Teleconnection of Middle East Climate Change to the Ocean-Atmosphere-Land Processes over Southeast Asia and Tropical Western Pacific

The surface temperature in the Middle East has risen drastically and even at an accelerated pace in the recent decades. Meanwhile, the largest increases in sea surface temperature and atmospheric heating occur over the tropical western Pacific and Southeast Asia, and these thermal changes are linked to regional and remote dynamical processes uniquely. We uncover a dynamic linkage: enhanced convection over the western Pacific drives hotter and drier conditions in the Middle East. We diagnose ocean-land-atmosphere dynamical processes over the tropical western Pacific and Southeast Asia, depict the climate change signals in the Middle East, and investigate the physical mechanisms responsible for the teleconnection between the different regions. It is demonstrated that the western Pacific convection induces anticyclonic anomalies over the Iranian and Tibetan plateaus, and these anomalies enhance subsidence, suppress cloud formation, and increase solar radiation. As a result, heat extremes are enhanced in the Middle East. Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase-6 (CMIP6) models successfully reproduce the observed western Pacific – Middle East teleconnection, owing to their reasonable representation of the Rossby wave patterns over South and East Asia, which generate high-pressure anomalies over the Middle East. However, the CMIP6 models project a weakening western Pacific – Middle East teleconnection in the future, driven primarily by an eastward shift of Rossby waves and emergence of low-pressure anomalies over the Middle East. This study provides a critical insight into the mechanisms linking the western Pacific convection to Middle East climate extremes and underscore the vulnerability of this teleconnection to the ongoing climate change.