A Land-Sea Contrast Pattern in Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Circulation Trends in Recent Decades
Abstract
We argue land-sea contrast is an important driver of spatial patterns of observed surface temperature and atmospheric circulation trends, including the negative Inter-Decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)-like tendency across the Pacific basin. Observed and modeled trends display an overall decline in sea level pressure over the faster-warming land, with a spatial pattern that resembles the seasonal cycle and modeled response to land heating. Coupled historical forcing climate model simulations underestimate the land-sea warming ratio. It is only in the early response of abrupt CO2 quadrupling climate model simulations that climate models are able to recreate the observed land-sea warming ratio, in which case a negative IPO-like sea level pressure trend and surface warming pattern over the Pacific comparable to observed trends are seen. We propose that some discrepancies between observed trends and those predicted by climate models are explained by the underestimation of the land-sea warming ratio by climate models.
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BibTeX
@misc{johnson2026landsea,
title = {{A Land-Sea Contrast Pattern in Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Circulation Trends in Recent Decades}},
author = {Benjamin O. Johnson and Maria Rugenstein},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.19581},
eprint = {2606.19581},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19581},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Land-Sea Contrast Pattern in Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Circulation Trends in Recent Decades
AU - Benjamin O. Johnson
AU - Maria Rugenstein
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.19581
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19581
AB - We argue land-sea contrast is an important driver of spatial patterns of observed surface temperature and atmospheric circulation trends, including the negative Inter-Decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)-like tendency across the Pacific basin. Observed and modeled trends display an overall decline in sea level pressure over the faster-warming land, with a spatial pattern that resembles the seasonal cycle and modeled response to land heating. Coupled historical forcing climate model simulations underestimate the land-sea warming ratio. It is only in the early response of abrupt CO2 quadrupling climate model simulations that climate models are able to recreate the observed land-sea warming ratio, in which case a negative IPO-like sea level pressure trend and surface warming pattern over the Pacific comparable to observed trends are seen. We propose that some discrepancies between observed trends and those predicted by climate models are explained by the underestimation of the land-sea warming ratio by climate models.
ER -