scholarly journals High-Resolution Water Stable Isotope Ice-Core Record: Roosevelt Island, Antarctica

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Daniel Emanuelsson

<p>This thesis presents a water-isotope (δD) record from 1900 to 2009 for the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core, Antarctica. Examination of the RICE isotope record with observation data (using global reanalysis and SST datasets) revealed details of the climate signal that is preserved within the full 763 m isotope record. RICE δD provides a proxy record, which captures the central tropical Pacific ENSO variability, the significant (p < 0.01) central Pacific δD-SST correlation pattern contain the Niño-4 SST region. Central tropical Pacific ENSO variability projects upon the Amundsen Sea region via a Pacific–South American pattern (PSA)-like teleconnection. RICE δD is primarily influenced by Amundsen Sea circulation, which coincides with the leading PSA pattern’s (PSA1) circulation focal point in the Amundsen Sea. Additionally, RICE regional physical setting (sheltered from direct impact from Amundsen Sea cyclones by WA orography) offers a unique setting, where enriched isotopes only are associated with one PSA1 polarity (El Niño, PSA1+, Amundsen Sea anticyclones). In contrast, during La Niña and Amundsen Sea cyclones, δD is depleted. Combined these settings, provides a compelling explanation to why RICE δD preserves PSA1 and ENSO variability. On interannual and seasonal time scales, the RICE δD variability is well-explained by the PSA teleconnections and their interactions over the Pacific sector. The influence from PSA2 on δD is strong during the beginning of the year (December–February, DJF). In contrast, the PSA1 influence is strong during the latter part of the year, peaking in spring (September–November, SON). The isotope record appears to preserve tropical Pacific El Niño-like interdecadal variability, particularly a decadal-signal from the central-Pacific (Niño-4 SST region) and from the Pacific-wide Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). On decadal-scales RICE δD is modulated by ENSO and Southern Annular Mode (SAM); when the correlation with SAM is active (during IPO+) δD appears to be in a depleted state and when the correlation with SAM breaks down (during IPO−) δD appears to be in a relatively enriched state. A RICE δD SST proxy reconstruction can potentially provide a record longer than the currently available observational datasets, allowing for examination of intrinsic decadal-scale tropical Pacific climate variability and its extratropical impact.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Daniel Emanuelsson

<p>This thesis presents a water-isotope (δD) record from 1900 to 2009 for the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core, Antarctica. Examination of the RICE isotope record with observation data (using global reanalysis and SST datasets) revealed details of the climate signal that is preserved within the full 763 m isotope record. RICE δD provides a proxy record, which captures the central tropical Pacific ENSO variability, the significant (p < 0.01) central Pacific δD-SST correlation pattern contain the Niño-4 SST region. Central tropical Pacific ENSO variability projects upon the Amundsen Sea region via a Pacific–South American pattern (PSA)-like teleconnection. RICE δD is primarily influenced by Amundsen Sea circulation, which coincides with the leading PSA pattern’s (PSA1) circulation focal point in the Amundsen Sea. Additionally, RICE regional physical setting (sheltered from direct impact from Amundsen Sea cyclones by WA orography) offers a unique setting, where enriched isotopes only are associated with one PSA1 polarity (El Niño, PSA1+, Amundsen Sea anticyclones). In contrast, during La Niña and Amundsen Sea cyclones, δD is depleted. Combined these settings, provides a compelling explanation to why RICE δD preserves PSA1 and ENSO variability. On interannual and seasonal time scales, the RICE δD variability is well-explained by the PSA teleconnections and their interactions over the Pacific sector. The influence from PSA2 on δD is strong during the beginning of the year (December–February, DJF). In contrast, the PSA1 influence is strong during the latter part of the year, peaking in spring (September–November, SON). The isotope record appears to preserve tropical Pacific El Niño-like interdecadal variability, particularly a decadal-signal from the central-Pacific (Niño-4 SST region) and from the Pacific-wide Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). On decadal-scales RICE δD is modulated by ENSO and Southern Annular Mode (SAM); when the correlation with SAM is active (during IPO+) δD appears to be in a depleted state and when the correlation with SAM breaks down (during IPO−) δD appears to be in a relatively enriched state. A RICE δD SST proxy reconstruction can potentially provide a record longer than the currently available observational datasets, allowing for examination of intrinsic decadal-scale tropical Pacific climate variability and its extratropical impact.</p>


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1718-1735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fengpeng Sun ◽  
Jin-Yi Yu

