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Ann. Geophys., 26, 785-794, 2008
www.ann-geophys.net/26/785/2008/
© European Geosciences Union 2008
Relationship between downwelling surface shortwave radiative fluxes and sea surface temperature over the tropical Pacific: AMIP II models versus satellite estimates
C. Rodriguez-Puebla1, R. T. Pinker2, and S. Nigam2
1Department of Atmospheric Physics, University of Salamanca, Spain
2Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, MD, USA
Abstract. Incident shortwave radiation at the Earth's surface is the driving force of
the climate system. Understanding the relationship between this forcing and
the sea surface temperature, in particular, over the tropical Pacific Ocean
is a topic of great interest because of possible climatic implications. The
objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between
downwelling shortwave radiative fluxes and sea surface temperature by using
available data on radiative fluxes. We assess first the shortwave radiation
from three General Circulation Models that participated in the second phase
of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP II) against estimates
of such fluxes from satellites. The shortwave radiation estimated from
the satellite is based on observations from the International Satellite Cloud
Climatology Project D1 data and the University of Maryland Shortwave
Radiation Budget model (UMD/SRB). Model and satellite estimates of surface
radiative fluxes are found to be in best agreement in the central equatorial
Pacific, according to mean climatology and spatial correlations. We apply
a Canonical Correlation Analysis to determine the interrelated areas where
shortwave fluxes and sea surface temperature are most sensitive to climate
forcing. Model simulations and satellite estimates of shortwave fluxes both
capture well the interannual signal of El Niño-like variability.
The tendency for an increase in shortwave radiation from the UMD/SRB model is not captured by the AMIP II models.
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