Indian Ocean Warming Trend Reduces Pacific Warming Response to Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases: An Interbasin Thermostat Mechanism

A greater warming trend of sea surface temperature in the tropical Indian Ocean than in the tropical Pacific is a robust feature found in various observational data sets. Yet this interbasin warming contrast is not present in climate models. Here we investigate the impact of tropical Indian Ocean warming on the tropical Pacific response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming by analyzing results from coupled model pacemaker experiments. We find...