Peter van Rensch

Bio: Peter van Rensch is an academic researcher from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. The author has contributed to research in topics: Teleconnection & La Niña. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 16 publications receiving 2463 citations. Previous affiliations of Peter van Rensch include Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation & Monash University, Clayton campus.

Increasing frequency of extreme El Niño events due to greenhouse warming

Abstract: Extreme El Nino events cause global disruption of weather patterns and affect ecosystems and agriculture through changes in rainfall. Model projections show that a doubling in the occurrence of such extreme episodes is caused by increased surface warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, which results in the atmospheric conditions required for these event to occur.

Teleconnection Pathways of ENSO and the IOD and the Mechanisms for Impacts on Australian Rainfall

Abstract: Impacts of El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) on Australian rainfall are diagnosed from the perspective of tropical and extratropical teleconnections triggered by tropical sea surface temperature (SST) variations. The tropical teleconnection is understood as the equatorially trapped, deep baroclinic response to the diabatic (convective) heating anomalies induced by the tropical SST anomalies. These diabatic heating anomalies also excite equivalent barotropic Rossby wave trains that propagate into the extratropics. The main direct tropical teleconnection during ENSO is the Southern Oscillation (SO), whose impact on Australian rainfall is argued to be mainly confined to near-tropical portions of eastern Australia. Rainfall is suppressed during El Nino because near-tropical eastern Australia directly experiences subsidence and higher surface pressure associated with the western pole of the SO. Impacts on extratropical Australian rainfall during El Nino are argued to...

Severe heat waves in Southern Australia: Synoptic climatology and large scale connections

Abstract: This paper brings a new perspective on the large scale dynamics of severe heat wave (HW) events that commonly affect southern Australia. Through an automatic tracking scheme, the cyclones and anticyclones associated with HWs affecting Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth are tracked at both the surface and upper levels, producing for the first time a synoptic climatology that reveals the broader connections associated with these extreme phenomena. The results show that a couplet (or pressure dipole) formed by transient cyclones and anticyclones can reinforce the HW similarly to what is observed in cold surges (CS), with an obvious opposite polarity. Our results show that there is a large degree of mobility in the synoptic signature associated with the passage of the upper level ridges before they reach Australia and the blocking is established, with HW-associated surface anticyclones often initiating over the west Indian Ocean and decaying in the eastern Pacific. In contrast to this result the 500 hPa anticyclone tracks show a very small degree of mobility, responding to the dominance of the upper level blocking ridge. An important feature of HWs is that most of the cyclones are formed inland in association with heat troughs, while in CS the cyclones are typically maritime (often explosive), associated with a strong cold front. Hence the influence of the cyclone is indirect, contributing to reinforce the blocking ridge through hot and dry advection on the ridge’s western flank. Additional insights are drawn for the record Adelaide case of March 2008 with fifteen consecutive days above 35°C breaking the previous record by 7 days. Sea surface temperatures suggest a significant air-sea interaction mechanism, with a broad increase in the meridional temperature gradient over the Indian Ocean amplifying the upstream Rossby waves that can trigger HW events. A robust cooling of the waters close to the Australian coast also contributes to the maintenance of the blocking highs locally, which is a fundamental ingredient to sustain the HWs.

Asymmetry in ENSO Teleconnection with Regional Rainfall, Its Multidecadal Variability, and Impact

Abstract: An asymmetry, and its multidecadal variability, in a rainfall teleconnection with the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are described. Further, the breakdown of this relationship since 1980 is offered as a cause for a rainfall reduction in an ENSO-affected region, southeast Queensland (SEQ). There, austral summer rainfall has been declining since around the 1980s, but the associated process is not understood. It is demonstrated that the rainfall reduction is not simulated by the majority of current climate models forced with anthropogenic forcing factors. Examination shows that ENSO is a rainfall-generating mechanism for the region because of an asymmetry in its impact: the La Nina–rainfall relationship is statistically significant, as SEQ summer rainfall increases with La Nina amplitude; by contrast, the El Nino–induced rainfall reductions do not have a statistically significant relationship with El Nino amplitude. Since 1980, this asymmetry no longer operates, and La Nina events no longer ind...

