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Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics

From El Nino to Climate Change

  • 1st Edition - December 21, 2022
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Shang-Ping Xie
  • Language: English

Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics of Climate Variability and Climate Change presents the patterns, mechanisms, and predictability of climate variability and anthropogenic climate c… Read more

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Description

Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics of Climate Variability and Climate Change presents the patterns, mechanisms, and predictability of climate variability and anthropogenic climate change. Based on a graduate course the author has taught over 25 years, this book provides the physical foundation for those who are interested in fundamental questions such as: why climate varies from one year to another; how predictable climate is; and how climate will change in the face of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is the first comprehensive and systematic treatment of this subject that simultaneously draws on the latest research and is accessible for graduate students.

The book takes a step-by-step systematic approach to coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions. This allows a wide range of comparative views: climate modes among and across different tropical ocean basins, ocean feedback on the atmosphere (in and out of the tropics), and spontaneous internal oscillation versus externally forced climate change. Such comparative views offer unprecedented insight into the dynamics of climate variability and predictability. This book can be used as supplementary reading for advanced undergraduate students, as coursework in climate dynamics, modeling, variability, and change, and as a reference book and research monograph for researchers in ocean, atmospheric, climate, and earth system sciences.

Key features

  • Delivers the first authored textbook on ocean-atmosphere interactions that give rise to climate variability/predictability and shape regional patterns of anthropogenic climate change
  • Contains historical accounts of major breakthroughs in the field
  • Includes homework questions, helping to reinforce key concepts and applications

Readership

Graduate and upper-division undergraduate students including meteorologists, oceanographers, atmospheric/climate scientists, climate/earth system modelers Earth system science, environmental science/engineering, geoscience, geography, agriculture, economics. The interest in climate extends far beyond the atmospheric/ocean/climate sciences community

Table of contents

Preface

1. Introduction

1.1. Role of ocean in climate

1.2. Climate in the news

1.3. Fundamentals

1.4 General circulation models

1.5. Statistical methods

2. Energy balance and transport

2.1. Planetary energy balance and greenhouse effect

2.2. Radiative imbalance and energy transport

2.3. Ocean heat transport

2.4. Atmospheric energy transport

Box 1.1. Surface salinity

Box 1.2. Thermodynamic variables of the moist atmosphere

3. Tropical convection and planetary-scale circulation

3.1. Water vapor budget

3.2. Latent heat release in convection

3.3. Ocean temperature effect on convection

3.4. Equatorial waves

3.5. Planetary-scale circulation

3.6. Weak temperature gradient and SST threshold for convection

3.7. Outlook

Box 3.1. Discovery of equatorial waves

4. The Madden-Julian Oscillation

4.1. Convectively coupled waves

4.2. Madden-Julian Oscillation

4.3. Moisture mode theory

5. Summer monsoons

5.1. South Asian monsoon

5.2. East Asian monsoon

5.3. Asian summer monsoon system

5.4. West African monsoon

5.5. North American monsoon

5.6. Global monsoon

5.7. Discussion

Box 5.1. Land surface-atmosphere interactions

6. Subtropical climate: Trade winds and low clouds

6.1. Trade wind climate

6.2. Cloud-regime transition

6.3. Climate feedback.

6.4. California climate

7. Equatorial Oceanography

7.1. Dynamical models

7.2. Ocean response to wind stress forcing

7.3. Mixed-layer heat budget

8. Coupled feedbacks and tropical climatology

8.1. Meridional asymmetry

8.2. Equatorial cold tongue and Walker circulation

8.3. Equatorial annual cycle

Box 8.1. Climate on the Galapagos

9. El Niño, the Southern Oscillation, and the global influence

9.1. 1997-1998 El Niño

9.2. Bjerknes feedback.

9.3. Mechanisms for oscillation

9.4. Life cycle

9.5. Global influences

9.6. Barotropic stationary waves in the westerlies

9.7. Seasonal prediction

9.8. Summary remarks

Box 9.1. Road to coupled dynamics

10. Tropical Atlantic Variability

10.1. Seasonal cycle

10.2. Zonal mode: Atlantic Niño

10.3. Meridional mode

10.4. Interactions with the Pacific

10.5. Climate modulation of tropical cyclones

10.6. Summary

11. Indian Ocean variability

11.1. Seasonal cycle

11.2. Zonal mode: Indian Ocean dipole

11.3. Basin mode

11.4. Post-ENSO summer capacitor effect

11.5. Asian summer monsoon variability

11.6. Synthesis

Box 11.1. An intrinsic mode to the summer monsoon

12. Extratropical variability and the influence on the tropics

12.1. Atmospheric internal variability.

12.2. Atmospheric forcing of SST: Lagged correlation diagnosis

12.3. Ocean dynamic effects

12.4. Extratropical influence on tropical climate

12.5. Deep meridional overturning circulation

12.6 Summary remarks

Box 12.1. Evolving views on extratropical variability

Box 12.2. Ocean front-atmosphere interaction

13. Global warming: Thermodynamic effects

13.1. Climate feedback analysis

13.2. Global warming hiatus

13.3. Robust atmospheric changes due to thermodynamic effects

13.4. Surface acceleration of the subtropical ocean gyres

13.5. Discussion

Box 13.1. Coupled Intercomparison Project and radiative forcing scenarios

14. Regional climate change

14.1. Regional patterns of tropical rainfall change

14.2. SST pattern dynamics

14.3. Regional uncertainty due to atmospheric circulation change

14.4. Ocean heat uptake

14.5. Aerosol effects

14.6. Historical climate change

14.7. Synthesis

Epilogue

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: January 31, 2023
  • Language: English

About the author

SX

Shang-Ping Xie

Dr. Xie is the distinguished professor of climate science and Roger Revelle Chair at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, USA. He studies ocean-atmosphere interactions, climate variability and change. Dr. Xie is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, an elected fellow of the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society (AMS), and a Highly Cited Researcher (h-index=97) on the Web of Science. He received the AMS Sverdrup Gold Medal for “fundamental contributions to understanding the coupled ocean-atmosphere feedback processes involved in climate variability and climate change.” Scripps is one of the top institutes globally for Oceanography and is a target area for authors/ editors for the Oceanography program. Some of our top performing authors are from Scripps, including Lynne Talley, author of the bestselling Descriptive Physical Oceanography now in its 7th edition.
Affiliations and expertise
Distinguished Professor of Climate Science and Roger Revelle Chair, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, USA

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