IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v11y2021i10d10.1038_s41558-021-01159-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers of exceptional coastal warming in the northeastern United States

Author

Listed:
  • Ambarish V. Karmalkar

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst
    University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • Radley M. Horton

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

The northeastern United States (NEUS) and the adjacent Northwest Atlantic Shelf (NWS) have emerged as warming hotspots, but the connection between them remains unexplored. Here we use gridded observational and reanalysis datasets to show that the twentieth-century surface air temperature increase along the coastal NEUS is exceptional on the continental and hemispheric scale and is induced by a combination of two factors: the sea surface temperature (SST) increase in the NWS associated with a weakening Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and atmospheric circulation changes associated with a more persistent positive North Atlantic Oscillation. These connections are important because AMOC slowdown and NWS warming are projected to continue. A survey of climate model simulations indicates that realistic SST representation at high spatial resolution might be a minimum requirement to capture the observed pattern of coastal warming, suggesting that prior projection-based assessments may not have captured key features in this populous region.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambarish V. Karmalkar & Radley M. Horton, 2021. "Drivers of exceptional coastal warming in the northeastern United States," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(10), pages 854-860, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01159-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01159-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01159-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41558-021-01159-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01159-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.