Atmospheric response to multidecadal sea surface temperature variability in the Pacific Ocean (IPV) and the North Atlantic Ocean (AMV)

Multidecadal modes of sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans act as forcing fields in a series of atmospheric global climate model (AGCM) simulations. These modes, Interdecadal Pacific Variability (IPV) and Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), are important regulators of global temperature, precipitation, extreme climate events (droughts and temperature extremes), and have recently been implicated as playing an important role in the global warming hiatus. Despite a growing recognition of the importance of these climate modes, the most fundamental atmospheric and climatic responses to the long-term internal variability and interplay of these two ocean basins is not well understood. In a series of 200-yr experiments using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), the atmosphere is forced by the 9 different combinations of the AMV and IPV states (neutral, positive, negative) using a single polarity from each the IPV and the AMV, and different combinations. The atmospheric response associated with each combination of SST anomalies is investigated, with a focus on modes of variability such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and associated temperature/precipitation variability. Of particular interest is the response related to forcing from the tropical Pacific, the stratospheric response and associated stratosphere-troposphere interactions, and the response of extreme weather events in both winter and summer. These results yield a more complete understanding of climate predictability associated with each basin at multidecadal time scales, and how their respective influences interfere with each other.