Liu et al. (2025) Strong Wind‐Driven Oceanic Forcing on Decadal SST Variability Over the Global Ocean

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-29
• Authors: Tianying Liu, zhengyu Liu, Peng Gu
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl118782

Research Groups

Not specified in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study dynamically validates a previous statistical assessment, confirming that wind-driven oceanic forcing is the dominant driver of decadal sea surface temperature variability in mid-latitudes.

Objective

• To dynamically test the fidelity of a simplified statistical method (Gu et al., 2024) used to assess oceanic and atmospheric forcing on decadal sea surface temperature variability.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, with a focus on mid-latitudes.
• Temporal Scale: Decadal.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: A fully coupled climate model, employing wind-stress overriding experiments.
• Data sources: Output from a fully coupled climate model, compared against statistical estimates and observational findings from Gu et al. (2024).

Main Results

• The study confirms the dominant role of wind-driven oceanic forcing in mid-latitudes for decadal sea surface temperature (SST) variability.
• This dominance is evidenced by a sign reversal of the decadal SST–surface heat flux correlation after removing wind-driven oceanic forcing in the model.
• Quantitative agreement was found between the forcing ratio (ocean vs. atmosphere) derived from the dynamical model and previous statistical estimates.
• The dynamical results support the reliability of the statistical approach presented in Gu et al. (2024) and their finding that mid-latitude decadal SST variability is primarily driven by wind-driven oceanic forcing, particularly wind-driven geostrophic circulation.

Contributions

• Provides the first dynamical validation of a recently published statistical method (Gu et al., 2024) for assessing oceanic and atmospheric forcing on decadal SST variability.
• Strengthens the confidence in the statistical approach and its conclusion regarding the primary role of wind-driven oceanic forcing in mid-latitude decadal SST variability.

Funding

Not specified in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Liu2025Strong,
  author = {Liu, Tianying and Liu, zhengyu and Gu, Peng},
  title = {Strong Wind‐Driven Oceanic Forcing on Decadal SST Variability Over the Global Ocean},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl118782},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl118782}
}