplify global climate change, depending on the nature of the climate forcing.  相似文献   

11.
A simulation with a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model configured for the Last Glacial Maximum delivered a tropical climate that is much cooler than that produced by atmosphere-only models. The main reason is a decrease in tropical sea surface temperatures, up to 6 degrees C in the western tropical Pacific, which occurs because of two processes. The trade winds induce equatorial upwelling and zonal advection of cold water that further intensify the trade winds, and an exchange of water occurs between the tropical and extratropical Pacific in which the poleward surface flow is balanced by equatorward flow of cold water in the thermocline. Simulated tropical temperature depressions are of the same magnitude as those that have been proposed from recent proxy data.  相似文献   

12.
Fire-southern oscillation relations in the southwestern United States   总被引:3,自引:0,他引:3  
Fire scar and tree growth chronologies (1700 to 1905) and fire statistics (since 1905) from Arizona and New Mexico show that small areas burn after wet springs associated with the low phase of the Southern Oscillation (SO), whereas large areas burn after dry springs associated with the high phase of the SO. Through its synergistic influence on spring weather and fuel conditions, climatic variability in the tropical Pacific significantly influences vegetation dynamics in the southwestern United States. Synchrony of fire-free and severe fire years across diverse southwestern forests implies that climate forces fire regimes on a subcontinental scale; it also underscores the importance of exogenous factors in ecosystem dynamics.  相似文献   

13.
Super ENSO and global climate oscillations at millennial time scales   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
The late Pleistocene history of seawater temperature and salinity variability in the western tropical Pacific warm pool is reconstructed from oxygen isotope (delta18O) and magnesium/calcium composition of planktonic foraminifera. Differentiating the calcite delta18O record into components of temperature and local water delta18O reveals a dominant salinity signal that varied in accord with Dansgaard/Oeschger cycles over Greenland. Salinities were higher at times of high-latitude cooling and were lower during interstadials. The pattern and magnitude of the salinity variations imply shifts in the tropical Pacific ocean/atmosphere system analogous to modern El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). El Ni?o conditions correlate with stadials at high latitudes, whereas La Ni?a conditions correlate with interstadials. Millennial-scale shifts in atmospheric convection away from the western tropical Pacific may explain many paleo-observations, including lower atmospheric CO2, N2O, and CH4 during stadials and patterns of extratropical ocean variability that have tropical source functions that are negatively correlated with El Ni?o.  相似文献   

14.
利用1900~2011年的海表面温度(SST)和海平面气压场资料,研究了太平洋地区海表面温度及全球大气的年代际持续性分布特征,结果表明,SST在北太平洋和西太平洋地区存在较高的年代际持续性,这些区域SST持续性平均在10年左右,最高达18年以上,低值区主要在热带中太平洋,持续性在4年以下。北太平洋的高持续性与太平洋年代际振荡(PDO)有密切联系,而热带中太平洋的低持续性主要是受到ENSO的影响;大气持续性具有明显的纬向分布特征,在高纬度地区的持续性较高,在20°S和60°N附近持续性较低。  相似文献   

15.
Reconstruction of an 83-year record (1903 to 1985) of the discharge of the Amazon River shows that there has been no statistically significant change in discharge over the period of record and that the predominant interannual variability occurs on the 2- to 3-year time scale. Oscillations of river discharge predate significant human influences in the Amazon basin and reflect both extrabasinal and local factors. Cross-spectrum analyses of Amazon flow anomalies with indicators of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation phenomenon suggest that the oscillations in the hydrograph are coupled to the tropical Pacific climate cycle.  相似文献   

16.
A tropical Pacific climate state resembling that of a permanent El Ni?o is hypothesized to have ended as a result of a reorganization of the ocean heat budget approximately 3 million years ago, a time when large ice sheets appeared in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. We report a high-resolution alkenone reconstruction of conditions in the heart of the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) cold tongue that reflects the combined influences of changes in the equatorial thermocline, the properties of the thermocline's source waters, atmospheric greenhouse gas content, and orbital variations on sea surface temperature (SST) and biological productivity over the past 5 million years. Our data indicate that the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 3 million years ago did not interrupt an almost monotonic cooling of the EEP during the Plio-Pleistocene. SST and productivity in the eastern tropical Pacific varied in phase with global ice volume changes at a dominant 41,000-year (obliquity) frequency throughout this time. Changes in the Southern Hemisphere most likely modulated most of the changes observed.  相似文献   

17.
Lea DW  Pak DK  Spero HJ 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2000,289(5485):1719-1724
Magnesium/calcium data from planktonic foraminifera in equatorial Pacific sediment cores demonstrate that tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 2.8 degrees +/- 0.7 degrees C colder than the present at the last glacial maximum. Glacial-interglacial temperature differences as great as 5 degrees C are observed over the last 450 thousand years. Changes in SST coincide with changes in Antarctic air temperature and precede changes in continental ice volume by about 3 thousand years, suggesting that tropical cooling played a major role in driving ice-age climate. Comparison of SST estimates from eastern and western sites indicates that the equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient was similar or somewhat larger during glacial episodes. Extraction of a salinity proxy from the magnesium/calcium and oxygen isotope data indicates that transport of water vapor into the western Pacific was enhanced during glacial episodes.  相似文献   

18.
A sea surface temperature (SST) record based on planktonic foraminiferal magnesium/calcium ratios from a site in the western equatorial Pacific warm pool reveals that glacial-interglacial oscillations in SST shifted from a period of 41,000 to 100,000 years at the mid-Pleistocene transition, 950,000 years before the present. SST changes at both periodicities were synchronous with eastern Pacific cold-tongue SSTs but preceded changes in continental ice volume. The timing and nature of tropical Pacific SST changes over the mid-Pleistocene transition implicate a shift in the periodicity of radiative forcing by atmospheric carbon dioxide as the cause of the switch in climate periodicities at this time.  相似文献   

19.
The perfect ocean for drought   总被引:5,自引:0,他引:5  
The 1998-2002 droughts spanning the United States, southern Europe, and Southwest Asia were linked through a common oceanic influence. Cold sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern tropical Pacific and warm SSTs in the western tropical Pacific and Indian oceans were remarkably persistent during this period. Climate models show that the climate signals forced separately by these regions acted synergistically, each contributing to widespread mid-latitude drying: an ideal scenario for spatially expansive, synchronized drought. The warmth of the Indian and west Pacific oceans was unprecedented and consistent with greenhouse gas forcing. Some implications are drawn for future drought.  相似文献   

20.
Dust plays a critical role in Earth's climate system and serves as a natural source of iron and other micronutrients to remote regions of the ocean. We have generated records of dust deposition over the past 500,000 years at three sites spanning the breadth of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Equatorial Pacific dust fluxes are highly correlated with global ice volume and with dust fluxes to Antarctica, which suggests that dust generation in interhemispheric source regions exhibited a common response to climate change over late-Pleistocene glacial cycles. Our results provide quantitative constraints on the variability of aeolian iron supply to the equatorial Pacific Ocean and, more generally, on the potential contribution of dust to past climate change and to related changes in biogeochemical cycles.  相似文献   

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