Pub Date : 2026-02-11DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01344-5
J. A. Fernández-Granja, Joaquín Bedia, Ana Casanueva, Swen Brands, Jesús Fernández
This study examines how large-scale near-surface circulation is projected to evolve under anthropogenic forcing throughout the 21st century. Using a multi-model ensemble of 41 state-of-the-art Global Climate Models high emissions scenarios, we analyze changes in Weather Type (WT) frequencies, based on Sea-Level Pressure (SLP), as a function of global warming and estimate their Time of Emergence (ToE) from historical variability. Significant and robust trends are identified across key climatic regions, including shifts in anticyclonic types in subtropical high-pressure belts and the Mediterranean, westerly and cyclonic types in the Subantarctic, and unclassified types in the Mediterranean. While most robust signals emerge by the late 21st century, some changes in the Mediterranean are already emerging in the present decade. Overall, results reveal significant circulation changes in the coming decades, affecting dominant near-surface circulation modes globally. A comprehensive dataset of 6-hourly WT projections (2006/15-2100) over mid-latitudes is publicly available as part of this study.
{"title":"Emerging near-surface extratropical circulation changes due to climate change: a weather typing based global analysis","authors":"J. A. Fernández-Granja, Joaquín Bedia, Ana Casanueva, Swen Brands, Jesús Fernández","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01344-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01344-5","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how large-scale near-surface circulation is projected to evolve under anthropogenic forcing throughout the 21st century. Using a multi-model ensemble of 41 state-of-the-art Global Climate Models high emissions scenarios, we analyze changes in Weather Type (WT) frequencies, based on Sea-Level Pressure (SLP), as a function of global warming and estimate their Time of Emergence (ToE) from historical variability. Significant and robust trends are identified across key climatic regions, including shifts in anticyclonic types in subtropical high-pressure belts and the Mediterranean, westerly and cyclonic types in the Subantarctic, and unclassified types in the Mediterranean. While most robust signals emerge by the late 21st century, some changes in the Mediterranean are already emerging in the present decade. Overall, results reveal significant circulation changes in the coming decades, affecting dominant near-surface circulation modes globally. A comprehensive dataset of 6-hourly WT projections (2006/15-2100) over mid-latitudes is publicly available as part of this study.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rapid surges in vegetation growth—defined by thresholds in growth rate and duration—are critical yet understudied indicators of ecosystem responses to environmental change. Here, we investigate spatiotemporal patterns of such abrupt, short-lived flash flourishing events across the northern extratropical latitudes (NEL) from 2003 to 2022. We find more frequent occurrence of flash flourishing events at high latitudes (≥45° N), where their incidence is 1.6 times higher than at mid-latitudes. Moreover, there is an increasing tendency in frequency, duration, and intensity of flash flourishing events over the past two decades, alongside consistent rises in vegetation indices across onset, post-onset, and entire phases. Model simulations attribute these multiyear increases primarily to elevated atmospheric CO2, while temperature and radiation predominantly control phase-specific variability, with onset traits strongly predicting subsequent phenological responses. Together, these findings identify the patterns and drivers of NEL flash flourishing and highlight their large-scale impacts on ecosystem dynamics, offering critical insights for model improvement and the assessment of ecological shifts.
