GCM response of northern winter stationary waves and storm tracks to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide

The response of the (GFDL) coupled ocean-atmosphere R15, 9-level GCM to gradually increasing CO₂ amounts is analyzed. A large part of the change is described by an equivalent-barotropic stationary wave with a high over eastern Canada and a low over southern Alaska. Consistent with this, the Atlantic jet weakens near the North American coast. Perpetual winter runs of an R15, nine-level atmospheric GCM with sea surface temperature, sea ice thickness, and soil moisture values prescribed from the coupled GCM results are able to reproduce the coupled model's response qualitatively. Consistent with the weakened baroclinicity associated with the stationary wave change, the Atlantic storm track weakens with increasing CO₂ concentrations while the Pacific storm track does not change in strength substantially. Transients and diabatic heating appear to be the major forcing terms, while changes in zonal-mean basic state and topographic forcing play only a small role. A substantial part of the diabatic response is due to changes in tropical latent heating. -from Authors