At most latitudes, the seasonal cycle of zonal-mean surface air temperature is notably asymmetric: the length of the warming season is not equal to the length of the cooling season. The asymmetry varies spatially, with the cooling season being ~40 days shorter than the warming season in the subtropics and the warming season being ~100 days shorter than the cooling season at the poles. Furthermore, the asymmetry differs between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. Here, we show that these observed features are broadly captured in a simple model for the evolution of temperature forced by realistic insolation. The model suggests that Earth's orbital eccentricity largely determines the hemispheric contrast, and obliquity broadly dictates the meridional structure. Clouds, atmospheric heat flux convergence, and time-invariant effective surface heat capacity have minimal impacts on seasonal asymmetry. This simple, first-order picture has been absent from previous discussions of the surface temperature seasonal cycle.

A defining feature of Earth's present-day climate is that the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern Hemisphere. Consistently, the Southern Hemisphere has a stronger jet stream and more extreme weather events than the Northern Hemisphere. Understanding the relative importance of land–ocean contrast, including topography, radiative processes, and ocean circulation for determining this storminess asymmetry is important and may be helpful for interpreting projections of future storminess. Here, we show that the stormier Southern Hemisphere is induced by nearly equal contributions from topography and the ocean circulation, which moves energy from the Southern to Northern Hemisphere. These findings are based on 1) diagnostic energetic analyses applied to observations and climate model simulations and 2) modifying surface (land and ocean) boundary conditions in climate model simulations. Flattening topography and prescribing hemispherically symmetric surface energy fluxes (the manifestation of ocean energy transport on the atmosphere) in a climate model reduce the storminess asymmetry from 23 to 12% and 11%, respectively. Finally, we use the energetic perspective to interpret storminess trends since the beginning of the satellite era. We show that the Southern Hemisphere has become stormier, consistent with implied ocean energy transport changes in the Southern Ocean. In the Northern Hemisphere, storminess has not changed significantly consistent with oceanic and radiative (increased absorption of sunlight due to the loss of sea ice and snow) changes opposing one another. The trends are qualitatively consistent with climate model projections.

Total poleward atmospheric heat transport (AHT) is similar in both magnitude and latitudinal structure between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. These similarities occur despite more major mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere, which help create substantial stationary eddy AHT that is largely absent in the Southern Hemisphere. However, this hemispheric difference in stationary eddy AHT is compensated by hemispheric differences in other dynamic components of AHT so that total AHT is similar between hemispheres. In order to understand how AHT compensation occurs, we add mid-latitude mountain ranges in two different general circulation models that are otherwise configured as aquaplanets. Even when mid-latitude mountains are introduced, total AHT is nearly invariant. We explore the near invariance of total AHT in response to orography through dynamic, energetic, and diffusive perspectives. Dynamically, orographically induced changes to stationary eddy AHT are compensated by changes in both transient eddy and mean meridional circulation AHT. This creates an AHT system with three interconnected components that resist large changes to total AHT. Energetically, the total AHT can only change if the top-of-atmosphere net radiation changes at the equator-to-pole scale. Mid-latitude orography does not create large-enough changes in the equator-to-pole temperature gradient to alter outgoing longwave radiation enough to substantially change total AHT. In the zonal mean, changes to absorbed shortwave radiation also often compensate for changes in outgoing longwave radiation. Diffusively, the atmosphere smooths anomalies in temperature and humidity created by the addition of mid-latitude orography, such that total AHT is relatively invariant.

