Regional Signatures of Forced North Atlantic SST Variability: A Limited Role for Aerosols and Greenhouse Gases

Two distinct roles of Atlantic SSTs in ENSO variability: North Tropical Atlantic SST and Atlantic Nio

[1] Two distinct roles of the Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs), namely, the North Tropical Atlantic (NTA) SST and the Atlantic Niño, on the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability are investigated using the observational data from 1980 to 2010 and coupled model experiments. It appears that the NTA SST and the Atlantic Niño can be used as two independent predictors for predicting...

North Atlantic Multidecadal SST Oscillation: External forcing versus internal variability

Forced and Internal Twentieth-Century SST Trends in the North Atlantic*

In recent years, two alarming trends in North Atlantic climate have been noted: an increase in the intensity and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes and a rapid decrease in Greenland ice sheet volume. Both of these phenomena occurred while a significant warming took place in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs), thus sparking a debate on whether the warming is a consequence of natural cl...

Have anthropogenic aerosols delayed a greenhouse gas-induced weakening of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation?

[1] In many climate model simulations using realistic, time-varying climate change forcing agents for the 20th and 21st centuries, the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) weakens in the 21st century, with little change in the 20th century. Here we use a comprehensive climate model to explore the impact of various climate change forcing agents on the THC. We conduct ensembles of integr...

SST-forced surface wind variability in the tropical Atlantic: An empirical model

[1] Simple dynamical models developed for the tropical Pacific surface winds may not be directly applicable in the Atlantic in view of the basin’s different geometry and size and the potential impact of deep heating from over the adjacent African and South American continents. As simple dynamical models generate surface winds from seasurface temperature (SST), it is worth ascertaining the exten...