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Is the Antarctic oscillation trend during the recent decades unusual?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2013

Ziyin Zhang ,
Daoyi Gong ,
Seongjoong Kim ,
Rui Mao  and
Jing Yang
Ziyin Zhang*
Affiliation:
Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Beijing 100089, China State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Daoyi Gong
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Seongjoong Kim
Affiliation:
Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon 406-130, Korea
Rui Mao
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Jing Yang
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

The Antarctic oscillation (AAO) has been characterized by a persistently positive trend in summer (December–January–February, DJF) during the last 50 years. Thus, the question has arisen of whether the trend is unusual. By investigating five reconstructed historical AAO time series for the past 500 years, recurrences of similar and even stronger trends have been found, indicating that the recent DJF AAO trend is not unprecedented in a historical perspective. To estimate the possible roles played by greenhouse gases or/and ozone, an analysis for DJF AAO trends during the 1969–98 period was conducted using three multiple model ensembles derived from the projects of ‘The twentieth-century climate in coupled models’ (20C3M) and ‘Pre-industrial control experiment models’ (PICTL) of the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). The results show that the ozone depletion over Antarctica and global warming may play significant roles in the strengthening trend. Combining the simulations and reconstructions we emphasize that the AAO trend related to global warming may get much stronger when enhanced by low-frequency natural variability.

Keywords

global warmingnatural variabilityozone depletionpositive trend
Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , August 2014 , pp. 445 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Antarctic Science Ltd 2013 

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