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In a recent paper, we argued that ocean dynamics increase the variability of midlatitude sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on monthly to interannual time scales, but act to damp lower-frequency SST variability over broad midlatitude regions. Here, we use two configurations of a simple stochastic climate model to provide new insights into this important aspect of climate variability. The simplest configuration includes the forcing and damping of SST variability by observed surface heat fluxes only, and the more complex configuration includes forcing and damping by ocean processes, which are estimated indirectly from monthly observations. It is found that the simple model driven only by the observed surface heat fluxes generally produces midlatitude SST power spectra that are tooredcompared to observations. Including ocean processes in the model reduces this discrepancy bywhiteningthe midlatitude SST spectra. In particular, ocean processes generally increase the SST variance on <2-yr time scales and decrease it on >2-yr time scales. This happens because oceanic forcing increases the midlatitude SST variance across many time scales, but oceanic damping outweighs oceanic forcing on >2-yr time scales, particularly away from the western boundary currents. The whitening of midlatitude SST variability by ocean processes also operates in NCAR’s Community Earth System Model (CESM). That is, midlatitude SST spectra are generally redder when the same atmospheric model is coupled to a slab rather than dynamically active ocean model. Overall, the results suggest that forcing and damping by ocean processes play essential roles in driving midlatitude SST variability.

Previous research suggests the extratropical atmospheric circulation responds to that sea‐surface temperature (SST) variability in the western North Pacific. However, the relative roles of oceanic and atmospheric processes in driving the SST anomalies that, in turn, seemingly influence the atmospheric circulation are unclear. Here, we exploit a simple stochastic climate model to subdivide the SST variability in the Kuroshio‐Oyashio Extension region into components forced by oceanic and atmospheric processes. We then probe the lead/lag relationships between the atmospheric circulation and both components of the SST variability. Importantly, only the oceanic‐forced SST variability is associated with robust atmospheric anomalies that lag the SSTs by 1 month. The results are consistent with the surface heat fluxes associated with atmospheric and oceanic‐forced components of the SST variability. Overall, the findings suggest that ocean dynamical processes in the western North Pacific play an important role in influencing the variability of the extratropical circulation.

Observations reveal two distinct patterns of atmospheric variability associated with wintertime variations in midlatitude sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the North Pacific sector: 1) a pattern of atmospheric circulation anomalies that peaks 2–3 weeks prior to large SST anomalies in the western North Pacific that is consistent with “atmospheric forcing” of the SST field, and 2) a pattern that lags SST anomalies in the western North Pacific by several weeks that is consistent with the “atmospheric response” to the SST field. Here we explore analogous lead–lag relations between the atmospheric circulation and western North Pacific SST anomalies in two sets of simulations run on the NCAR Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1): 1) a simulation run on a fully coupled version of CESM1 and 2) a simulation forced with prescribed, time-evolving SST anomalies over the western North Pacific region. Together, the simulations support the interpretation that the observed lead–lag relationships between western North Pacific SST anomalies and the atmospheric circulation reveal the patterns of atmospheric variability that both force and respond to midlatitude SST anomalies. The results provide numerical evidence that SST variability over the western North Pacific has a demonstrable effect on the large-scale atmospheric circulation throughout the North Pacific sector.

Open questions about the modulation of near‐surface trace gas variability by stratosphere‐troposphere tracer transport complicate efforts to identify anthropogenic sources of gases such as CFC‐11 and N₂O and disentangle them from dynamical influences. In this study, we explore one model's modulation of lower stratospheric tracer advection by the quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO) of stratospheric equatorial zonal‐mean zonal winds at 50 hPa. We assess instances of coherent modulation versus disruption through phase unlocking with the seasonal cycle in the model and in observations. We quantify modeled advective contributions to the temporal rate of change of stratospheric CFC‐11 and N₂O at extratropical and high‐latitudes by calculating a transformed Eulerian mean (TEM) budget across isentropic surfaces from a 10‐member WACCM4 ensemble simulation. We find that positive interannual variability in seasonal tracer advection generally occurs in the easterly QBO phase, as in previous work, and briefly discuss physical mechanisms. Individual simulations of the 10‐member ensemble display phase‐unlocking disruptions from this general pattern due to seasonally varying synchronizations between the model's repeating 28‐month QBO cycle and the 12‐month seasonal cycle. We find that phase locking and unlocking patterns of tracer advection calculations inferred from observations fall within the envelope of the ensemble member results. Our study bolsters evidence for variability in the interannual stratospheric dynamical influence of CFC‐11 near‐surface concentrations by assessing the QBO modulation of lower stratospheric advection via synchronization with the annual cycle. It identifies a likely cause of variations in the QBO influence on tropospheric abundances.

As the leading mode of Pacific variability, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) causes vast and widespread climatic impacts, including in the stratosphere. Following discovery of a stratospheric pathway of ENSO to the Northern Hemisphere surface, here we aim to investigate if there is a substantial Southern Hemisphere (SH) stratospheric pathway in relation to austral winter ENSO events. Large stratospheric anomalies connected to ENSO occur on average at high SH latitudes as early as August, peaking at around 10 hPa. An overall colder austral spring Antarctic stratosphere is generally associated with the warm phase of the ENSO cycle, and vice versa. This behavior is robust among reanalysis and six separate model ensembles encompassing two different model frameworks. A stratospheric pathway is identified by separating ENSO events that exhibit a stratospheric anomaly from those that do not and comparing to stratospheric extremes that occur during neutral ENSO years. The tropospheric eddy-driven jet response to the stratospheric ENSO pathway is the most robust in the spring following a La Niña, but extends into summer, and is more zonally symmetric compared to the tropospheric ENSO teleconnection. The magnitude of the stratospheric pathway is weaker compared to the tropospheric pathway and therefore, when it is present, has a secondary role. For context, the magnitude is approximately half that of the eddy-driven jet modulation due to austral spring ozone depletion in the model simulations. This work establishes that the stratospheric circulation acts as an intermediary in coupling ENSO variability to variations in the austral spring and summer tropospheric circulation.