{"title":"Flash flourishing of Northern Hemisphere vegetation and its drivers","authors":"Xiangxu Kong, Jiafu Mao, Haishan Chen, Zhenzhong Zeng, Yuefeng Hao, Yaoping Wang, Yao Zhang, Anping Chen, Mingzhou Jin, Xiaoying Shi, Forrest M. Hoffman","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01346-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01346-3","url":null,"abstract":"Rapid surges in vegetation growth—defined by thresholds in growth rate and duration—are critical yet understudied indicators of ecosystem responses to environmental change. Here, we investigate spatiotemporal patterns of such abrupt, short-lived flash flourishing events across the northern extratropical latitudes (NEL) from 2003 to 2022. We find more frequent occurrence of flash flourishing events at high latitudes (≥45° N), where their incidence is 1.6 times higher than at mid-latitudes. Moreover, there is an increasing tendency in frequency, duration, and intensity of flash flourishing events over the past two decades, alongside consistent rises in vegetation indices across onset, post-onset, and entire phases. Model simulations attribute these multiyear increases primarily to elevated atmospheric CO2, while temperature and radiation predominantly control phase-specific variability, with onset traits strongly predicting subsequent phenological responses. Together, these findings identify the patterns and drivers of NEL flash flourishing and highlight their large-scale impacts on ecosystem dynamics, offering critical insights for model improvement and the assessment of ecological shifts.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-10DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01342-7
Hannah C. Frostenberg, Montserrat Costa-Surós, Paraskevi Georgakaki, Ulrike Proske, Georgia Sotiropoulou, Eleanor May, David Neubauer, Patrick Eriksson, María Gonçalves Ageitos, Athanasios Nenes, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Øyvind Seland, Luisa Ickes
The balance between liquid and ice in clouds remains a major challenge in climate modeling, largely due to uncertainties in ice-related processes. We investigate the relative importance of four microphysical processes—primary ice nucleation (PIN), secondary ice production (SIP), sedimentation, and transport of ice crystals—for the supercooled liquid fraction (SLF) in mixed-phase clouds using three global climate models: EC-Earth3-AerChem, NorESM2-MM, and ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3. All models identify PIN as the dominant influence on SLF at cold temperatures in high northern latitudes, but diverge elsewhere and for higher temperatures. Implementing a unified SIP parameterization produced varied model responses, revealing fundamental differences in how microphysical processes interact within each model framework. These discrepancies suggest that each model prioritizes different processes in shaping the cloud phase. Such divergence may limit the reliability of conclusions regarding microphysical processes drawn from any single model.
{"title":"Large discrepancies in dominant microphysical processes governing mixed-phase clouds across climate models","authors":"Hannah C. Frostenberg, Montserrat Costa-Surós, Paraskevi Georgakaki, Ulrike Proske, Georgia Sotiropoulou, Eleanor May, David Neubauer, Patrick Eriksson, María Gonçalves Ageitos, Athanasios Nenes, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Øyvind Seland, Luisa Ickes","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01342-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01342-7","url":null,"abstract":"The balance between liquid and ice in clouds remains a major challenge in climate modeling, largely due to uncertainties in ice-related processes. We investigate the relative importance of four microphysical processes—primary ice nucleation (PIN), secondary ice production (SIP), sedimentation, and transport of ice crystals—for the supercooled liquid fraction (SLF) in mixed-phase clouds using three global climate models: EC-Earth3-AerChem, NorESM2-MM, and ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3. All models identify PIN as the dominant influence on SLF at cold temperatures in high northern latitudes, but diverge elsewhere and for higher temperatures. Implementing a unified SIP parameterization produced varied model responses, revealing fundamental differences in how microphysical processes interact within each model framework. These discrepancies suggest that each model prioritizes different processes in shaping the cloud phase. Such divergence may limit the reliability of conclusions regarding microphysical processes drawn from any single model.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-09DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01324-9
Lucas J. Oh, Sebastian D. Eastham, Steven R. H. Barrett
The environmental impact of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions varies with emission altitude and latitude. NOx emissions from subsonic aviation (9-12 km) contribute to net global ozone formation, whereas those from supersonic aircraft (above 14 km) lead to net global ozone depletion. However, the effects of NOx emission altitude on surface air quality remain understudied. We evaluate how NOx emissions at different altitudes (8–22 km) and latitudes influence near-surface concentrations of two known air pollutants: ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Using the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem, we find that NOx emissions of 1 Tg N yr−1 at 8–10 km (30–60°N) increase surface ozone (population-weighted) by 0.52 ppb and surface PM2.5 by 35 ng m−3, whereas emissions at 20–22 km reduce surface ozone by 1.73 ppb and increase surface PM2.5 by 310 ng m−3; this is nine times the PM2.5 increase per unit NOx from lower-altitude emissions. These effects stem from altitude-dependent mechanisms: at lower altitudes typical of subsonic aviation, NOx emissions increase upper tropospheric ozone which leads to enhanced surface ozone and nitrate aerosol. However, when emitted at higher altitudes NOx instead depletes ozone, permitting more ultraviolet light to reach the troposphere which boosts OH production and accelerates production of sulfate aerosol while destroying near-surface ozone. Our findings suggest that NOx emissions from high-altitude sources, including supersonic aircraft may not only contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion but also cause larger changes (albeit of mixed sign) in surface air quality than subsonic aviation per unit of NOx emitted.
