On the role of ozone feedback in the ENSO amplitude response under global warming

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the tropical Pacific Ocean is of key importance to global climate and weather. However, state-of-the-art climate models still disagree on the ENSO's response under climate change. The potential role of atmospheric ozone changes in this context has not...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2017-04, Vol.44 (8), p.3858-3866
Main Authors: Nowack, Peer J, Braesicke, Peter, Luke Abraham, N, Pyle, John A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Composition and Structure
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric Processes
Circulation
Climate
Climate and Interannual Variability
Climate change
Climate Change and Variability
Climate models
Climate Variability
Climatology
Computer simulation
Coupled Models of the Climate System
Decadal Ocean Variability
El Nino
El Nino phenomena
El Nino-Southern Oscillation event
Extreme values
Feedback
Global Change
Global climate
Global warming
Lower stratosphere
Middle Atmosphere Dynamics
Middle Atmosphere: Composition and Chemistry
Middle Atmosphere: Constituent Transport and Chemistry
Ocean currents
Ocean temperature
Ocean-atmosphere interaction
Oceanography: General
Oceanography: Physical
Oceans
Oscillations
Ozone
Representations
Research Letter
Research Letters
Southern Oscillation
Stratosphere
Stratosphere/Troposphere Interactions
Surface temperature
Temperature gradients
Troposphere
Upper troposphere
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Summary:The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the tropical Pacific Ocean is of key importance to global climate and weather. However, state-of-the-art climate models still disagree on the ENSO's response under climate change. The potential role of atmospheric ozone changes in this context has not been explored before. Here we show that differences between typical model representations of ozone can have a first-order impact on ENSO amplitude projections in climate sensitivity simulations. The vertical temperature gradient of the tropical middle-to-upper troposphere adjusts to ozone changes in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, modifying the Walker circulation and consequently tropical Pacific surface temperature gradients. We show that neglecting ozone changes thus results in a significant increase in the number of extreme ENSO events in our model. Climate modeling studies of the ENSO often neglect changes in ozone. We therefore highlight the need to understand better the coupling between ozone, the tropospheric circulation, and climate variability.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2016gl072418