The zonal and annual mean tropical precipitation response to paleoclimate and anthropogenic forcing scenarios ranging from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), CO₂ quadrupling (₄XCO₂), mid-Holocene, North Atlantic freshwater hosing and volcanic forcing is analyzed in an ensemble of global climate models. Zonally averaged tropical precipitation changes are characterized in terms of three geometric manipulations of the climatological precipitation (hereafter, modes): meridional shifts, intensifications, and meridional contractions. We employ an optimization procedure that quantifies the magnitude and robustness (across different models) of changes in each mode in response to each forcing type. Additionally, the fraction of precipitation changes that are explained by the modes—in isolation and combined—is quantified. Shifts are generally less than 1° latitude in magnitude and explain a small fraction (< 10%) of tropical precipitation changes. Contractions and intensifications are strongly correlated across all simulations with a robust intensification and contraction of precipitation under global warming and a robust reduction and expansion under global cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum. The near constant scaling between contractions and intensifications across all simulations is used to define a joint contraction/intensification (CI) mode of tropical precipitation. The CI mode explains nearly 50% of the precipitation change under ₄XCO₂ and LGM forcing by optimizing a single parameter. These results suggest the shifting mode that has been extensively used to interpret paleo-rainfall reconstructions is of limited use for characterizing forced zonal mean precipitation changes and advocates for a reinterpretation of past precipitation changes to account for the CI mode.

As a step towards understanding the fundamental drivers of polar climate change, we evaluate contributions to polar warming and its seasonal and hemispheric asymmetries in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) as compared with CMIP5. CMIP6 models broadly capture the observed pattern of surface- and winter-dominated Arctic warming that has outpaced both tropical and Antarctic warming in recent decades. For both CMIP5 and CMIP6, CO2 quadrupling experiments reveal that the lapse-rate and surface albedo feedbacks contribute most to stronger warming in the Arctic than the tropics or Antarctic. The relative strength of the polar surface albedo feedback in comparison to the lapse-rate feedback is sensitive to the choice of radiative kernel, and the albedo feedback contributes most to intermodel spread in polar warming at both poles. By separately calculating moist and dry atmospheric heat transport, we show that increased poleward moisture transport is another important driver of Arctic amplification and the largest contributor to projected Antarctic warming. Seasonal ocean heat storage and winter-amplified temperature feedbacks contribute most to the winter peak in warming in the Arctic and a weaker winter peak in the Antarctic. In comparison with CMIP5, stronger polar warming in CMIP6 results from a larger surface albedo feedback at both poles, combined with less-negative cloud feedbacks in the Arctic and increased poleward moisture transport in the Antarctic. However, normalizing by the global-mean surface warming yields a similar degree of Arctic amplification and only slightly increased Antarctic amplification in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5.

We characterize high-frequency variability of sea ice extent (HFVSIE) in observations and climate models. We find that HFVSIE in models is biased low with respect to observations, especially at synoptic timescales (<20 days) in the Arctic year-round and at monthly timescales (30–60 days) in Antarctica in winter. Models show large spread in HFVSIE, especially in Antarctica. This spread is partly explained by sea ice mean-state while model biases in sea level pressure (SLP) and wind variability do not appear to play a major role in HFVSIE spread. Extreme sea ice extent (SIE) changes are associated with SLP anomaly dipoles aligned with the sea ice edge and winds directed on-ice (off-ice) during SIE loss (gain) events. In observations, these events are also associated with distinct ocean wave states during the cold season, when waves are greater (smaller) and travel toward (away from) the sea ice edge during SIE loss (gain) events.

The flux of moist static energy into the polar regions plays a key role in the energy budget and climate of the polar regions. While usually studied from a vertically integrated perspective (F_wall), this analysis examines its vertical structure, using the NASA-MERRA-2 reanalysis to compute climatological and anomalous fluxes of sensible, latent, and potential energy across 70°N and 65°S for the period 1980–2016. The vertical structure of the climatological flux is bimodal, with peaks in the mid- to lower-troposphere and mid- to upper-stratosphere. The near zero flux at the tropopause defines the boundary between stratospheric (F_strat) and tropospheric (F_trop) contributions to F_wall. Especially at 70°N, F_strat is found to be important to the climatology and variability of F_wall, contributing 20.9 Wm^-2 to F_wall (19% of F_wall) during the winter and explaining 23% of the variance of F_wall. During winter, an anomalous poleward increase in F_strat preceding a sudden stratospheric warming is followed by an increase in outgoing longwave radiation anomalies, with little influence on the surface energy budget of the Arctic. Conversely, a majority of the energy input by an anomalous poleward increase in F_trop goes toward warming the Arctic surface. F_trop is found to be a better metric than F_wall for evaluating the influence of atmospheric circulations on the Arctic surface climate.