Compounding tropical and stratospheric forcing of the record low Antarctic sea-ice in 2016

Abstract: After exhibiting an upward trend since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) declined dramatically during austral spring 2016, reaching a record low by December 2016. Here we show that a combination of atmospheric and oceanic phenomena played primary roles for this decline. The anomalous atmospheric circulation was initially driven by record strength tropical convection over the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, which resulted in a wave-3 circulation pattern around Antarctica that acted to reduce SIE in the Indian Ocean, Ross and Bellingshausen Sea sectors. Subsequently, the polar stratospheric vortex weakened significantly, resulting in record weakening of the circumpolar surface westerlies that acted to decrease SIE in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean sectors. These processes appear to reflect unusual internal atmosphere-ocean variability. However, the warming trend of the tropical Indian Ocean, which may partly stem from anthropogenic forcing, may have contributed to the severity of the 2016 SIE decline.

On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene

Abstract: Patterns, mechanisms, projections, and consequences of tree mortality and associated broad-scale forest die-off due to drought accompanied by warmer temperatures—“hotter drought”, an emerging characteristic of the Anthropocene—are the focus of rapidly expanding literature. Despite recent observational, experimental, and modeling studies suggesting increased vulnerability of trees to hotter drought and associated pests and pathogens, substantial debate remains among research, management and policy-making communities regarding future tree mortality risks. We summarize key mortality-relevant findings, differentiating between those implying lesser versus greater levels of vulnerability. Evidence suggesting lesser vulnerability includes forest benefits of elevated [CO2] and increased water-use efficiency; observed and modeled increases in forest growth and canopy greening; widespread increases in woody-plant biomass, density, and extent; compensatory physiological, morphological, and genetic mechanisms; dampening ecological feedbacks; and potential mitigation by forest management. In contrast, recent studies document more rapid mortality under hotter drought due to negative tree physiological responses and accelerated biotic attacks. Additional evidence suggesting greater vulnerability includes rising background mortality rates; projected increases in drought frequency, intensity, and duration; limitations of vegetation models such as inadequately represented mortality processes; warming feedbacks from die-off; and wildfire synergies. Grouping these findings we identify ten contrasting perspectives that shape the vulnerability debate but have not been discussed collectively. We also present a set of global vulnerability drivers that are known with high confidence: (1) droughts eventually occur everywhere; (2) warming produces hotter droughts; (3) atmospheric moisture demand increases nonlinearly with temperature during drought; (4) mortality can occur faster in hotter drought, consistent with fundamental physiology; (5) shorter droughts occur more frequently than longer droughts and can become lethal under warming, increasing the frequency of lethal drought nonlinearly; and (6) mortality happens rapidly relative to growth intervals needed for forest recovery. These high-confidence drivers, in concert with research supporting greater vulnerability perspectives, support an overall viewpoint of greater forest vulnerability globally. We surmise that mortality vulnerability is being discounted in part due to difficulties in predicting threshold responses to extreme climate events. Given the profound ecological and societal implications of underestimating global vulnerability to hotter drought, we highlight urgent challenges for research, management, and policy-making communities.

The dominant role of semi-arid ecosystems in the trend and variability of the land CO2 sink

Abstract: The growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations since industrialization is characterized by large interannual variability, mostly resulting from variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems (typically termed carbon sink). However, the contributions of regional ecosystems to that variability are not well known. Using an ensemble of ecosystem and land-surface models and an empirical observation-based product of global gross primary production, we show that the mean sink, trend, and interannual variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems are dominated by distinct biogeographic regions. Whereas the mean sink is dominated by highly productive lands (mainly tropical forests), the trend and interannual variability of the sink are dominated by semi-arid ecosystems whose carbon balance is strongly associated with circulation-driven variations in both precipitation and temperature.

Global Warming Pattern Formation: Sea Surface Temperature and Rainfall

Abstract: Spatial variations in sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall changes over the tropics are investigated based on ensemble simulations for the first half of the twenty-first century under the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenario A1B with coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation models of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Despite a GHG increase that is nearly uniform in space, pronounced patterns emerge in both SST and precipitation. Regional differences in SST warming can be as large as the tropical-mean warming. Specifically, the tropical Pacific warming features a conspicuous maximum along the equator and a minimum in the southeast subtropics. The former is associated with westerly wind anomalies whereas the latter is linked to intensified southeast trade winds, suggestive of wind–evaporation–SST feedback. There is a tendency for a greater warming in the northern subtropics than in the southern subtropics in accordance ...

Understanding ENSO Diversity

Abstract: El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a naturally occurring mode of tropical Pacific variability, with global impacts on society and natural ecosystems. While it has long been known that El Nino events display a diverse range of amplitudes, triggers, spatial patterns, and life cycles, the realization that ENSO’s impacts can be highly sensitive to this event-to-event diversity is driving a renewed interest in the subject. This paper surveys our current state of knowledge of ENSO diversity, identifies key gaps in understanding, and outlines some promising future research directions.