Granger Causality of Coupled Climate Processes: Ocean Feedback on the North Atlantic Oscillation

Timothy J. Mosedale; David B. Stephenson; Matthew Collins; Terence C. Mills

doi:10.1175/jcli3653.1

journal article Apr 01, 2006

Granger Causality of Coupled Climate Processes: Ocean Feedback on the North Atlantic Oscillation

Timothy J. Mosedale David B. Stephenson Matthew Collins

Terence C. Mills

Journal of Climate Vol. 19 No. 7 pp. 1182-1194 · American Meteorological Society

View at Publisher Save 10.1175/jcli3653.1

Abstract

Abstract
This study uses a Granger causality time series modeling approach to quantitatively diagnose the feedback of daily sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on daily values of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) as simulated by a realistic coupled general circulation model (GCM). Bivariate vector autoregressive time series models are carefully fitted to daily wintertime SST and NAO time series produced by a 50-yr simulation of the Third Hadley Centre Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere GCM (HadCM3). The approach demonstrates that there is a small yet statistically significant feedback of SSTs on the NAO. The SST tripole index is found to provide additional predictive information for the NAO than that available by using only past values of NAO—the SST tripole is Granger causal for the NAO. Careful examination of local SSTs reveals that much of this effect is due to the effect of SSTs in the region of the Gulf Steam, especially south of Cape Hatteras. The effect of SSTs on NAO is responsible for the slower-than-exponential decay in lag-autocorrelations of NAO notable at lags longer than 10 days. The persistence induced in daily NAO by SSTs causes long-term means of NAO to have more variance than expected from averaging NAO noise if there is no feedback of the ocean on the atmosphere. There are greater long-term trends in NAO than can be expected from aggregating just short-term atmospheric noise, and NAO is potentially predictable provided that future SSTs are known. For example, there is about 10%–30% more variance in seasonal wintertime means of NAO and almost 70% more variance in annual means of NAO due to SST effects than one would expect if NAO were a purely atmospheric process.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

49

[1]

Baldwin "Stratospheric memory and skill of extended-range weather forecasts." Science (2003) 10.1126/science.1087143

[2]

Barsugli "The basic effects of atmosphere–ocean thermal coupling on midlatitude variability." J. Atmos. Sci (1998) 10.1175/1520-0469(1998)055<0477:tbeoao>2.0.co;2

[3]

Battisti "A modeling study of interannual variability in the wintertime North Atlantic Ocean." J. Climate (1995) 10.1175/1520-0442(1995)008<3067:amsoti>2.0.co;2

[4]

Beran "Statistical methods for data with long-range dependence." Stat. Sci (1992) 10.1214/ss/1177011122

[5]

Bjerknes, J. , 1964: Atlantic air–sea interaction. Advances in Geophysics, Vol. 10, Academic Press, 1–84. 10.1016/s0065-2687(08)60005-9

[6]

Bretherton "An interpretation of the results from atmospheric general circulation models forced by the time history of the observed sea surface temperature distribution." Geophys. Res. Lett (2000) 10.1029/1999gl010910

[7]

Cassou "North Atlantic winter climate regimes: Spatial asymmetry, stationarity with time, and oceanic forcing." J. Climate (2004) 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<1055:nawcrs>2.0.co;2

[8]

Charlton "Can knowledge of the state of the stratosphere be used to improve statistical forecasts of the troposphere?" Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc (2003) 10.1256/qj.02.232

[9]

Ciasto "North Atlantic atmosphere–ocean interaction on intraseasonal time scales." J. Climate (2004) 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<1617:naaioi>2.0.co;2

[10]

Collins "The internal climate variability of HadCM3, a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments." Climate Dyn (2001) 10.1007/s003820000094

[11]

Czaja "Influence of the North Atlantic SST on the atmospheric circulation." Geophys. Res. Lett (1999) 10.1029/1999gl900613

[12]

Czaja "Observed impact of Atlantic SST anomalies on the North Atlantic Oscillation." J. Climate (2002) 10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<0606:oioasa>2.0.co;2

[13]

