Abstract Oceans are well-known to be directly altered by global climate forcings such as greenhouse gas changes, but how oceans are indirectly influenced by land and its response to such forcings remains less explored. Here, we assess the present-day and projected future state of a little-explored feature of the climate system—a ‘land wake’ in relative humidity downwind of the east coast of North America, consisting of low-humidity continental air extending roughly 1000 km over the Atlantic ocean. The wake exists throughout the year, but is supported by high continental temperatures in summer and low continental moisture in winter. The wake is well represented in an ensemble of global climate models (GCMs), qualitatively matching reanalysis data. Under increasing atmospheric CO 2 , the land wake intensifies in GCM simulations through two pathways: the radiative effects of CO 2 on surface temperatures, and the biogeochemical effect of CO 2 on terrestrial vegetation. Vegetation responses to increased CO 2 alter the summer wake from Florida to Newfoundland, and both the radiative and biogeochemical effects of CO 2 drive reductions in coastal cloud cover. These changes illustrate the potential of rapidly changing terrestrial climate to influence coastal regions and the ocean environment downwind of continents through both light conditions and the energy balance of the surface ocean.

Abstract Changes in land surface albedo and land surface evaporation modulate the atmospheric energy budget by changing temperatures, water vapor, clouds, snow and ice cover, and the partitioning of surface energy fluxes. Here idealized perturbations to land surface properties are imposed in a global model to understand how such forcings drive shifts in zonal mean atmospheric energy transport and zonal mean tropical precipitation. For a uniform decrease in global land albedo, the albedo forcing and a positive water vapor feedback contribute roughly equally to increased energy absorption at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), while radiative changes due to the temperature and cloud cover response provide a negative feedback and energy loss at TOA. Decreasing land albedo causes a northwards shift in the zonal mean intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The combined effects on ITCZ location of all atmospheric feedbacks roughly cancel for the albedo forcing; the total ITCZ shift is comparable to that predicted for the albedo forcing alone. For an imposed increase in evaporative resistance that reduces land evaporation, low cloud cover decreases in the northern mid-latitudes and more energy is absorbed at TOA there; longwave loss due to warming provides a negative feedback on the TOA energy balance and ITCZ shift. Imposed changes in land albedo and evaporative resistance modulate fundamentally different aspects of the surface energy budget. However, the pattern of TOA radiation changes due to the water vapor and air temperature responses are highly correlated for these two forcings because both forcings lead to near-surface warming.