氮氧化物（NOx）排放对环境的影响随排放高度和纬度的不同而不同。亚音速航空（9-12公里）的氮氧化物排放有助于全球臭氧净形成，而超音速飞机（14公里以上）的氮氧化物排放导致全球臭氧净消耗。然而，氮氧化物排放高度对地表空气质量的影响仍未得到充分研究。我们评估了不同海拔（8-22公里）和纬度的氮氧化物排放如何影响两种已知空气污染物的近地表浓度：臭氧和细颗粒物（PM2.5）。利用全球化学运输模型GEOS-Chem，我们发现在8-10 km（30-60°N）处1 Tg N yr - 1的NOx排放使地表臭氧（人口加权）增加0.52 ppb，使地表PM2.5增加35 ng m - 3，而在20-22 km处排放使地表臭氧减少1.73 ppb，使地表PM2.5增加310 ng m - 3；这是低海拔排放单位氮氧化物PM2.5增加量的9倍。这些影响源于高度依赖机制：在典型的亚音速航空低海拔地区，氮氧化物排放增加对流层上层臭氧，从而导致地表臭氧和硝酸盐气溶胶增强。然而，当氮氧化物在高海拔地区排放时，反而会消耗臭氧，使更多的紫外线到达对流层，从而促进OH的产生，加速硫酸盐气溶胶的产生，同时破坏近地表臭氧。我们的研究结果表明，包括超音速飞机在内的高空来源排放的氮氧化物不仅可能导致平流层臭氧消耗，而且比亚音速航空单位排放的氮氧化物造成的地表空气质量变化（尽管是混合迹象）更大。
{"title":"Mechanisms driving altitude- and latitude-dependent air quality variations from high-altitude NOx emissions","authors":"Lucas J. Oh, Sebastian D. Eastham, Steven R. H. Barrett","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01324-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01324-9","url":null,"abstract":"The environmental impact of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions varies with emission altitude and latitude. NOx emissions from subsonic aviation (9-12 km) contribute to net global ozone formation, whereas those from supersonic aircraft (above 14 km) lead to net global ozone depletion. However, the effects of NOx emission altitude on surface air quality remain understudied. We evaluate how NOx emissions at different altitudes (8–22 km) and latitudes influence near-surface concentrations of two known air pollutants: ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Using the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem, we find that NOx emissions of 1 Tg N yr−1 at 8–10 km (30–60°N) increase surface ozone (population-weighted) by 0.52 ppb and surface PM2.5 by 35 ng m−3, whereas emissions at 20–22 km reduce surface ozone by 1.73 ppb and increase surface PM2.5 by 310 ng m−3; this is nine times the PM2.5 increase per unit NOx from lower-altitude emissions. These effects stem from altitude-dependent mechanisms: at lower altitudes typical of subsonic aviation, NOx emissions increase upper tropospheric ozone which leads to enhanced surface ozone and nitrate aerosol. However, when emitted at higher altitudes NOx instead depletes ozone, permitting more ultraviolet light to reach the troposphere which boosts OH production and accelerates production of sulfate aerosol while destroying near-surface ozone. Our findings suggest that NOx emissions from high-altitude sources, including supersonic aircraft may not only contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion but also cause larger changes (albeit of mixed sign) in surface air quality than subsonic aviation per unit of NOx emitted.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"315 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146152336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-06DOI: 10.1038/s41612-025-01294-4
Fei Luo, Frank Selten, Dim Coumou
Soil moisture strongly modulates heat waves and droughts by altering land-atmosphere feedbacks, yet its influence on large-scale circulation remains inadequately quantified. Using large-ensemble simulations with the state-of-the-art climate model EC-Earth 3, we demonstrate that interactive soil moisture has a substantial impact on Northern Hemisphere summer circulation climatology. Two experiments were conducted: a fully interactive simulation and one with prescribed soil moisture states. The results reveal pronounced circulation shifts. Relative to the prescribed case, the interactive experiment drives a poleward displacement of the subtropical jets. It strengthens the polar front jet and enhances land-atmosphere coupling, amplifying wave amplitudes over land by ~24%. Interactive soil moisture raises mean summer surface temperatures by up to +1.5 K and extremes by +3.0 K. These findings demonstrate that soil moisture fluctuations can modify mean atmospheric circulation, with important implications for future summer climate projections.