Czaja, A., A. W.Robertson, and T.Huck, 2003: The role of Atlantic ocean–atmosphere coupling in affecting North Atlantic Oscillation variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climatic Significance and Environmental Impact, Geophys. Monogr., No. 134, Amer. Geophys. Union, 147–172. 10.1029/134gm07

[14]

Davis "Predictability of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure anomalies over the North Pacific Ocean." J. Phys. Oceanogr (1976) 10.1175/1520-0485(1976)006<0249:possta>2.0.co;2

[15]

Deser "Atmosphere–ocean interaction on weekly timescales in the North Atlantic and Pacific." J. Climate (1997) 10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<0393:aoiowt>2.0.co;2

[16]

Eden "Prospects for decdal prediction of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)." Geophys. Res. Lett (2002) 10.1029/2001gl014069

[17]

Frankignoul "Stochastic climate models. II: Application to sea-surface temperature anomalies and thermocline variability." Tellus (1977) 10.3402/tellusa.v29i4.11362

[18]

Gordon "The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments." Climate Dyn (2000) 10.1007/s003820050010

[19]

Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-spectral Methods

C. W. J. Granger

Econometrica 1969 10.2307/1912791

[20]

Hasselmann "Stochastic climate models. I: Theory." Tellus (1976) 10.3402/tellusa.v28i6.11316

[21]

Hoskins "On the existence of storm tracks." J. Atmos. Sci (1990) 10.1175/1520-0469(1990)047<1854:oteost>2.0.co;2

[22]

Hurrell "Decadal trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation and relationships to regional temperature and precipitation." Science (1995) 10.1126/science.269.5224.676

[23]

Hurrell, J. W., Y.Kushnir, G.Ottersen, and M.Visbeck, 2003: The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climatic Significance and Environmental Impact. Geophys. Monogr., No. 134, Amer. Geophys. Union, 279 pp. 10.1029/gm134

[24]

Jones "Estimating the variance of time averages." J. Appl. Meteor (1975) 10.1175/1520-0450(1975)014<0159:etvota>2.0.co;2

[25]

Junge "Mediated and direct effects of the North Atlantic ocean on winter temperatures in Northwest Europe." Int. J. Climatol (2003) 10.1002/joc.867

[26]

Kaufmann "Evidence for human influence on climate from hemispheric temperature relations." Nature (1997) 10.1038/40332

[27]

Kushnir "Atmospheric GCM response to extratropical SST anomalies: Synthesis and evaluation." J. Climate (2002) 10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<2233:agrtes>2.0.co;2

[28]

Madden "Estimates of the natural variability of time-averaged sea-level pressure." Mon. Wea. Rev (1976) 10.1175/1520-0493(1976)104<0942:eotnvo>2.0.co;2

[29]

Marshall "North Atlantic climate variability: Phenomena, impacts and mechanisms." Int. J. Climatol (2001) 10.1002/joc.693

[30]

Mosedale, T. J. , 2004: North Atlantic ocean–atmosphere interaction using simple and complex models. Ph.D. thesis, University of Reading, 186 pp.

[31]

Mosedale "Atlantic atmosphere–ocean interaction: A stochastic climate model-based diagnosis." J. Climate (2005) 10.1175/jcli-3315.1

[32]

Mills "The Econometric Modelling of Financial Time Series." (1999) 10.1017/cbo9780511754128

[33]

Peng "Mechanisms for the NAO responses to the North Atlantic SST tripole." J. Climate (2003) 10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<1987:mftnrt>2.0.co;2

[34]

Pope "The processes governing horizontal resolution sensitivity in a climate model." Climate Dyn (2002) 10.1007/s00382-001-0222-8

[35]

Qian "Seasonal predictability of wintertime storminess over the North Atlantic." Geophys. Res. Lett (2003) 10.1029/2003gl017401

[36]

Rodwell "Atlantic air–sea interaction and seasonal predictability." Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc (2002) 10.1002/qj.200212858302

[37]

Saunders "Seasonal predictability of the winter NAO from North Atlantic sea surface temperatures." Geophys. Res. Lett (2002) 10.1029/2002gl014952

[38]

Estimating the Dimension of a Model

Gideon Schwarz

The Annals of Statistics 1978 10.1214/aos/1176344136

[39]

