Atmospheric GCM Response to Extratropical SST Anomalies: Synthesis and Evaluation*

The advances in our understanding of extratropical atmosphere-ocean interaction over the past decade and a half are examined, focusing on the atmospheric response to sea surface temperature anomalies. The main goal of the paper is to assess what was learned from general circulation model (GCM) experiments over the recent two decades or so. Observational evidence regarding the nature of the interaction and dynamical theory of atmospheric anomalies forced by surface thermal anomalies is reviewed. Three types of GCM experiments used to address this problem are then examined: models with fixed climatological conditions and idealized, stationary SST anomalies; models with seasonally evolving climatology forced with…

• RU
  Rockefeller University
• UO
  University of Oxford