{"title":"The role of soil moisture on summer atmospheric circulation climatology in the Northern Hemisphere","authors":"Fei Luo, Frank Selten, Dim Coumou","doi":"10.1038/s41612-025-01294-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01294-4","url":null,"abstract":"Soil moisture strongly modulates heat waves and droughts by altering land-atmosphere feedbacks, yet its influence on large-scale circulation remains inadequately quantified. Using large-ensemble simulations with the state-of-the-art climate model EC-Earth 3, we demonstrate that interactive soil moisture has a substantial impact on Northern Hemisphere summer circulation climatology. Two experiments were conducted: a fully interactive simulation and one with prescribed soil moisture states. The results reveal pronounced circulation shifts. Relative to the prescribed case, the interactive experiment drives a poleward displacement of the subtropical jets. It strengthens the polar front jet and enhances land-atmosphere coupling, amplifying wave amplitudes over land by ~24%. Interactive soil moisture raises mean summer surface temperatures by up to +1.5 K and extremes by +3.0 K. These findings demonstrate that soil moisture fluctuations can modify mean atmospheric circulation, with important implications for future summer climate projections.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"240 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146135576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-04DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01341-8
Ruotong Xiao, Liang Wu, Zhiqiang Gong, Zhiping Wen, Tao Feng, Xi Cao, Shangfeng Chen
{"title":"The relationship between the origin of tropical cyclones and their maximum attained intensity","authors":"Ruotong Xiao, Liang Wu, Zhiqiang Gong, Zhiping Wen, Tao Feng, Xi Cao, Shangfeng Chen","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01341-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01341-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146115636","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-04DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01347-2
Yanqin Li, Bolan Gan, Ruichen Zhu, Xianyao Chen, Yingzhe Cui, Hong Wang, Lixin Wu
{"title":"Significance of Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies to Arctic sea ice variability revealed by deep learning","authors":"Yanqin Li, Bolan Gan, Ruichen Zhu, Xianyao Chen, Yingzhe Cui, Hong Wang, Lixin Wu","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01347-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01347-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146115993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-04DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01321-y
Albin Wells, David R. Rounce, Mark Fahnestock
Glaciers in Alaska contribute greatly to sea-level rise and are losing mass at a faster rate than any other region. Yet, our understanding of ongoing changes and ability to model them are hindered by a lack of observations, particularly at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we leverage Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to produce temporally-varying glacier melt extents and snowlines from mid-2016 to 2024 for 99% of glaciers in Alaska greater than 2 km 2 . The melt extents are strongly correlated with temperatures, revealing that each 1°C increase in summer temperature causes up to 3 additional weeks of glacier melt. The high spatiotemporal resolution also captures subseasonal changes such as the 2019 heat wave, which caused subregional snowlines to retreat up to 105 m higher and exposed up to 28% more of the underlying glacier compared to typical years. Our snowlines agree well with optical datasets (r 2 up to 0.94), thus providing unprecedented reliable data unencumbered by clouds or lighting conditions. Moving forward, our automated, open-source workflow can easily be applied to other regions. These data also present unique opportunities to calibrate and validate large-scale glacier evolution models, a critical step for improving projections of glacier changes and their impacts.
{"title":"Seasonal progression of melt and snowlines in Alaska from SAR reveals impacts of warming","authors":"Albin Wells, David R. Rounce, Mark Fahnestock","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01321-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01321-y","url":null,"abstract":"Glaciers in Alaska contribute greatly to sea-level rise and are losing mass at a faster rate than any other region. Yet, our understanding of ongoing changes and ability to model them are hindered by a lack of observations, particularly at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we leverage Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to produce temporally-varying glacier melt extents and snowlines from mid-2016 to 2024 for 99% of glaciers in Alaska greater than 2 km <jats:sup>2</jats:sup> . The melt extents are strongly correlated with temperatures, revealing that each 1°C increase in summer temperature causes up to 3 additional weeks of glacier melt. The high spatiotemporal resolution also captures subseasonal changes such as the 2019 heat wave, which caused subregional snowlines to retreat up to 105 m higher and exposed up to 28% more of the underlying glacier compared to typical years. Our snowlines agree well with optical datasets (r <jats:sup>2</jats:sup> up to 0.94), thus providing unprecedented reliable data unencumbered by clouds or lighting conditions. Moving forward, our automated, open-source workflow can easily be applied to other regions. These data also present unique opportunities to calibrate and validate large-scale glacier evolution models, a critical step for improving projections of glacier changes and their impacts.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"280 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146115642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-03DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01340-9
Dong Wan Kim, Young-Oh Kwon, Claude Frankignoul, Clara Deser, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Adam Herrington, Sunyong Kim
The complex nature of extratropical air-sea coupling has hampered a detailed physical understanding of how the atmosphere responds to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) region. Departing from the conventional approach of examining the seasonal-mean response, this study focuses on how atmospheric latent heating structures in early winter are modulated by synoptic weather patterns, and how those weather patterns selectively respond to KOE SST anomalies. The results are based on high-resolution atmospheric model experiments (1/8 degree over the North Pacific, tapering to 1 degree over the rest of the globe). While three dominant synoptic weather patterns that enhance latent heating over the KOE region are identified, only one of them, corresponding to anticyclonic baroclinic wave, systematically responds to the imposed SST anomalies. Warm SST anomalies induce stronger updrafts, which enhance atmospheric latent heating and ultimately strengthen and anchor the anomalous anticyclone over the North Pacific. Because this anticyclonic baroclinic system occurs more frequently than other types of weather patterns and has the greatest sensitivity to KOE SST anomalies, it dominates the seasonal-mean atmospheric response. The results demonstrate that a synoptic view is needed for an improved understanding of the mechanisms governing the seasonal-mean atmospheric circulation response to KOE SST forcing.
