A very likely weakening of Pacific Walker Circulation in constrained near-future projections

Mingna Wu, Tianjun Zhou (), Chao Li, Hongmei Li, Xiaolong Chen, Bo Wu, Wenxia Zhang and Lixia Zhang
Additional contact information
Mingna Wu: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tianjun Zhou: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chao Li: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Hongmei Li: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Xiaolong Chen: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Bo Wu: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wenxia Zhang: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Lixia Zhang: Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The observational records have shown a strengthening of the Pacific Walker circulation (PWC) since 1979. However, whether the observed change is forced by external forcing or internal variability remains inconclusive, a solid answer to more societal relevantly question of how the PWC will change in the near future is still a challenge. Here we perform a quantitative estimation on the contributions of external forcing and internal variability to the recent observed PWC strengthening using large ensemble simulations from six state-of-the-art Earth system models. We find the phase transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is an internal variability mode related to the Pacific, accounts for approximately 63% (~51–72%) of the observed PWC strengthening. Models with sufficient ensemble members can reasonably capture the observed PWC and IPO changes. We further constrain the projection of PWC change by using climate models’ credit in reproducing the historical phase of IPO. The result shows a high probability of a weakened PWC in the near future.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26693-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26693-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26693-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().