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Interactions between the Tropics and Extratropics

A bit on theory, results and prospects for future predictability

  • Chapter
Global Climate

Abstract

This chapter attempts to review current research on teleconnections between the Tropics and the Extratropics, for the most part at midlatitudes and focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on the Atlantic Ocean. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, the largest interannual climate signal, is the first climate phenomenon shown to depend essentially upon coupled interactions of the dynamics of both ocean and atmosphere and the only one, at present, capable of yielding some (moderate) interannual predictability. In recent works, some regions in the Extratropics have appeared more sensitive to ENSO impacts in the present times. It is however, still unknown whether or not this situation is completely new, and if so, linked to the effects of global warming. Other important uncertainties not yet solved are the unknown impacts on the Extratropics, of large-scale climatic phenomena such as ENSO, in a future and more variable warmer world. The tropical atmospheric bridge hypothesis, though not the only hypothesis, provides a strong basis to address these sorts of interactions dynamically. Other mechanisms for the generation of interannual to interdecadal variability at midlatitudes that involve internal ocean dynamics in midlatitude oceans, might also provide useful insights to enhance climate predictability and will be briefly discussed in this chapter. As a last point, a brief overview is introduced on recent studies and techniques developed for the isolation and modeling of climate forcing on ecosystems. This extreme is achieved using newly-developed specific statistical tools and taking into account transient threshold-dependent relationships.

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  1. GRC - Grup de Recerca del Clima, Centre de Climatologia i Meteorologia, Parc Científic de Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, Baldiri i Reixach 4-6, Torre D, 08028, Barcelona, Catalonia

    Xavier Rodó

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  1. Climate ResearchGroup, University of Barcelona, Baldiri Reixac, 4-6, Torre D, 08032, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Rodó

  2. Instituto Pirenaico de Ecologia-CSIC, Avda. Montanana 1005, 50059, Zaragoza, Spain

    Francisco A. Comín

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Rodó, X. (2003). Interactions between the Tropics and Extratropics. In: Rodó, X., Comín, F.A. (eds) Global Climate. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05285-3_11

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