Atmospheric heat transport is an important piece of our climate system, yet we lack a complete theory for its magnitude or changes. Atmospheric dynamics and radiation play different roles in controlling the total atmospheric heat transport (AHT) and its partitioning into components associated with eddies and mean meridional circulations. This work focuses on two specific controls: a radiative one, atmospheric radiative temperature tendencies; and a dynamic one, planetary rotation rate. We use an idealized grey radiation model to employ a novel framework to lock the radiative temperature tendency and total AHT to climatological values, even while the rotation rate is varied. This setup allows for a systematic study of the effects of radiative tendency and rotation rate on AHT. We find that rotation rate controls the latitudinal extent of the Hadley cell and the heat transport efficiency of eddies. Both rotation rate and radiative tendency influence the strength of the Hadley cell and the strength of equator-pole energy differences that are important for AHT by eddies. These two controls do not always operate independently and can reinforce or dampen each other. In addition, we examine how individual AHT components, which vary with latitude, sum to a total AHT that varies smoothly with latitude. At slow rotation rates the mean meridional circulation is most important in ensuring total AHT varies smoothly with latitude, while eddies are most important at rotation rates similar to, and faster than, the Earth's.

Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) has slightly increased over the satellite observational period (1979 to the present) despite global warming. Several mechanisms have been invoked to explain this trend, such as changes in winds, precipitation, or ocean stratification, yet there is no widespread consensus. Additionally, fully coupled Earth system models run under historic and anthropogenic forcing generally fail to simulate positive SIE trends over this time period. In this work, we quantify the role of winds and Southern Ocean SSTs on sea ice trends and variability with an Earth system model run under historic and anthropogenic forcing that nudges winds over the polar regions and Southern Ocean SSTs north of the sea ice to observations from 1979 to 2018. Simulations with nudged winds alone capture the observed interannual variability in SIE and the observed long-term trends from the early 1990s onward, yet for the longer 1979–2018 period they simulate a negative SIE trend, in part due to faster-than-observed warming at the global and hemispheric scale in the model. Simulations with both nudged winds and SSTs show no significant SIE trends over 1979–2018, in agreement with observations. At the regional scale, simulated sea ice shows higher skill compared to the pan-Antarctic scale both in capturing trends and interannual variability in all nudged simulations. We additionally find negligible impact of the initial conditions in 1979 on long-term trends.

We investigate the possible causes for inter-model spread in tropical zonal-mean precipitation pattern, which is divided into hemispherically symmetric and anti-symmetric modes via empirical orthogonal function analysis. The symmetric pattern characterizes the leading mode and is tightly related to the seasonal amplitude of maximum precipitation position. The energetic constraints link the symmetric pattern to the seasonal amplitude in cross-equatorial atmospheric energy transport AET₀ and the annual-mean equatorial net energy input NEI₀. Decomposition of AET₀ into the energetics variables indicates that the inter-model spread in symmetric precipitation pattern is correlated with the inter-model spread in clear-sky atmospheric shortwave absorption, which most likely arises due to differences in radiative transfer parameterizations rather than water vapor patterns. Among the components that consist NEI₀, the inter-model spread in symmetric precipitation pattern is mostly associated with the inter-model spread in net surface energy flux in the equatorial region, which is modulated by the strength of cooling by equatorial upwelling. Our results provide clues to understand the mechanism of tropical precipitation bias, thereby providing guidance for model improvements.