Serreze "Icelandic low cyclone activity: Climatological features, linkages with the NAO, and relationships with recent changes in the Northern Hemisphere circulation." J. Climate (1997) 10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<0453:ilcacf>2.0.co;2

[40]

Slonosky "Does the NAO represent zonal flow? The influence of the NAO on North Atlantic surface temperature." Climate Dyn (2002) 10.1007/s00382-001-0211-y

[41]

Stephenson "Is the North Atlantic Oscillation a random walk?" Int. J. Climatol (2000) 10.1002/(sici)1097-0088(200001)20:1<1::aid-joc456>3.0.co;2-p

[42]

Stephenson, D. B., H.Wanner, S.Brönnimann, and J.Luterbacher, 2003: The history of scientific research on the North Atlantic Oscillation. The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climatic Significance and Environmental Impact, Geophys. Monogr., No. 134, Amer. Geophys. Union, 37–50. 10.1029/134gm02

[43]

Stern "Econometric analysis of global climate change." Environ. Modell. Software (1999) 10.1016/s1364-8152(98)00094-2

[44]

Triacca "On the use of Granger causality to investigate the human influence on climate." Theor. Appl. Climatol (2001) 10.1007/s007040170019

[45]

von Storch "Statistical Analysis in Climate Research." (1999)

[46]

Wang "The relation between the North Atlantic Oscillation and SSTs in the North Atlantic basin." J. Climate (2004) 10.1175/jcli-3186.1

[47]

Wanner "North Atlantic Oscillation—Concepts and studies." Surv. Geophys (2001) 10.1023/a:1014217317898

[48]

An Efficient Method of Estimating Seemingly Unrelated Regressions and Tests for Aggregation Bias

Arnold Zellner

Journal of the American Statistical Association 1962 10.1080/01621459.1962.10480664

[49]

Zwiers "A potential predictability study connected with an atmospheric general circulation model." Mon. Wea. Rev (1987) 10.1175/1520-0493(1987)115<2957:appscw>2.0.co;2

Cited By

162

Impacts of agriculture and snow dynamics on catchment water balance in the U.S. and Great Britain

Masoud Zaerpour, Shadi Hatami · 2024

Communications Earth & Environm...

Granger Causality: A Review and Recent Advances

Ali Shojaie, Emily B. Fox · 2022

Annual Review of Statistics and Its...

Land‐Atmosphere Drivers of Landscape‐Scale Plant Water Content Loss

Andrew F. Feldman, Daniel J. Short Gianotti · 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

Detecting and quantifying causal associations in large nonlinear time series datasets

Jakob Runge, Peer Nowack · 2019

Science Advances

Memory Matters: A Case for Granger Causality in Climate Variability Studies

Marie C. McGraw, Elizabeth A. Barnes · 2018

Journal of Climate

Granger causality analysis with nonuniform sampling and its application to pulse-coupled nonlinear dynamics

Yaoyu Zhang, Yanyang Xiao · 2016

Physical Review E

Contrasting interannual and multidecadal NAO variability

T. Woollings, C. Franzke · 2014

Climate Dynamics

Convergent cross-mapping and pairwise asymmetric inference

James M. McCracken, Robert S. Weigel · 2014

Physical Review E

North Atlantic Oscillation response to transient greenhouse gas forcing and the impact on European winter climate: a CMIP2 multi-model assessment

D. B. Stephenson, V. Pavan · 2006

Climate Dynamics

Metrics

162

Citations

49

References

Details

Published: Apr 01, 2006
Vol/Issue: 19(7)
Pages: 1182-1194

Authors

T

Timothy J. Mosedale

Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

D

David B. Stephenson

Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

M

Matthew Collins

Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom

T

Terence C. Mills

Department of Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom

Cite This Article

Timothy J. Mosedale, David B. Stephenson, Matthew Collins, et al. (2006). Granger Causality of Coupled Climate Processes: Ocean Feedback on the North Atlantic Oscillation. Journal of Climate, 19(7), 1182-1194. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli3653.1

Granger Causality of Coupled Climate Processes: Ocean Feedback on the North Atlantic Oscillation

You May Also Like