El Niño-Southern Oscillation-time scale covariation of sea surface salinity and freshwater flux in the western tropical and northern subtropical Pacific

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (13) ◽  
pp. 6895-6903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Nagano ◽  
Takuya Hasegawa ◽  
Iwao Ueki ◽  
Kentaro Ando
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 597-610
Author(s):  
Yue Hu ◽  
Xiaoming Sun ◽  
Hai Cheng ◽  
Hong Yan

Abstract. Giant clams (Tridacna) are the largest marine bivalves, and their carbonate shells can be used for high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions. In this contribution, δ18Oshell was used to estimate climatic variation in the Xisha Islands of the South China Sea. We first evaluate sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS) influence on the modern resampled monthly (r-monthly) resolution of Tridacna gigas δ18Oshell. The results obtained reveal that δ18Oshell seasonal variation is mainly controlled by SST and appears to be insensitive to local SSS change. Thus, the δ18O of Tridacna shells can be roughly used as a proxy of local SST: a 1 ‰ δ18Oshell change is roughly equal to 4.41 ∘C of SST. The r-monthly δ18O of a 40-year-old Tridacna squamosa (3673±28 BP) from the North Reef of the Xisha Islands was analyzed and compared with the modern specimen. The difference between the average δ18O of the fossil Tridacna shell (δ18O =-1.34 ‰) and the modern Tridacna specimen (δ18O =-1.15 ‰) probably implies a warm climate, roughly 0.84 ∘C, 3700 years ago. The seasonal variation 3700 years ago was slightly lower than that suggested by modern instrumental data, and the transition between warm and cold seasons was rapid. Higher amplitudes of reconstructed r-monthly and r-annual SST anomalies imply an enhanced climate variability during this warm period. Investigation of the El Ninõ–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variation (based on the reconstructed SST series) indicates reduced ENSO frequency but increased ENSO-related variability and extreme El Ninõ winter events 3700 years ago.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (20) ◽  
pp. 8401-8419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Berner ◽  
Prashant D. Sardeshmukh ◽  
Hannah M. Christensen

This study investigates the mechanisms by which short time-scale perturbations to atmospheric processes can affect El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in climate models. To this end a control simulation of NCAR’s Community Climate System Model is compared to a simulation in which the model’s atmospheric diabatic tendencies are perturbed every time step using a Stochastically Perturbed Parameterized Tendencies (SPPT) scheme. The SPPT simulation compares better with ECMWF’s twentieth-century reanalysis in having lower interannual sea surface temperature (SST) variability and more irregular transitions between El Niño and La Niña states, as expressed by a broader, less peaked spectrum. Reduced-order linear inverse models (LIMs) derived from the 1-month lag covariances of selected tropical variables yield good representations of tropical interannual variability in the two simulations. In particular, the basic features of ENSO are captured by the LIM’s least damped oscillatory eigenmode. SPPT reduces the damping time scale of this eigenmode from 17 to 11 months, which is in better agreement with the 8 months obtained from reanalyses. This noise-induced stabilization is consistent with perturbations to the frequency of the ENSO eigenmode and explains the broadening of the SST spectrum (i.e., the greater ENSO irregularity). Although the improvement in ENSO shown here was achieved through stochastic physics parameterizations, it is possible that similar improvements could be realized through changes in deterministic parameterizations or higher numerical resolution. It is suggested that LIMs could provide useful insight into model sensitivities, uncertainties, and biases also in those cases.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jialin Lin ◽  
Taotao Qian

AbstractThe El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant interannual variability of Earth’s climate system and plays a central role in global climate prediction. Outlooks of ENSO and its impacts often follow a two-tier approach: predicting ENSO sea surface temperature anomaly in tropical Pacific and then predicting its global impacts. However, the current picture of ENSO global impacts widely used by forecasting centers and atmospheric science textbooks came from two earliest surface station datasets complied 30 years ago, and focused on the extreme phases rather than the whole ENSO lifecycle. Here, we demonstrate a new picture of the global impacts of ENSO throughout its whole lifecycle based on the rich latest satellite, in situ and reanalysis datasets. ENSO impacts are much wider than previously thought. There are significant impacts unknown in the previous picture over Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. The so-called “neutral years” are not neutral, but are associated with strong sea surface temperature anomalies in global oceans outside the tropical Pacific, and significant anomalies of land surface air temperature and precipitation over all the continents.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Hu ◽  
Xiaoming Sun ◽  
Hai Cheng ◽  
Hong Yan

Abstract. Tridacna is the largest marine bivalves in the tropical ocean, and its carbonate shell can shed light on high-resolution paleoclimate reconstruction. In this contribution, δ18Oshell was used to estimate the climatic variation in the Xisha Islands of the South China Sea. We first evaluate the sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS) influence on modern rehandled monthly (r-monthly) resolution Tridacna gigas δ18Oshell. The obtained results reveal that δ18Oshell seasonal variation is mainly controlled by SST and appear insensitive to local SSS change. Thus, the δ18O of Tridacna shells can be roughly used as a proxy of the local SST: a 1 ‰ δ18Oshell change is roughly equal to 4.41 °C of SST. R-monthly δ18O of a 40-year Tridacna squamosa (3673 ± 28 BP) from the North Reef of Xisha Islands was analyzed and compared with the modern specimen. The difference between the average δ18O of fossil Tridacna shell (δ18O = −1.34 ‰) and modern Tridacna specimen (δ18O = −1.15 ‰) probably implies a warm climate with roughly 0.84°C higher in 3700 years ago. The seasonal variation in 3700 years ago was slightly decreased compared with that suggested by the instrument data, and the switching between warm and cold-seasons was rapid. Higher amplitude in r-monthly and r-annual reconstructed SST anomalies implies an enhanced climate variability in this past warm period. Investigation of the El Ninõ-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variation (based on the reconstructed SST series) indicates a reduced ENSO frequency but more extreme El Ninõ events in 3700 years ago.


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