Reply to Yu et al.: Atmospheric circulation changes are more important in shaping the aerosol-induced Northeast Pacific warming pattern

Aerosol-induced climate change consists of both an atmospheric response including aerosol-radiation and aerosolcloud interaction processes ( 1 ) and a sea surface temperature (SST)-mediated response through ocean-atmosphere interactions ( 2 ).Yu et al. ( 3 ) hypothesize that aerosols' indirect effect could be important for the SST warming pattern in the Northeast Pacific (NEP).The hypothesis, if tested by evidence, would provide an additional support for our result ( 4 ).In our paper ( 4 ), we used fully coupled CESM2 model with and without China aerosol emissions, to show that the aerosol-induced atmospheric circulation change plays an important role in generating the horseshoe-like SST warming pattern in the NEP.Our main mechanism is that the atmospheric teleconnection induced by China aerosol abatement weakens the climatological westerlies in the NEP and warms the SST there by suppressing the evaporative cooling.The process generates a favorable condition for extreme ocean warming events in the NEP.