Monsoons

An increase in precipitation is projected in the Asian monsoon (along with an increase in interannual season-averaged precipitation variability) and the southern part of the west African monsoon with some decrease in the Sahel in northern summer, as well as an increase in the Australian monsoon in southern summer in a warmer climate. The monsoonal precipitation in Mexico and Central America is projected to decrease in association with increasing precipitation over the eastern equatorial Pacific through Walker Circulation and local Hadley Circulation changes. However, the uncertain role of aerosols in general, and carbon aerosols in particular, complicates the nature of future projections of monsoon precipitation, particularly in the Asian monsoon.

Sea Level Pressure

Sea level pressure is projected to increase over the subtropics and mid-latitudes, and decrease over high latitudes (order several millibars by the end of the 21st century) associated with a poleward expansion and weakening of the Hadley Circulation and a poleward shift of the storm tracks of several degrees latitude with a consequent increase in cyclonic circulation patterns over the high-latitude arctic and antarctic regions. Thus, there is a projected positive trend of the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) and the closely related North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) as well as the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). There is considerable spread among the models for the NAO, but the magnitude of the increase for the SAM is generally more consistent across models.