Cloud radiative effects (CREs) are known to play a central role in governing the long-term mean distribution of sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Very recent work suggests that CREs may also play a role in governing the variability of SSTs in the context of El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Here, the authors exploit numerical simulations in the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model with two different representations of CREs to demonstrate that coupling between CREs and the atmospheric circulation has a much more general and widespread effect on tropical climate than that indicated in previous work. The results reveal that coupling between CREs and the atmospheric circulation leads to robust increases in SST variability on time scales longer than a month throughout the tropical oceans. Remarkably, cloud–circulation coupling leads to more than a doubling of the amplitude of decadal-scale variability in tropical-mean SSTs. It is argued that the increases in tropical SST variance derive primarily from the coupling between SSTs and shortwave CREs: Coupling increases the memory in shortwave CREs on hourly and daily time scales and thus reddens the spectrum of shortwave CREs and increases their variance on time scales spanning weeks to decades. Coupling between SSTs and CREs does not noticeably affect the variance of SSTs in the extratropics, where the effects from variability in CREs on the surface energy budget are much smaller than the effects from the turbulent heat fluxes. The results indicate a basic but critical role of CREs in climate variability throughout the tropics.

Quantifying the width of the tropics has important implications for understanding climate variability and the atmospheric response to anthropogenic forcing. Considerable effort has been placed on quantifying the width of the tropics at tropospheric levels, but substantially less effort has been placed on quantifying the width at stratospheric levels. Here we probe tropical width in the stratosphere using chemical tracers, which are accessible by direct measurement. Two new tracer‐based width metrics are developed, denoted here as the “1σ method” and the gradient weighted latitude (GWL) method. We evaluate widths from three tracers, CH₄, N₂O, and SF₆. We demonstrate that unlike previously proposed stratospheric width methods using tracers, these metrics perform consistently throughout the depth of the stratosphere, at all times of year and on coarse temporal data. The GWL tracer‐based widths correlate well with the turnaround latitude and the critical level, where wave dissipation occurs, in the upper and midstratosphere during certain months of the year. In the lower stratosphere, the deseasonalized tracer‐based widths near the tropical tropopause correlate with the deseasonalized tropopause‐height based metrics. We also find that tracer‐tracer width correlations are strongest at pressure levels where their chemical lifetimes are similar. These metrics represent another useful way to estimate stratospheric tropical width and explore any changes under anthropogenic forcing.

In a recent study, the authors hypothesize that the Clausius–Clapeyron relation provides a strong constraint on the temperature of the extratropical tropopause and hence the depth of mixing by extratropical eddies. The hypothesis is a generalization of the fixed-anvil temperature hypothesis to the global atmospheric circulation. It posits that the depth of robust mixing by extratropical eddies is limited by radiative cooling by water vapor—and hence saturation vapor pressures—in areas of sinking motion. The hypothesis implies that 1) radiative cooling by water vapor constrains the vertical structure and amplitude of extratropical dynamics and 2) the extratropical tropopause should remain at roughly the same temperature and lift under global warming. Here the authors test the hypothesis in numerical simulations run on an aquaplanet general circulation model (GCM) and a coupled atmosphere–ocean GCM (AOGCM). The extratropical cloud-top height, wave driving, and lapse-rate tropopause all shift upward but remain at roughly the same temperature when the aquaplanet GCM is forced by uniform surface warming of +4 K and when the AOGCM is forced by RCP8.5 scenario emissions. “Locking” simulations run on the aquaplanet GCM further reveal that 1) holding the water vapor concentrations input into the radiation code fixed while increasing surface temperatures strongly constrains the rise in the extratropical tropopause, whereas 2) increasing the water vapor concentrations input into the radiation code while holding surface temperatures fixed leads to robust rises in the extratropical tropopause. Together, the results suggest that roughly invariant extratropical tropopause temperatures constitutes an additional “robust response” of the climate system to global warming.

Extratropical eddy-driven jets are predicted to shift poleward in a warmer climate. Recent studies have suggested that cloud radiative effects (CRE) may enhance the amplitude of such shifts. But there is still considerable uncertainty about the underlying mechanisms, whereby CRE govern the jet response to climate change. This study provides new insights into the role of CRE in the jet response to climate change by exploiting the output from six global warming simulations run with and without atmospheric CRE (ACRE). Consistent with previous studies, it is found that the magnitude of the jet shift under climate change is substantially increased in simulations run with ACRE. It is hypothesized that ACRE enhance the jet response to climate change by increasing the upper-tropospheric baroclinicity due to the radiative effects of rising high clouds. The lifting of the tropopause and high clouds in response to surface warming arises from the thermodynamic constraints placed on water vapor concentrations. Hence, the influence of ACRE on the jet shift in climate change simulations may be viewed as an additional “robust” thermodynamic constraint placed on climate change by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. The hypothesis is tested in simulations run with an idealized dry GCM, in which the model is perturbed with a thermal forcing that resembles the ACRE response to surface warming. It is demonstrated that 1) the enhanced jet shifts found in climate change simulations run with ACRE are consistent with the atmospheric response to the radiative warming associated with rising high clouds, and 2) the amplitude of the jet shift scales linearly with the amplitude of the ACRE forcing.