期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2022
卷号:119
期号:35
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2207889119
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Significance
We provide a perspective on recent scientific literature that argues the reduction in climate sensitivity identified with relative cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean could be caused by the onset of the Antarctic ozone hole starting in about 1980. If this is true, the pattern effect could persist as long as the ozone hole, nearly 60 y. This would continue the reduction in warming associated with the pattern effect on climate sensitivity. In addition, increased probability of La Niña events would imply an increased chance of drought in the American Southwest and other impacts of cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific.
Since about 1980, the tropical Pacific has been anomalously cold, while the broader tropics have warmed. This has caused anomalous weather in midlatitudes as well as a reduction in the apparent sensitivity of the climate associated with enhanced low-cloud abundance over the cooler waters of the eastern tropical Pacific. Recent modeling work has shown that cooler temperatures over the Southern Ocean around Antarctica can lead to cooler temperatures over the eastern tropical Pacific. Here we suggest that surface wind anomalies associated with the Antarctic ozone hole can cause cooler temperatures over the Southern Ocean that extend into the tropics. We use the short-term variability of the Southern Annular Mode of zonal wind variability to show an association between surface zonal wind variations over the Southern Ocean, cooling over the Southern Ocean, and cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific. This suggests that the cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific may be associated with the onset of the Antarctic ozone hole.