We evaluate the longitudinal variation in meridional shifts of the tropical rainbelt in response to natural and anthropogenic forcings using a large suite of coupled climate model simulations. We find that the energetic framework of the zonal mean Hadley cell is generally not useful for characterizing shifts of the rainbelt at regional scales, regardless of the characteristics of the forcing. Forcings with large hemispheric asymmetry such as extratropical volcanic forcing, meltwater forcing, and the Last Glacial Maximum give rise to robust zonal mean shifts of the rainbelt; however, the direction and magnitude of the shift vary strongly as a function of longitude. Even the Pacific rainband does not shift uniformly under any forcing considered. Forcings with weak hemispheric asymmetry such as CO₂ and mid‐Holocene forcing give rise to zonal mean shifts that are small or absent, but the rainbelt does shift regionally in coherent ways across models that may have important dynamical consequences.

The lapse rate feedback is the dominant driver of stronger warming in the Arctic than the Antarctic in simulations with increased CO₂. While Antarctic surface elevation has been implicated in promoting a weaker Antarctic lapse rate feedback, the mechanisms in which elevation impacts the lapse rate feedback are still unclear. Here we suggest that weaker Antarctic warming under CO₂ forcing stems from shallower, less intense climatological inversions due to limited atmospheric heat transport above the ice sheet elevation and elevation‐induced katabatic winds. In slab ocean model experiments with flattened Antarctic topography, stronger climatological inversions support a stronger lapse rate feedback and annual mean Antarctic warming comparable to the Arctic under CO₂ doubling. Unlike the Arctic, seasonality in warming over flat Antarctica is mainly driven by a negative shortwave cloud feedback, which exclusively dampens summer warming, with a smaller contribution from the winter‐enhanced lapse rate feedback.

The sea ice-albedo feedback (SIAF) is the product of the ice sensitivity (IS), that is, how much the surface albedo in sea ice regions changes as the planet warms, and the radiative sensitivity (RS), that is, how much the top-of-atmosphere radiation changes as the surface albedo changes. We demonstrate that the RS calculated from radiative kernels in climate models is reproduced from calculations using the “approximate partial radiative perturbation” method that uses the climatological radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and the assumption that the atmosphere is isotropic to shortwave radiation. This method facilitates the comparison of RS from satellite-based estimates of climatological radiative fluxes with RS estimates across a full suite of coupled climate models and, thus, allows model evaluation of a quantity important in characterizing the climate impact of sea ice concentration changes. The satellite-based RS is within the model range of RS that differs by a factor of 2 across climate models in both the Arctic and Southern Ocean. Observed trends in Arctic sea ice are used to estimate IS, which, in conjunction with the satellite-based RS, yields an SIAF of 0.16 ± 0.04 W m^-2 K^-1. This Arctic SIAF estimate suggests a modest amplification of future global surface temperature change by approximately 14% relative to a climate system with no SIAF. We calculate the global albedo feedback in climate models using model-specific RS and IS and find a model mean feedback parameter of 0.37 W m^-2 K^-1, which is 40% larger than the IPCC AR5 estimate based on using RS calculated from radiative kernel calculations in a single climate model.

Meridional heat transport (MHT) is analyzed in ensembles of coupled climate models simulating climate states ranging from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to quadrupled CO₂. MHT is partitioned here into atmospheric (AHT) and implied oceanic (OHT) heat transports. In turn, AHT is partitioned into dry and moist energy transport by the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), transient eddy energy transport (TE), and stationary eddy energy transport (SE) using only monthly averaged model output that is typically archived. In all climate models examined, the maximum total MHT (AHT + OHT) is nearly climate-state invariant, except for a modest (4%, 0.3 PW) enhancement of MHT in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) during the LGM. However, the partitioning of MHT depends markedly on the climate state, and the changes in partitioning differ considerably among different climate models. In response to CO₂ quadrupling, poleward implied OHT decreases, while AHT increases by a nearly compensating amount. The increase in annual-mean AHT is a smooth function of latitude but is due to a spatially inhomogeneous blend of changes in SE and TE that vary by season. During the LGM, the increase in wintertime SE transport in the NH midlatitudes exceeds the decrease in TE resulting in enhanced total AHT. Total AHT changes in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) are not significant. These results suggest that the net top-of-atmosphere radiative constraints on total MHT are relatively invariant to climate forcing due to nearly compensating changes in absorbed solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation. However, the partitioning of MHT depends on detailed regional and seasonal factors.

