The impact of North Atlantic sea surface temperature errors on the simulation of North Atlantic European region climate

Keeley, S., Sutton, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8345-8583 and Shaffrey, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2696-752X (2012) The impact of North Atlantic sea surface temperature errors on the simulation of North Atlantic European region climate. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 138 (668). pp. 1774-1783. ISSN 1477-870X doi: 10.1002/qj.1912

Abstract/Summary

Current state-of-the-art climate models fail to capture accurately the path of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current. This leads to a warm bias near the North American coast, where the modelled Gulf Stream separates from the coast further north, and a cold anomaly to the east of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where the North Atlantic Current remains too zonal in this region. Using an atmosphere-only model forced with the sea surface temperature (SST) biases in the North Atlantic, we consider the impact they have on the mean state and the variability in the North Atlantic European region in winter. Our results show that the SST errors produce a mean sea-level pressure response that is similar in magnitude and pattern to the atmospheric circulation errors in the coupled climate model. The work also suggests that errors in the coupled model storm tracks and North Atlantic Oscillation, compared to reanalysis data, can also be explained partly by these SST errors. Our results suggest that both the error in the Gulf Stream separation location and the path of the North Atlantic Current around the Grand Banks play important roles in affecting the atmospheric circulation. Reducing these coupled model errors could improve significantly the representation of the large-scale atmospheric circulation of the North Atlantic and European region.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/27752
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Publisher	Royal Meteorological Society
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