Erderwärmung: Wie der Klimawandel Klimazonen verschiebt | Umwelt
Ein Kipppunkt bezeichnet in der Klimaforschung eine kritische Schwelle, deren Überschreiten zu großen und oft unumkehrbaren Veränderungen im ...
die innertropische Konvergenzzone untersucht
Da die Klimazonen nicht ganz parallel zu den Breitenkreisen verlaufen, gibt es auch unterschiedliche Verlagerungen in Ost-West-Richtung. Forschende aus Kalifornien haben zum Beispiel die Auswirkungen auf <anchor>die innertropische Konvergenzzone untersucht</anchor>. Für die sehr regenreiche Zone, die auf Höhe des Äquators liegt, kommen sie zu folgendem Schluss: Der Regengürtel verschiebe sich über dem östlichen Afrika und dem Indischen Ozean nach Norden, über dem östlichen Pazifik, Südamerika und dem Atlantischen Ozean jedoch nach Süden. Das berechneten die Studienautorinnen und -autoren mit Daten aus insgesamt 27 Klimamodellen. Infolge der prognostizierten Veränderungen würden beispielsweise in Südindien vermehrt Überschwemmungen drohen, in Mittelamerika hingegen größerer Trockenstress. Trotz dieser Abweichungen innerhalb der Zonen gilt aber allgemein: Die Klimazonen breiten sich in Richtung der Pole aus.
Zonally contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to climate change | Nature Climate Change
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- Published: 18 January 2021

# Zonally contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to climate change

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## Abstract

Future changes in the position of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ; a narrow band of heavy precipitation in the tropics) with climate change could affect the livelihood and food security of billions of people. Although models predict a future narrowing of the ITCZ, uncertainties remain large regarding its future position, with most past work focusing on zonal-mean shifts. Here we use projections from 27 state-of-the-art climate models and document a robust zonally varying ITCZ response to the SSP3-7.0 scenario by 2100, with a northward shift over eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and a southward shift in the eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The zonally varying response is consistent with changes in the divergent atmospheric energy transport and sector-mean shifts of the energy flux equator. Our analysis provides insight about mechanisms influencing the future position of the tropical rain belt and may allow for more-robust projections of climate change impacts.

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Fig. 1: Future changes in the location of the ITCZ in response to climate change, as projected by CMIP6 models.



Fig. 2: Twenty-first-century series of ITCZ location as projected by CMIP6 models.



Fig. 3: Future changes in SST and precipitation in response to climate change, as projected by CMIP6 models.



Fig. 4: Future changes in the atmospheric energy input in response to climate change, as projected by CMIP6 models.



Fig. 5: Future changes in the AET over the tropics and the EFE in response to climate change, as projected by CMIP6 models.



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## Data availability

The data we use in our analysis are all freely available. We use satellite data (monthly precipitation series on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid96 and OLR series on a 1° × 1° grid97 for 1983–2005) and climate model outputs from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project39 (CMIP6); see Supplementary Table 1.

## Code availability

Upon reasonable request, the code that supports the findings of this study can be provided by the corresponding author.

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## Acknowledgements

Partial support for this research was provided to E.F.-G., J.T.R. and P.S. by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the TRIPODS+ programme (DMS-1839336). Moreover, the work of E.F.-G. was supported by NSF under the EAGER programme (grant ECCS-1839441) and by NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) programme (grant 80NSSC19K0684). J.T.R. received support from DOE’s Office of Science RUBISCO Science Focus Area and NASA’s IDS and CMS programmes. J.-Y.Y. and M.S.P. were supported by the NSF Climate and Large-scale Dynamics (CLD) programme under grants AGS-1833075, AGS-173416 and AGS-1912134. The work of P.S., M.S.P., P.A.L. and J.T.R. was also partially supported by NSF under the DGE-1633631 grant. S.Y. was supported by a generous gift to Yale from T. Sandoz. A research grant from UCI to advance these research ideas is also acknowledged. We thank the climate modelling groups around the world for producing and making their model outputs available. We also acknowledge the help from O. Adam and B. Lintner in discussing parts of this analysis.

## Author information

### Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Antonios Mamalakis & Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

2. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

James T. Randerson, Jin-Yi Yu, Michael S. Pritchard, Gudrun Magnusdottir, Paul A. Levine & Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

3. Department of Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Padhraic Smyth

4. Department of Statistics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Padhraic Smyth

5. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Sungduk Yu

Authors

1. Antonios Mamalakis

2. James T. Randerson

3. Jin-Yi Yu

4. Michael S. Pritchard

5. Gudrun Magnusdottir

6. Padhraic Smyth

7. Paul A. Levine

8. Sungduk Yu

9. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou

### Contributions

A.M. designed the study, performed the data analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the conceptualization and interpretation of the results and to extended discussions in the revising and finalizing stages of the manuscript.

### Corresponding authors

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The authors declare no competing interests.

## Additional information

Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Michael Byrne and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

## Supplementary information

### Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–12, Discussion and Tables 1 and 2.

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### Cite this article

Mamalakis, A., Randerson, J.T., Yu, JY. et al. Zonally contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to climate change.
Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 143–151 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00963-x

- Received: 02 September 2019

- Accepted: 09 November 2020

- Published: 18 January 2021

- Issue Date: February 2021

- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00963-x

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ISSN1758-678X (print)

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