More Like this

1. Pacific Meridional Modes without Equatorial Pacific Influence

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0573.1  

   Zhang, Yu ; Yu, Shiyun ; Amaya, Dillon J. ; Kosaka, Yu ; Larson, Sarah M. ; Wang, Xudong ; Yang, Jun-Chao ; Stuecker, Malte F. ; Xie, Shang-Ping ; Miller, Arthur J. ; et al ( April 2021 , Journal of Climate)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Investigating Pacific Meridional Modes (PMM) without the influence of tropical Pacific variability is technically difficult if based on observations or fully coupled model simulations due to their overlapping spatial structures. To confront this issue, the present study investigates both North (NPMM) and South PMM (SPMM) in terms of their associated atmospheric forcing and response processes based on a mechanically decoupled climate model simulation. In this experiment, the climatological wind stress is prescribed over the tropical Pacific, which effectively removes dynamically coupled tropical Pacific variability (e.g., the El Niño-Southern Oscillation). Interannual NPMM in this experiment is forced not only by the North Pacific Oscillation, but also by a North Pacific tripole (NPT) pattern of atmospheric internal variability, which primarily forces decadal NPMM variability. Interannual and decadal variability of the SPMM is partly forced by the South Pacific Oscillation. In turn, both interannual and decadal NPMM variability can excite atmospheric teleconnections over the Northern Hemisphere extratropics by influencing the meridional displacement of the climatological intertropical convergence zone throughout the whole year. Similarly, both interannual and decadal SPMM variability can also excite atmospheric teleconnections over the Southern Hemisphere extratropics by extending/shrinking the climatological South Pacific convergence zone in all seasons. Our results highlight a new poleward pathway by which both the NPMM and SPMM feed back to the extratropical climate, in addition to the equatorward influence on tropical Pacific variability. 

   more » « less
2. Separating the North and South Pacific Meridional Modes Contributions to ENSO and Tropical Decadal Variability

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL080320  

   Liguori, Giovanni ; Di Lorenzo, Emanuele ( January 2019 , Geophysical Research Letters)

   North and South Pacific Meridional Modes (NPMM and SPMM) are known precursors of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Tropical Pacific decadal variability (TPDV). However, the relative importance of these precursors and the timescale on which they impact the tropics remain unclear. Using a 30‐member ensemble of the Community Earth System Model as the control climate, we generate two additional members where the NPMM and SPMM are selectively suppressed. We find that both meridional modes energize the tropical variance independently on different timescales. The absence of NPMM leads to a significant reduction of the tropical interannual variability (~35%), while the absence of the SPMM has no appreciable impact on ENSO but significantly reduces the TPDV (~30%). While the relative importance of the NPMM and SPMM may be model dependent, the stochastic atmospheric variability in the extratropics that energizes the meridional modes emerges as a key source of TPDV.

    

   more » « less
3. The North Pacific Pacemaker Effect on Historical ENSO and Its Mechanisms

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0040.1  

   Amaya, Dillon J. ; Kosaka, Yu ; Zhou, Wenyu ; Zhang, Yu ; Xie, Shang-Ping ; Miller, Arthur J. ( October 2019 , Journal of Climate)

   Studies have indicated that North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) variability can significantly modulate El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), but there has been little effort to put extratropical–tropical interactions into the context of historical events. To quantify the role of the North Pacific in pacing the timing and magnitude of observed ENSO, we use a fully coupled climate model to produce an ensemble of North Pacific Ocean–Global Atmosphere (nPOGA) SST pacemaker simulations. In nPOGA, SST anomalies are restored back to observations in the North Pacific (>15°N) but are free to evolve throughout the rest of the globe. We find that the North Pacific SST has significantly influenced observed ENSO variability, accounting for approximately 15% of the total variance in boreal fall and winter. The connection between the North and tropical Pacific arises from two physical pathways: 1) a wind–evaporation–SST (WES) propagating mechanism, and 2) a Gill-like atmospheric response associated with anomalous deep convection in boreal summer and fall, which we refer to as the summer deep convection (SDC) response. The SDC response accounts for 25% of the observed zonal wind variability around the equatorial date line. On an event-by-event basis, nPOGA most closely reproduces the 2014/15 and the 2015/16 El Niños. In particular, we show that the 2015 Pacific meridional mode event increased wind forcing along the equator by 20%, potentially contributing to the extreme nature of the 2015/16 El Niño. Our results illustrate the significant role of extratropical noise in pacing the initiation and magnitude of ENSO events and may improve the predictability of ENSO on seasonal time scales.

