South Pacific Subtropical High from the late Holocene to the end of the 21st century: insights from climate proxies and general circulation models

Flores-Aqueveque, Valentina; Rojas, Maisa; Aguirre, Catalina; Arias, Paola A.; González, Charles

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-79-2020

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-79-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-79-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 1

Research article

|

10 Jan 2020

Research article |

| 10 Jan 2020

South Pacific Subtropical High from the late Holocene to the end of the 21st century: insights from climate proxies and general circulation models

Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, Maisa Rojas, Catalina Aguirre, Paola A. Arias, and Charles González

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Final revised paper (published on 10 Jan 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 03 Jul 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of “South Pacific Subtropical High form the late Holocene to the end of the 21st century: insights from climate proxies and general circulation models” by Flores-Aqueveque et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Aug 2019
- AC2: 'Response to R#1 (cp-2019-69-Rev1 included as supplement)', Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, 19 Oct 2019
- AC3: 'Response to R#1 (Figure S2)', Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, 19 Oct 2019
- AC4: 'Response to R#1 (Figure S2)', Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, 19 Oct 2019
RC2: 'Review of "South Pacific Subtropical High from the late Holocene to the end of the 21st century: insights from climate proxies and general circulation models"', Anonymous Referee #2, 20 Sep 2019
- AC1: 'Response to R#2 (text cp-2019-69-Rev1 included as supplement)', Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, 19 Oct 2019
- AC5: 'Response to R#2 (Figure S2)', Valentina Flores-Aqueveque, 19 Oct 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (24 Oct 2019) by Laurie Menviel

AR by Valentina Flores-Aqueveque on behalf of the Authors (25 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (30 Oct 2019) by Laurie Menviel

Dear Dr. Flores-Aqueveque,

Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript.
Please find a few minor points below to consider before final publication.
Looking forward receiving your manuscript.
Best regards,
Laurie

Figure 3: Is it needed? Isn’t that the same information as show in Figure 1?
P16, L. 6: Figure 3 does not show 21C projections.

Figure 4: Both reviewers were a bit critical of that figure, and I think it is still a bit difficult to read. The change between LIA and CDW is not obvious, particularly with respect to the stars. Since, in the models, the meridional wind is only significant on the eastern and western sides of the SPSH (i.e. the winds are mostly zonal elsewher), this figure can sometimes be hard to interpret, or maybe not appropriate.
Would it make more sense to show wind as vectors instead?
Adding the 21C data on top while the shading shows LIA-CDW is questionable. Would it make more sense to make an additional figure with only the 21C data (or 21C as anomalies from CDW)?
Should the domain be extended to the west as the SPSH is “cut” in some of the plots?

I also wonder if the description in the text is accurate:
P17, L.28-29: “The SPSH expansion during the CWP period is accompanied with weaker meridional winds in front of northern and central Chilean coast at annual scale and during austral summer.” It seems to me like there is a dipole pattern for most models, with stronger northward winds on the southeast side of the SPSH (~30S-35S), and weaker winds north of that.

Figure 5: The stars are a bit small and hard to see, and the upper stars are missing in DJF. Please amend the legend to “CWP” for magenta.

Minor Points:
P18, L.12: change to “models fail in representing the position”
P19, L. 16: change to “the numerical simulations analyzed here…”
P19, L. 20: “A comparison of our results with these previous studies..”
P19, L. 20: “that the models we have considered here represent…”
P19, L. 21-22: Please reformulate that sentence: “However, simulations are not in agreement with the position of STJ and its variations. “

P20, L.8-9: “Generally, a similar feature is observed in all models, but with different magnitude (Fig. 2S). “
P22, L.28: Please remove the comma after “results”

Ps, page and line numbers refer to the version with tracked-changes.

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AR by Valentina Flores-Aqueveque on behalf of the Authors (21 Nov 2019)

ED: Publish as is (27 Nov 2019) by Laurie Menviel

AR by Valentina Flores-Aqueveque on behalf of the Authors (29 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

The South Pacific Subtropical High (SPSH) is a main feature of the South American (SA) climate. We analyzed its behavior during two extreme temperature events based on paleoclimate records and climate models. The SPSH expands (contracts) in warm (cold) periods. The changes affect other elements of the SA climate like the strength of the southerly winds and the position of the westerly wind belt. Projections indicate that this expansion and its consequences will continue during the 21st century.