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  1. Abstract

    The US Southwest is in a drought crisis that has been developing over the past two decades, contributing to marked increases in burned forest areas and unprecedented efforts to reduce water consumption. Climate change has contributed to this ongoing decadal drought via warming that has increased evaporative demand and reduced snowpack and streamflows. However, on the supply side, precipitation has been low during the 21st century. Here, using simulations with an atmosphere model forced by imposed sea surface temperatures, we show that the 21st century shift to cooler tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures forced a decline in cool season precipitation that in turn drove a decline in spring to summer soil moisture in the southwest. We then project the near-term future out to 2040, accounting for plausible and realistic natural decadal variability of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and radiatively-forced change. The future evolution of decadal variability in the Pacific and Atlantic will strongly influence how wet or dry the southwest is in coming decades as a result of the influence on cool season precipitation. The worst-case scenario involves a continued cold state of the tropical Pacific and the development of a warm state of the Atlantic while the best case scenario would be a transition to a warm state of the tropical Pacific and the development of a cold state of the Atlantic. Radiatively-forced cool season precipitation reduction is strongest if future forced SST change continues the observed pattern of no warming in the equatorial Pacific cold tongue. Although this is a weaker influence on summer soil moisture than natural decadal variability, no combination of natural decadal variability and forced change ensures a return to winter precipitation or summer soil moisture levels as high as those in the final two decades of the 20th century.

     
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  2. Abstract Marine heatwaves (MHWs)—extremely warm, persistent sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies causing substantial ecological and economic consequences—have increased worldwide in recent decades. Concurrent increases in global temperatures suggest that climate change impacted MHW occurrences, beyond random changes arising from natural internal variability. Moreover, the long-term SST warming trend was not constant but instead had more rapid warming in recent decades. Here we show that this nonlinear trend can—on its own—appear to increase SST variance and hence MHW frequency. Using a Linear Inverse Model to separate climate change contributions to SST means and internal variability, both in observations and CMIP6 historical simulations, we find that most MHW increases resulted from regional mean climate trends that alone increased the probability of SSTs exceeding a MHW threshold. Our results suggest the need to carefully attribute global warming-induced changes in climate extremes, which may not always reflect underlying changes in variability. 
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  3. Food intake behavior is regulated by a network of appetite-inducing and appetite-suppressing neuronal populations throughout the brain. The parasubthalamic nucleus (PSTN), a relatively unexplored population of neurons in the posterior hypothalamus, has been hypothesized to regulate appetite due to its connectivity with other anorexigenic neuronal populations and because these neurons express Fos, a marker of neuronal activation, following a meal. However, the individual cell types that make up the PSTN are not well characterized, nor are their functional roles in food intake behavior. Here, we identify and distinguish between two discrete PSTN subpopulations, those that express tachykinin-1 (PSTN Tac1 neurons) and those that express corticotropin-releasing hormone (PSTN CRH neurons), and use a panel of genetically encoded tools in mice to show that PSTN Tac1 neurons play an important role in appetite suppression. Both subpopulations increase activity following a meal and in response to administration of the anorexigenic hormones amylin, cholecystokinin (CCK), and peptide YY (PYY). Interestingly, chemogenetic inhibition of PSTN Tac1 , but not PSTN CRH neurons, reduces the appetite-suppressing effects of these hormones. Consistently, optogenetic and chemogenetic stimulation of PSTN Tac1 neurons, but not PSTN CRH neurons, reduces food intake in hungry mice. PSTN Tac1 and PSTN CRH neurons project to distinct downstream brain regions, and stimulation of PSTN Tac1 projections to individual anorexigenic populations reduces food consumption. Taken together, these results reveal the functional properties and projection patterns of distinct PSTN cell types and demonstrate an anorexigenic role for PSTN Tac1 neurons in the hormonal and central regulation of appetite. 
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  4. Abstract

    Skillfully predicting the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the closely related northern annular mode (NAM), on ‘subseasonal’ (weeks to less than a season) timescales is a high priority for operational forecasting centers, because of the NAO’s association with high-impact weather events, particularly during winter. Unfortunately, the relatively fast, weather-related processes dominating total NAO variability are unpredictable beyond about two weeks. On longer timescales, the tropical troposphere and the stratosphere provide some predictability, but they contribute relatively little to total NAO variance. Moreover, subseasonal forecasts are only sporadically skillful, suggesting the practical need to identify the fewer potentially predictable events at the time of forecast. Here we construct an observationally based linear inverse model (LIM) that predicts when, and diagnoses why, subseasonal NAO forecasts will be most skillful. We use the LIM to identify those dynamical modes that, despite capturing only a fraction of overall NAO variability, are largely responsible for extended-range NAO skill. Predictable NAO events stem from the linear superposition of these modes, which represent joint tropical sea-surface temperature-lower stratosphere variability plus a single mode capturing downward propagation from the upper stratosphere. Our method has broad applicability because both the LIM and the state-of-the-art European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Integrated Forecast System (IFS) have higher (and comparable) skill for the same set of predicted high skill forecast events, suggesting that the low-dimensional predictable subspace identified by the LIM is relevant to real-world subseasonal NAO predictions.