We analyze the temporal structure of the climatological seasonal cycle in surface air temperature across the globe. We find that, over large regions of Earth, the seasonal cycle of surface temperature departs from an annual harmonic: the duration of fall and spring differ by as much as 2 months. We characterize this asymmetry by the metric ASYM, defined as the phase lag of the seasonal maximum temperature relative to the summer solstice minus the phase lag of the seasonal minimum temperature relative to winter solstice. We present a global analysis of ASYM from weather station data and atmospheric reanalysis and find that ASYM is well represented in the reanalysis. ASYM generally features positive values over land and negative values over the ocean, indicating that spring has a longer duration over the land domain whereas fall has a longer duration over the ocean. However, ASYM also features more positive values over North America compared to Europe and negative values in the polar regions over ice sheets and sea ice. Understanding the root cause of the climatological ASYM will potentially further our understanding of controls on the seasonal cycle of temperature and its future/past changes. We explore several candidate mechanisms to explain the spatial structure of ASYM including 1) modification of the seasonal cycle of surface solar radiation by the seasonal evolution of cloud thickness, 2) differences in the seasonal cycle of the atmospheric boundary layer depth over ocean and over land, and 3) temperature advection by the seasonally evolving atmospheric circulation.

Climate models robustly and unanimously simulate narrowing of the intense tropical precipitation under greenhouse gas forcing. We argue that the meridional width of tropical precipitation is controlled by the seasonal meridional range of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The contraction of tropical precipitation under greenhouse forcing results from a reduced seasonal range of ITCZ migration. An energetic theory — similar to the energetic theory for ITCZ shifts based on the hemispheric contrast of energy input to the atmosphere — is developed. The meridional width of tropical precipitation is proportional to the seasonal range of the interhemispheric contrast in atmospheric heating divided by the efficiency of atmospheric cross‐equatorial heat transport. Climate models are biased toward overly expansive tropical precipitation resulting from an exaggerated seasonal atmospheric heating. The robust contraction of tropical precipitation under global warming results from increased efficiency of interhemispheric energy transport consistent with enhanced gross moist stability of the tropical atmosphere.

Meridional atmospheric heat transport (AHT) has been investigated through three broad perspectives: a dynamic perspective, linking AHT to the poleward flux of moist static energy (MSE) by atmospheric motions; an energetic perspective, linking AHT to energy input to the atmosphere by top-of-atmosphere radiation and surface heat fluxes; and a diffusive perspective, representing AHT in terms downgradient energy transport. It is shown here that the three perspectives provide complementary diagnostics of meridional AHT and its changes under greenhouse gas forcing. When combined, the energetic and diffusive perspectives offer prognostic insights: anomalous AHT is constrained to satisfy the net energetic demands of radiative forcing, radiative feedbacks, and ocean heat uptake; in turn, the meridional pattern of warming must adjust to produce those AHT changes, and does so approximately according to diffusion of anomalous MSE. The relationship between temperature and MSE exerts strong constraints on the warming pattern, favoring polar amplification. These conclusions are supported by use of a diffusive moist energy balance model (EBM) that accurately predicts zonal-mean warming and AHT changes within comprehensive general circulation models (GCMs). A dry diffusive EBM predicts similar AHT changes in order to satisfy the same energetic constraints, but does so through tropically amplified warming — at odds with the GCMs' polar-amplified warming pattern. The results suggest that polar-amplified warming is a near-inevitable consequence of a moist, diffusive atmosphere's response to greenhouse gas forcing. In this view, atmospheric circulations must act to satisfy net AHT as constrained by energetics.

