A52E:
The Tropical Versus Polar "Tug of War" on the Atmospheric General Circulation Response to Climate Change I


Submit an Abstract to this Session


Session ID#: 58596

Session Description:
A recurrent theme in the recent dynamical literature is that tropical warming strengthens the subtropical to extratropical atmospheric circulation and moves it poleward, while polar warming weakens the circulation and moves it equatorward.  Thus, the full response of the global and regional circulation to climate change is an uncertain struggle between these opposing forces.  We invite submissions that enhance understanding of this atmospheric "tug of war."

Observational, modeling, theoretical, and statistical approaches are all welcome, as well as studies on any climate timescale - from interannual/decadal variability to global warming and paleoclimate change.  We also encourage submissions that address drivers of the polar-tropical warming contrast (e.g. feedbacks, forcings, or ocean/sea-ice processes); consequences of the resulting circulation changes for storms, weather extremes or the water cycle; and/or insights from model hierarchies (e.g. slab-ocean vs. full-ocean, or moist vs. dry).  Submissions solely addressing polar or tropical influences will also be considered.

Primary Convener:  Jacob Scheff, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States
Conveners:  Elizabeth Maroon, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, Natalie Burls, George Mason University, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, Fairfax, VA, United States and Paulo Ceppi, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
Primary Liaison:  Jacob Scheff, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States
Chairs:  Elizabeth Maroon, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States and Jacob Scheff, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States
OSPA Liaison:  Jacob Scheff, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, United States

Cross-Listed:
  • C - Cryosphere
  • GC - Global Environmental Change
  • OS - Ocean Sciences
  • PP - Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
Index Terms:

1620 Climate dynamics [GLOBAL CHANGE]
1630 Impacts of global change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
3305 Climate change and variability [ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES]
3319 General circulation [ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Storylines as a way of understanding and representing the ‘tug of war’ on the atmospheric circulation response to climate change (Invited) (343957)
Theodore G Shepherd, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
Testing latitudinally-dependent explanations of the circulation response to increased CO2 using aquaplanet models (345951)
Tiffany Shaw, The University of Chicago, Department of the Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, United States and Zhihong Tan, The University of Chicago, Department of Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, IL, United States
The Role of Atmospheric Eddies on the Lapse Rate Feedback and Arctic Amplification (Invited) (345906)
Nicole Feldl, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States, Simona Bordoni, University of Trento, Trento, Italy and Bruce T Anderson, Boston University, Earth and Environment, Boston, MA, United States
Mid-latitude response to future warming in the tropics and in the Arctic (456605)
Yannick Peings, University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, United States, Julien Cattiaux, CNRS, Paris Cedex 16, France and Gudrun Magnusdottir, University of California Irvine, Earth System Science, Irvine, CA, United States
Robustness of the stratospheric pathway in linking the Barents-Kara Sea sea ice variability to the mid-latitude circulation in CMIP5 models (453907)
Yutian Wu, Columbia University, New York, United States and Bithi De, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States
Global Impacts of Arctic Sea Ice Decline Mediated by the AMOC - Implications for the ITCZ and Antarctic Sea Ice (361029)
Alexey V Fedorov, Yale University, Earth and Planetary Sciences, New Haven, CT, United States and Wei Liu, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, United States
The effect of Arctic sea-ice loss on the Hadley circulation (437285)
Prof. Lorenzo M Polvani, PhD and Rei Chemke, Columbia University, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, New York, United States
Impact of ITCZ width and position changes onto the higher latitude circulation response to warming (419195)
Oliver Watt-Meyer, University of Washington, Seattle, United States and Dargan Frierson, University of Washington, Atmospheric and Climate Science, Seattle, United States

See more of: Atmospheric Sciences