     
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    Abstract The Indian Ocean has received increasing attention for its large impacts on regional and global climate. However, sea surface temperature (SST) variability arising from Indian Ocean internal processes has not been well understood particularly on decadal and longer timescales, and the external influence from the Tropical Pacific has not been quantified. This paper analyzes the interannual-to-decadal SST variability in the Tropical Indian Ocean in observations and explores the external influence from the Pacific versus internal processes within the Indian Ocean using a Linear Inverse Model (LIM). Coupling between Indian Ocean and tropical Pacific SST anomalies (SSTAs) is assessed both within the LIM dynamical operator and the unpredictable stochastic noise that forces the system. Results show that the observed Indian Ocean Basin (IOB)-wide SSTA pattern is largely a response to the Pacific ENSO forcing, although it in turn has a damping effect on ENSO especially on annual and decadal timescales. On the other hand, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is an Indian Ocean internal mode that can actively affect ENSO; ENSO also has a returning effect on the IOD, which is rather weak on decadal timescale. The third mode is partly associated with the Subtropical Indian Ocean Dipole (SIOD), and it is primarily generated by Indian Ocean internal processes, although a small component of it is coupled with ENSO. Overall, the amplitude of Indian Ocean internally generated SST variability is comparable to that forced by ENSO, and the Indian Ocean tends to actively influence the tropical Pacific. These results suggest that the Indian-Pacific Ocean interaction is a two-way process. 
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  7. Abstract The Pacific–North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern has been linked both to tropical phenomena, including the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and to internal extratropical processes, including interactions with the zonally varying basic state and synoptic eddies. Many questions remain, however, concerning how these various relationships act, both separately and together, to yield observed PNA variability. Using linear inverse modeling (LIM), this study finds that the development and amplification of PNA anomalies largely results from the interference of modes strongly coupled to sea surface temperatures (SST), such as ENSO, and modes internal to the atmosphere, including the MJO. These SST-coupled and “internal atmospheric” modes form subspaces that are not orthogonal, and PNA growth is shown to occur via non-normal interactions. An internal atmospheric space LIM is developed to examine growth beyond this interference by removing the SST-coupled modes, effectively removing ENSO and retaining MJO variability. Optimal PNA growth in the internal atmospheric space LIM is driven by MJO heating, particularly over the Indian Ocean, and a retrograding northeast Pacific streamfunction anomaly. Additionally, the individual contributions of tropical heating and the extratropical circulation on PNA growth are investigated. The non-normal PNA growth is an important result, demonstrating the difficulty in partitioning PNA variance into contributions from different phenomena. This cautionary result is likely applicable to many geophysical phenomena and should be considered in attribution studies. 
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  8. The discovery of more than 4500 extrasolar planets has created a need for modeling their interior structure and dynamics. Given the prominence of iron in planetary interiors, we require accurate and precise physical properties at extreme pressure and temperature. A first-order property of iron is its melting point, which is still debated for the conditions of Earth’s interior. We used high-energy lasers at the National Ignition Facility and in situ x-ray diffraction to determine the melting point of iron up to 1000 gigapascals, three times the pressure of Earth’s inner core. We used this melting curve to determine the length of dynamo action during core solidification to the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) structure. We find that terrestrial exoplanets with four to six times Earth’s mass have the longest dynamos, which provide important shielding against cosmic radiation. 
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  9. Abstract

    A cyclostationary linear inverse model (CSLIM) is used to investigate the seasonal growth of tropical Pacific Ocean El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events with canonical, central Pacific (CP), or eastern Pacific (EP) sea surface temperature (SST) characteristics. Analysis shows that all types of ENSO events experience maximum growth toward final states occurring in November and December. ENSO events with EP characteristics also experience growth into May and June, but CP events do not. A single dominant “ENSO mode,” growing from an equatorial heat content anomaly into a characteristic ENSO-type SST pattern in about 9 months (consistent with the delayed/recharge oscillator model of ENSO), is essential for the predictable development of all ENSO events. Notably, its seasonality is responsible for the late-calendar-year maximum in ENSO amplification. However, this ENSO mode alone does not capture the observed growth and evolution of diverse ENSO events, which additionally involve the seasonal evolution of other nonorthogonal Floquet modes. EP event growth occurs when the ENSO mode is initially “covered up” in combination with other Floquet modes. The ENSO mode’s slow seasonal evolution allows it to emerge while the other modes rapidly evolve and/or decay, leading to strongly amplifying and more predictable EP events. CP events develop when the initial state has a substantial contribution from Floquet modes with meridional mode–like SST structures. Thus, while nearly all ENSO events involve the seasonally varying ENSO-mode dynamics, the diversity and predictability of ENSO events cannot be understood without identifying contributions from the remaining Floquet modes.

    Significance Statement

    The purpose of this study is to identify structures that lead to seasonal growth of diverse types of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. An important contribution from this study is that it uses an observationally constrained, empirically derived seasonal model. We find that processes affecting the evolution of diverse ENSO events are strongly seasonally dependent. ENSO events with eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) characteristics are closely related to a single “ENSO mode” that resembles theoretical models of ENSO variability. ENSO events that have central equatorial Pacific SST characteristics include contributions from additional “meridional mode” structures that evolve via different physical processes. These findings are an important step in evaluating the seasonal predictability of ENSO diversity.

     
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  10. A decades-long affair

    Decadal climate variability and change affects nearly every aspect of our world, including weather, agriculture, ecosystems, and the economy. Predicting its expression is thus of critical importance on multiple fronts. Poweret al. review what is known about tropical Pacific decadal climate variability and change, the degree to which it can be simulated and predicted, and how we might improve our understanding of it. More accurate projections will require longer and more detailed instrumental and paleoclimate records, improved climate models, and better data assimilation methods. —HJS

     
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