Fig. 4: Underlying mechanisms for the stronger thermodynamic adjustment of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) to underlying large-scale sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) under greenhouse gas-induced warming.

Scatterplot of MABL stability change vs. thermodynamic adjustment change of MABL in the individual Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) members. The MABL stability is computed as the difference in air temperature between 850hPa and 1000hPa. The thermodynamic adjustment of MABL to underlying SSTA is computed as the derivative of near-surface air temperature anomaly (a) and specific humidity anomaly (b) with respect to SSTA. These quantities are first averaged over the midlatitudes in the pre-industrial control (PI-CTRL) simulation and then subtracted from their counterparts during 2051–2100 in the SSP585 simulation to compute the changes under greenhouse gas-induced warming. The linear fit (solid black line) is shown together with the correlation coefficient r and corresponding p-value.