A Land-Sea Contrast Pattern in Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Circulation Trends in Recent Decades

Physics > Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [Submitted on 17 Jun 2026] Title:A Land-Sea Contrast Pattern in Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Circulation Trends in Recent Decades View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:Spatial patterns in observed climate trends remain poorly understood. Here we argue that a warming of land relative to ocean has shaped 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 relative to ocean, with a spatial pattern that resembles the seasonal cycle and the response to land heating in idealized climate model experiments. Coupled climate model simulations with historical forcing 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 strengthening of oceanic surface highs and a negative IPO-like surface warming pattern over the Pacific comparable to observed trends are seen. We propose that discrepancies between modeled and observed trends in many climate variables may be explained by the underestimation of the land-sea warming ratio by climate models. Determining the cause of this discrepancy has the potential to constrain projections of future climate change as the underlying mechanism causing climate models to underestimate the land-sea warming ratio discrepancy will set the persistence of this problem. Submission history From: Benjamin Johnson [view email][v1] Wed, 17 Jun 2026 20:35:24 UTC (15,112 KB) Current browse context: physics.ao-ph Change to browse by: References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.