    

   more » « less
4. Transition Between Forced and Oscillatory ENSO Behavior Over the Last Century

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD034116  

   Pivotti, Valentina ; Anderson, Bruce T. ( April 2021 , Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres)

   As the largest mode of coupled climate variability, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) carries consequences for weather patterns worldwide. Because of its impacts, and the subsequent importance of predicting when ENSO might occur, there has been lengthy research into precursor mechanisms that initiate ENSO events. In this paper, thanks to the length of the SODAsi.3 data set, we study the relation between ENSO and a subset of known precursors over 140 years (1871–2011). We uncover that the influence of North Pacific Oscillation (NPO)‐related precursors—namely the Trade Wind Charging and North Pacific Meridional Mode (TWC/NPMM)—upon ENSO is nonstationary. The TWC/NPMM‐ENSO coupling is strong from 1871 to 1920, then weakens before regaining significance from 1960 onward. Importantly, in the intervening period between 1920 and 1960, not only does the TWC/NPMM‐ENSO connection disappear, there are also no other wind‐related drivers preceding ENSO events during this period. We find that in the absence of wind‐driven precursors during this intervening period the temporal characteristics of ENSO variability itself change, as the signal oscillates within a relatively narrow 6–7‐year periodicity band. These features set this intervening period apart from what we see during the first and last periods when the ENSO signal is noisier, and its power is distributed over a wider range of periodicities spanning from 2 to 6 years. These results lead us to hypothesize that, during the last 140 years, ENSO shifted between a stochastically forced interannual mode of variability, to a multiannual, quasi‐regular one with a self‐sustained oscillation.

    

   more » « less
5. Assessing the future influence of the North Pacific trade wind precursors on ENSO in the CMIP6 HighResMIP multimodel ensemble

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06976-4  

   Pivotti, Valentina ; Anderson, Bruce T. ( October 2023 , Climate Dynamics)

   The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), as one of the largest coupled climate modes, influences the livelihoods of millions of people and ecosystems survival. Thus, how ENSO is expected to behave under the influence of anthropogenic climate change is a substantial question to investigate. In this paper, we analyze future predictions of specific traits of ENSO, in combination with a subset of well-established precursors—the Trade Wind Charging and North Pacific Meridional Mode (TWC/NPMM). We study it across three sets of experiments from a protocol-driven ensemble from CMIP6—the High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP). Namely, (1) experiments at constant 1950’s radiative forcings, and (2) experiments of present (1950–2014) and (3) future (2015–2050) climate with prescribed increasing radiative forcings. We first investigate the current and predicted spatial characteristics of ENSO events, by calculating area, amplitude and longitude of the Center of Heat Index (CHI). We see that TWC/NPMM-charged events are consistently stronger, in both the presence and absence of external forcings; however, as anthropogenic forcings increase, the area of all ENSO events increases. Since the TWC/NPMM-ENSO relationship has been shown to affect the oscillatory behavior of ENSO, we analyze ENSO frequency by calculating CHI-analogous indicators on the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) of its signal. With this new methodology, we show that across the ensemble, ENSO oscillates at different frequencies, and its oscillatory behavior shows different degrees of stochasticity, over time and across models. However, we see no consistent indication of future trends in the oscillatory behavior of ENSO and the TWC/NPMM-ENSO relationship.

    

   more » « less