Downward longwave radiation (DLR) is often assumed to be an independent forcing on the surface energy budget in analyses of Arctic warming and land‐atmosphere interaction. We use radiative kernels to show that the DLR response to forcing is largely determined by surface temperature perturbations. We develop a method by which vertically integrated versions of the radiative kernels are combined with surface temperature and specific humidity to estimate the surface DLR response to greenhouse forcing. Through a decomposition of the DLR response, we estimate that changes in surface temperature produce at least 63% of the clear‐sky DLR response in greenhouse forcing, while the changes associated with clouds account for only 11% of the full‐sky DLR response. Our results suggest that surface DLR is tightly coupled to surface temperature; therefore, it cannot be considered an independent component of the surface energy budget.

Estimates of radiative feedbacks obtained by regressing fluctuations in top‐of‐atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance and surface temperature depend critically on the sampling interval and on assumptions about the nature of the stochastic forcing driving internal variability. Here we develop an energy balance framework that allows us to model the different impacts of stochastic atmospheric and oceanic forcing on feedback estimates. The contribution of different forcing components is parsed based on their impacts on the covariance structure of near‐surface air temperature and TOA energy fluxes, and the framework is validated in a hierarchy of climate model simulations that span a range of oceanic configurations and reproduce the key features seen in observations. We find that at least three distinct forcing sources, feedbacks, and time scales are needed to explain the full covariance structure. Atmospheric and oceanic forcings drive modes of variability with distinct relationships between temperature and TOA radiation, leading to an effect akin to regression dilution. The net regression‐based feedback estimate is found to be a weighted average of the distinct feedbacks associated with each mode. Moreover, the estimated feedback depends on whether surface temperature and TOA energy fluxes are sampled at monthly or annual time scales. The results suggest that regression‐based feedback estimates reflect contributions from a combination of stochastic forcings and should not be interpreted as providing an estimate of the radiative feedback governing the climate response to greenhouse gas forcing.

Numerical water tracers implemented in a global climate model are used to study how polar hydroclimate responds to CO₂-induced warming from a source–receptor perspective. Although remote moisture sources contribute substantially more to polar precipitation year-round in the mean state, an increase in locally sourced moisture is crucial to the winter season polar precipitation response to greenhouse gas forcing. In general, the polar hydroclimate response to CO₂-induced warming is strongly seasonal: over both the Arctic and Antarctic, locally sourced moisture constitutes a larger fraction of the precipitation in winter, while remote sources become even more dominant in summer. Increased local evaporation in fall and winter is coincident with sea ice retreat, which greatly augments local moisture sources in these seasons. In summer, however, larger contributions from more remote moisture source regions are consistent with an increase in moisture residence times and a longer moisture transport length scale, which produces a robust hydrologic cycle response to CO₂-induced warming globally. The critical role of locally sourced moisture in the hydrologic cycle response of both the Arctic and Antarctic is distinct from controlling factors elsewhere on the globe; for this reason, great care should be taken in interpreting polar isotopic proxy records from climate states unlike the present.

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a global-scale band of tropical precipitation lying, in the annual mean, just north of the equator. Its position can be tied to the atmosphere's energy balance: the Northern Hemisphere is heated more strongly than the Southern Hemisphere, biasing the atmosphere's circulation and ITCZ north of the equator. In the context of this energy balance framework, we examine multidecadal connections between variations in the position of the global ITCZ and indices of extratropical sea surface temperature (SST) variability over the twentieth century. We find that the ITCZ and atmospheric circulation are shifted farther to the north during periods when North Atlantic and North Pacific SSTs are anomalously warm. Additionally, a warmer North Atlantic is correlated with a relatively warm Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. Our results suggest an important role for the ocean circulation in modulating ITCZ migrations on decade-and-longer timescales.

