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<p>Under global warming, sea surface temperature (SST) responses across the tropics exhibit clear spatial heterogeneity, yet the mechanisms of which remain incompletely understood. Here, we assess the SST sensitivity of major tropical ocean basins to localized top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing using a suite of fully coupled model experiments. In response to an identical amount of TOA heating, the eastern Pacific and Atlantic basins exhibit the strongest SST warming, followed by the Indian and western Pacific basins. To first order, these inter-basin contrasts in local warming sensitivity are shaped by the cloud radiative feedback, particularly low-cloud feedback, which substantially offsets the imposed TOA forcing and account for much of the warming difference between different basins. Ocean dynamical processes further modulate these warming sensitivities. In most basins, ocean circulation redistributes heat and damp local warming. However, in the tropical Atlantic, weakened background winds induce anomalous warm horizontal advection that enhances surface warming despite relatively weak surface heat flux input. Together, these results highlight the fundamental roles of basin-specific atmospheric feedbacks and ocean dynamical adjustments in shaping the heterogeneous SST responses of tropical oceans to external forcing.</p>

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Contrasting warming responses over different tropical ocean basins to localized radiative heating forcing

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月25日

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  • Mengyu Yan,
  • Fukai Liu,
  • Yiyong Luo

摘要

Under global warming, sea surface temperature (SST) responses across the tropics exhibit clear spatial heterogeneity, yet the mechanisms of which remain incompletely understood. Here, we assess the SST sensitivity of major tropical ocean basins to localized top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing using a suite of fully coupled model experiments. In response to an identical amount of TOA heating, the eastern Pacific and Atlantic basins exhibit the strongest SST warming, followed by the Indian and western Pacific basins. To first order, these inter-basin contrasts in local warming sensitivity are shaped by the cloud radiative feedback, particularly low-cloud feedback, which substantially offsets the imposed TOA forcing and account for much of the warming difference between different basins. Ocean dynamical processes further modulate these warming sensitivities. In most basins, ocean circulation redistributes heat and damp local warming. However, in the tropical Atlantic, weakened background winds induce anomalous warm horizontal advection that enhances surface warming despite relatively weak surface heat flux input. Together, these results highlight the fundamental roles of basin-specific atmospheric feedbacks and ocean dynamical adjustments in shaping the heterogeneous SST responses of tropical oceans to external forcing.