The present
study compares the local simultaneous correlation between
rainfall/evaporation and sea surface temperature (SST)/SST tendency
among observations, coupled general circulation model (CGCM; COLA and
CFS) simulations, and stand-alone atmospheric
general circulation model (AGCM) simulations. The purpose is to
demonstrate to what extent the model simulations can reproduce the
observed air-sea relationship. While the model simulated correlation
agrees with the observations in tropical eastern Pacific, large
discrepancies are found in the subtropics, mid-latitudes, and tropical
Indo-western Pacific Ocean regions. In tropical Indo-western Pacific
Ocean regions and the mid-latitudes where the atmosphere contributes to
the observed SST changes, the specified SST simulations
produce excessive SST forcing, whereas the CGCM captures the
atmospheric feedback on the SST but with somewhat of an overestimation.
In the subtropics, both the AGCM and CGCM produce unrealistic positive
rainfall-SST correlation. In the tropical western-central
Pacific and the North Indian Ocean, the CGCM simulated evaporation-SST
correlation is opposite to the observed due to an excessive dependence
of the sea-air humidity difference on the SST. Additional numerical
experiments demonstrate the importance
of maintaining coupled air-sea feedbacks in the Indian Ocean in order
to reproduce observed atmosphere-ocean co-variability.