the equilibrium response to idealized thermal forcings in a comprehensive gcm: implications for recent tropical expansion

Clicks: 10
ID: 162523
2012
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Steady

Ranked #820 of 850 articles by views in Journal of agricultural and food chemistry

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 850 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Several recent studies have shown the width of the tropical belt has increased over the last several decades. The mechanisms driving tropical expansion are not well known and the recent expansion is underpredicted by state-of-the art GCMs. We use the CAM3 GCM to investigate how tropical width responds to idealized atmospheric heat sources, focusing on zonal displacement of the tropospheric jets. The heat sources include global and zonally restricted lower-tropospheric warmings and stratospheric coolings, which coarsely represent possible impacts of ozone or aerosol changes. Similar to prior studies with simplified GCMs, we find that stratospheric cooling – particularly at high-latitudes – shifts jets poleward and excites Northern and Southern Annular Mode (NAM/SAM)-type responses. We also find, however, that modest heating of the midlatitude boundary layer drives a similar response; heating at high latitudes provokes a weaker, equatorward shift and tropical heating produces no shift. Over 70 % of the variance in annual mean jet displacements across 27 experiments is accounted for by a newly proposed "Expansion Index", which compares mid-latitude tropospheric warming to that at other latitudes. We find that previously proposed factors, including tropopause height and tropospheric stability, do not fully explain the results. Results suggest recently observed tropical expansion could have been driven not only by stratospheric cooling, but also by mid-latitude heating sources due for example to ozone or aerosol changes.
Reference Key
allen2012atmosphericthe Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors ;R. J. Allen;S. C. Sherwood;J. R. Norris;C. S. Zender
Journal Journal of agricultural and food chemistry
Year 2012
DOI
10.5194/acp-12-4795-2012
URL
Keywords

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.