The dynamics of the warming hiatus over the Northern Hemisphere

Abstract

A warming hiatus is a period of relatively little change in global mean surface air temperatures (SAT). Many studies have attributed the current warming hiatus to internal climate variability (ICV). But there is less work on discussion of the dynamics about how these ICV modes influence cooling over land in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Here we demonstrate the warming hiatus was more significant over the continental NH. We explored the dynamics of the warming hiatus from a global perspective and investigated the mechanisms of the reversing from accelerated warming to hiatus, and how ICV modes influence SAT change throughout the NH land. It was found that these ICV modes and Arctic amplification can excite a decadal modulated oscillation (DMO), which enhances or suppresses the long-term trend on decadal to multi-decadal timescales. When the DMO is in an upward (warming) phase, it contributes to an accelerated warming trend, as in last 20 years of twentieth-century. It appears that there is a downward swing in the DMO occurring at present, which has balanced or reduced the radiative forced warming and resulted in the recent global warming hiatus. The DMO modulates the SAT, in particular, the SAT of boreal cold months, through changes in the asymmetric meridional and zonal thermal forcing (MTF and ZTF). The MTF represents the meridional temperature gradients between the mid- and high-latitudes, and the ZTF represents the asymmetry in temperatures between the extratropical large-scale warm and cold zones in the zonal direction. Via the different performance of combined MTF and ZTF, we found that the DMO’s modulation effect on SAT was strongest when both weaker (stronger) MTF and stronger (weaker) ZTF occurred simultaneously. And the current hiatus is a result of a downward DMO combined with a weaker MTF and stronger ZTF, which stimulate both a weaker polar vortex and westerly winds, along with the amplified planetary waves, thereby facilitating southward invasion of cold Arctic-air and promoting the blocking formation. The results conclude that the DMO can not only be used to interpret the current warming hiatus, it also suggests that global warming will accelerate again when it swings upward.