The Eastern Subtropical Pacific Origin of the Equatorial Cold Bias in Climate Models: A Lagrangian Perspective

Abstract

AbstractGlobal climate models frequently exhibit cold biases in tropical sea surface temperature (SST) in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Here, Lagrangian particle back trajectories are used to investigate the source regions of the water that upwells along the equator in the IPSL climate model to test and confirm the hypothesis that the SST biases are caused by remote biases advected in from the extratropics and to identify the dominant source regions. Water in the model is found to be sourced primarily from localized regions along the western and eastern flanks of the subtropical gyres. However, while the model SST bias is especially large in the northwestern subtropical Pacific (about ?5°C), it is found that the eastern subtropics contribute to the equatorial bias the most. This is due to two distinct subsurface pathways connecting these regions to the equator. The first pathway, originating in the northwestern subtropical Pacific, has relatively long advection time scales close to or exceeding 60 yr, wherein particles recirculate around the subtropical gyres while descending to approximately 500 m before then shoaling toward the equatorial undercurrent. The second pathway, from the eastern subtropics, has time scales close to 10 yr, with particles following a shallow and more direct route to the equator within the upper 200 m. The deeper and longer pathway taken by the western subtropical water ensures that vertical mixing can erode the bias. Ultimately, it is estimated that relatively confined regions in the eastern subtropics of both hemispheres control approximately half of the equatorial bias.