MJO Intensification with Warming in the Superparameterized CESM

Abstract

Abstract The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is the dominant mode of tropical intraseasonal variability, characterized by an eastward-propagating envelope of convective anomalies with a 30–70-day time scale. Here, the authors report changes in MJO activity across coupled simulations with a superparameterized version of the NCAR Community Earth System Model. They find that intraseasonal OLR variance nearly doubles between a preindustrial control run and a run with 4×CO2. Intraseasonal precipitation increases at a rate of roughly 10% per 1 K of warming, and MJO events become 20%–30% more frequent. Moist static energy (MSE) budgets of composite MJO events are calculated for each scenario, and changes in budget terms are used to diagnose the physical processes responsible for changes in the MJO with warming. An increasingly positive contribution from vertical advection is identified as the most likely cause of the enhanced MJO activity. A decomposition links the changes in vertical advection to a steepening of the mean MSE profile, which is a robust thermodynamic consequence of warming. Surface latent heat flux anomalies are a significant sink of MJO MSE at 1×CO2, but this damping effect is reduced in the 4×CO2 case. This work has implications for organized tropical variability in past warm climates as well as future global warming scenarios.