Response to CO2Transient Increase in the GISS Coupled Model:Regional Coolings in a Warming Climate

The GISS coupled atmosphere–ocean model is used to investigate the effect of increased atmospheric CO2 by comparing a compounded 1% CO2 increase experiment with a control simulation. After 70 yr of integration, the global surface air temperature in the 1% CO2 experiment is 1.43°C warmer. In spite of this global warming, there are two distinct regions, the northern Atlantic Ocean and the southern Pacific Ocean, where the surface air temperature is up to 4°C cooler. This situation is maintained by two positive feedbacks: a local effect on convection in the South Pacific and a nonlocal impact on the meridional circulation in the North Atlantic. The poleward transport of latent energy and dry static energy by the atmosphere is greater in the 1% CO2 experiment, caused by warming and therefore increased water vapor and greater greenhouse capacity at lower latitudes. The larger atmospheric transports tend to reduce upward vertical fluxes of heat and moisture from the ocean surface at high latitudes, which has the effect of stabilizing the ocean, reducing both convection and the thermohaline circulation. With less convection, less warm water is brought up from below, and with a reduced North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (by 30% at time of CO2 doubling), the poleward energy transport by the oceans decreases. The colder water then leads to further reductions in evaporation, decreases of salinity at high latitudes, continued stabilization of the ocean, and maintenance of reduced convection and meridional overturning. Although sea ice decreases globally, it increases in the cooling regions, which reduces the overall climate sensitivity, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. Tropical warming has been observed over the past several decades; if modeling studies such as this and others that have produced similar effects are valid, these processes may already be beginning.