{"title":"A synoptic view of the atmospheric circulation response to SST anomalies in the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension Region: the importance of latent heating structure","authors":"Dong Wan Kim, Young-Oh Kwon, Claude Frankignoul, Clara Deser, Gokhan Danabasoglu, Adam Herrington, Sunyong Kim","doi":"10.1038/s41612-026-01340-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01340-9","url":null,"abstract":"The complex nature of extratropical air-sea coupling has hampered a detailed physical understanding of how the atmosphere responds to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) region. Departing from the conventional approach of examining the seasonal-mean response, this study focuses on how atmospheric latent heating structures in early winter are modulated by synoptic weather patterns, and how those weather patterns selectively respond to KOE SST anomalies. The results are based on high-resolution atmospheric model experiments (1/8 degree over the North Pacific, tapering to 1 degree over the rest of the globe). While three dominant synoptic weather patterns that enhance latent heating over the KOE region are identified, only one of them, corresponding to anticyclonic baroclinic wave, systematically responds to the imposed SST anomalies. Warm SST anomalies induce stronger updrafts, which enhance atmospheric latent heating and ultimately strengthen and anchor the anomalous anticyclone over the North Pacific. Because this anticyclonic baroclinic system occurs more frequently than other types of weather patterns and has the greatest sensitivity to KOE SST anomalies, it dominates the seasonal-mean atmospheric response. The results demonstrate that a synoptic view is needed for an improved understanding of the mechanisms governing the seasonal-mean atmospheric circulation response to KOE SST forcing.","PeriodicalId":19438,"journal":{"name":"npj Climate and Atmospheric Science","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.0,"publicationDate":"2026-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146102135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-02-03DOI: 10.1038/s41612-026-01343-6
Estela A. Monteiro, Giang Tran, Matthew J. Gidden, Nadine Mengis
Aerosols have played an important role in defining the climate over the historical period, due to their net cooling effect in the atmosphere. However, as their emissions are expected to decrease in upcoming decades, they will be associated with reduced cooling, i.e. future warming, of the planet. Despite their importance and high uncertainty associated with their radiative forcing, aerosols inclusion in simple climate models, impact models and carbon-based climate assessment metrics requires simplifications and assumptions. Typically, interactions between physical and biogeochemical processes are disregarded by such. By varying the spatial implementation of aerosols in an intermediate complexity model we explore the variability in Earth system responses under an ambitious mitigation scenario due to aerosols-radiation interactions. When aerosols are implemented disregarding their spatial distribution, surface air temperature is higher by almost 0.1 °C when compared to a regionally heterogeneous implementation, corresponding to an uncertainty of ca. 200 GtCO2 of remaining carbon budgets. The main processes driving these responses are the land surface temperature and its effect on soil respiration, as well as changed ocean heat fluxes due to differences in incoming shortwave radiation at the surface. The spatial distribution of aerosols triggers important climate-carbon feedbacks, which should be specifically considered when assessing climate evolution and simulated Earth system responses. Even if aerosol-cloud interactions aren’t explored, the results already indicate that aerosols should be deliberately accounted for in simple models and assessment tools, as their triggered feedbacks will be instrumental in defining pathways for temperature stabilisation and evaluating, for example, remaining carbon budgets.
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