Summertime insolation intensified in the Northern Hemisphere during the mid-Holocene, resulting in enhanced monsoonal precipitation. In this study, the authors examine the changes in the annual-mean tropical precipitation as well as changes in atmospheric circulation and upper-ocean circulation in the mid-Holocene compared to the preindustrial climate, as simulated by 12 coupled climate models from PMIP3. In addition to the predominant zonally asymmetric changes in tropical precipitation, there is a small northward shift in the location of intense zonal-mean precipitation (mean ITCZ) in the mid-Holocene in the majority (9 out of 12) of the coupled climate models. In contrast, the shift is southward in simulations using an atmospheric model coupled to a slab ocean. The northward mean ITCZ shift in the coupled simulations is due to enhanced northward ocean heat transport across the equator [OHT(EQ)], which demands a compensating southward atmospheric energy transport across the equator, accomplished by shifting the Hadley cell and hence the mean ITCZ northward. The increased northward OHT(EQ) is primarily accomplished by changes in the upper-ocean gyre circulation in the tropical Pacific acting on the zonally asymmetric climatological temperature distribution. The gyre intensification results from the intensification of the monsoonal winds in the Northern Hemisphere and the weakening of the winds in the Southern Hemisphere, both of which are forced directly by the insolation changes.

The aerial hydrological cycle response to CO₂ doubling from a Lagrangian, rather than Eulerian, perspective is evaluated using information from numerical water tracers implemented in a global climate model. While increased surface evaporation (both local and remote) increases precipitation globally, changes in transport are necessary to create a spatial pattern where precipitation decreases in the subtropics and increases substantially at the equator. Overall, changes in the convergence of remotely evaporated moisture are more important to the overall precipitation change than changes in the amount of locally evaporated moisture that precipitates in situ. It is found that CO₂ doubling increases the fraction of locally evaporated moisture that is exported, enhances moisture exchange between ocean basins, and shifts moisture convergence within a given basin toward greater distances between moisture source (evaporation) and sink (precipitation) regions. These changes can be understood in terms of the increased residence time of water in the atmosphere with CO₂ doubling, which corresponds to an increase in the advective length scale of moisture transport. As a result, the distance between where moisture evaporates and where it precipitates increases. Analyses of several heuristic models further support this finding.

The distance atmospheric moisture travels is fundamental to Earth's hydrologic cycle, governing how much evaporation is exported versus precipitated locally. The present-day tropical Atlantic is one region that exports much locally evaporated moisture away, leading to more saline surface waters in the Atlantic compared to the Indo-Pacific at similar latitudes. Here we use a state-of-the-art global climate model equipped with numerical water tracers to show that over half of the atmospheric freshwater exported from the Atlantic originates as evaporation in the northern Atlantic subtropics, primarily between 10°N and 20°N, and is transported across Central America via prevailing easterlies into the equatorial Pacific. We find enhanced moisture export from the Atlantic to Pacific with warming is due to greater distances between moisture source and sink regions, which increases moisture export from the Atlantic at the expense of local precipitation. Distance traveled increases due to longer moisture residence times, not simply Clausius–Clapeyron scaling.

The Southern Ocean has shown little warming over recent decades, in stark contrast to the rapid warming observed in the Arctic. Along the northern flank of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, however, the upper ocean has warmed substantially. Here we present analyses of oceanographic observations and general circulation model simulations showing that these patterns—of delayed warming south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and enhanced warming to the north—are fundamentally shaped by the Southern Ocean’s meridional overturning circulation: wind-driven upwelling of unmodified water from depth damps warming around Antarctica; greenhouse gas-induced surface heat uptake is largely balanced by anomalous northward heat transport associated with the equatorward flow of surface waters; and heat is preferentially stored where surface waters are subducted to the north. Further, these processes are primarily due to passive advection of the anomalous warming signal by climatological ocean currents; changes in ocean circulation are secondary. These findings suggest the Southern Ocean responds to greenhouse gas forcing on the centennial, or longer, timescale over which the deep ocean waters that are upwelled to the surface are warmed themselves. It is against this background of gradual warming that multidecadal Southern Ocean temperature trends must be understood.