Publications des scientifiques de l'IRD

Germe A., Sevellec F., Mignot Juliette, Fedorov A., Nguyen S., Swingedouw D. (2018). The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability. Climate Dynamics, 51 (5-6), p. 2341-2357. ISSN 0930-7575.

Titre du document
The impacts of oceanic deep temperature perturbations in the North Atlantic on decadal climate variability and predictability
Année de publication
2018
Type de document
Article référencé dans le Web of Science WOS:000442433200042
Auteurs
Germe A., Sevellec F., Mignot Juliette, Fedorov A., Nguyen S., Swingedouw D.
Source
Climate Dynamics, 2018, 51 (5-6), p. 2341-2357 ISSN 0930-7575
Decadal climate predictability in the North Atlantic is largely related to ocean low frequency variability, whose sensitivity to initial conditions is not very well understood. Recently, three-dimensional oceanic temperature anomalies optimally perturbing the North Atlantic Mean Temperature (NAMT) have been computed via an optimization procedure using a linear adjoint to a realistic ocean general circulation model. The spatial pattern of the identified perturbations, localized in the North Atlantic, has the largest magnitude between 1000 and 4000 m depth. In the present study, the impacts of these perturbations on NAMT, on the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), and on climate in general are investigated in a global coupled model that uses the same ocean model as was used to compute the three-dimensional optimal perturbations. In the coupled model, these perturbations induce AMOC and NAMT anomalies peaking after 5 and 10 years, respectively, generally consistent with the ocean-only linear predictions. To further understand their impact, their magnitude was varied in a broad range. For initial perturbations with a magnitude comparable to the internal variability of the coupled model, the model response exhibits a strong signature in sea surface temperature and precipitation over North America and the Sahel region. The existence and impacts of these ocean perturbations have important implications for decadal prediction: they can be seen either as a source of predictability or uncertainty, depending on whether the current observing system can detect them or not. In fact, comparing the magnitude of the imposed perturbations with the uncertainty of available ocean observations such as Argo data or ocean state estimates suggests that only the largest perturbations used in this study could be detectable. This highlights the importance for decadal climate prediction of accurate ocean density initialisation in the North Atlantic at intermediate and greater depths.
Plan de classement
Limnologie physique / Océanographie physique [032]
Description Géographique
ATLANTIQUE NORD
Localisation
Fonds IRD [F B010073786]
Identifiant IRD
fdi:010073786
Contact