Abstract This study examines the slow modulation of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) intensity and its underlying mechanism. A 10–15-yr ENSO intensity modulation cycle is identified from historical and paleoclimate data by calculating the envelope function of boreal winter Niño-3.4 and Niño-3 sea surface temperature (SST) indices. Composite analyses reveal interesting spatial asymmetries between El Niño and La Niña events within the modulation cycle. In the enhanced intensity periods of the cycle, El Niño is located in the eastern tropical Pacific and La Niña in the central tropical Pacific. The asymmetry is reversed in the weakened intensity periods: El Niño centers in the central Pacific and La Niña in the eastern Pacific. El Niño and La Niña centered in the eastern Pacific are accompanied with basin-scale surface wind and thermocline anomalies, whereas those centered in the central Pacific are accompanied with local wind and thermocline anomalies. The El Niño–La Niña asymmetries provide a possible mechanism for ENSO to exert a nonzero residual effect that could lead to slow changes in the Pacific mean state. The mean state changes are characterized by an SST dipole pattern between the eastern and central tropical Pacific, which appears as one leading EOF mode of tropical Pacific decadal variability. The Pacific Walker circulation migrates zonally in association with this decadal mode and also changes the mean surface wind and thermocline patterns along the equator. Although the causality has not been established, it is speculated that the mean state changes in turn favor the alternative spatial patterns of El Niño and La Niña that manifest as the reversed ENSO asymmetries. Using these findings, an ENSO–Pacific climate interaction mechanism is hypothesized to explain the decadal ENSO intensity modulation cycle.


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (17) ◽  
pp. 4378-4396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renguang Wu ◽  
Ben P. Kirtman

Abstract The present study documents the influence of El Niño and La Niña events on the spread and predictability of rainfall, surface pressure, and 500-hPa geopotential height, and contrasts the relative contribution of signal and noise changes to the predictability change based on a long-term integration of an interactive ensemble coupled general circulation model. It is found that the pattern of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-induced noise change for rainfall follows closely that of the corresponding signal change in most of the tropical regions. The noise for tropical Pacific surface pressure is larger (smaller) in regions of lower (higher) mean pressure. The ENSO-induced noise change for 500-hPa height displays smaller spatial scales compared to and has no systematic relationship with the signal change. The predictability for tropical rainfall and surface pressure displays obvious contrasts between the summer and winter over the Bay of Bengal, the western North Pacific, and the tropical southwestern Indian Ocean. The predictability for tropical 500-hPa height is higher in boreal summer than in boreal winter. In the equatorial central Pacific, the predictability for rainfall is much higher in La Niña years than in El Niño years. This occurs because of a larger percent reduction in the amplitude of noise compared to the percent decrease in the magnitude of signal from El Niño to La Niña years. A consistent change is seen in the predictability for surface pressure near the date line. In the western North and South Pacific, the predictability for boreal winter rainfall is higher in El Niño years than in La Niña years. This is mainly due to a stronger signal in El Niño years compared to La Niña years. The predictability for 500-hPa height increases over most of the Tropics in El Niño years. Over western tropical Pacific–Australia and East Asia, the predictability for boreal winter surface pressure and 500-hPa height is higher in El Niño years than in La Niña years. The predictability change for 500-hPa height is primarily due to the signal change.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (9) ◽  
pp. 3846-3856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye-Mi Kim ◽  
Michael A. Alexander

Abstract The vertically integrated water vapor transport (IVT) over the Pacific–North American sector during three phases of ENSO in boreal winter (December–February) is investigated using IVT values calculated from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) during 1979–2010. The shift of the location and sign of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical Pacific Ocean leads to different atmospheric responses and thereby changes the seasonal mean moisture transport into North America. During eastern Pacific El Niño (EPEN) events, large positive IVT anomalies extend northeastward from the subtropical Pacific into the northwestern United States following the anomalous cyclonic flow around a deeper Aleutian low, while a southward shift of the cyclonic circulation during central Pacific El Niño (CPEN) events induces the transport of moisture into the southwestern United States. In addition, moisture from the eastern tropical Pacific is transported from the deep tropical eastern Pacific into Mexico and the southwestern United States during CPEN. During La Niña (NINA), the seasonal mean IVT anomaly is opposite to that of two El Niño phases. Analyses of 6-hourly IVT anomalies indicate that there is strong moisture transport from the North Pacific into the northwestern and southwestern United States during EPEN and CPEN, respectively. The IVT is maximized on the southeastern side of a low located over the eastern North Pacific, where the low is weaker but located farther south and closer to shore during CPEN than during EPEN. Moisture enters the southwestern United States from the eastern tropical Pacific during NINA via anticyclonic circulation associated with a ridge over the southern United States.


2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (10) ◽  
pp. 3097-3112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina S. Virts ◽  
John M. Wallace

Abstract Cloud fields based on the first three years of data from the Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission are used to investigate the relationship between cirrus within the tropical tropopause transition layer (TTL) and the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), the annual cycle, and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The TTL cirrus signature observed in association with the MJO resembles convectively induced, mixed Kelvin–Rossby wave solutions above the Pacific warm pool region. This signature is centered to the east of the peak convection and propagates eastward more rapidly than the convection; it exhibits a pronounced eastward tilt with height, suggestive of downward phase propagation and upward energy dispersion. A cirrus maximum is observed over equatorial Africa and South America when the enhanced MJO-related convection enters the western Pacific. Tropical-mean TTL cirrus is modulated by the MJO, with more than twice as much TTL cirrus fractional coverage equatorward of 10° latitude when the enhanced convection enters the Pacific than a few weeks earlier, when the convection is over the Indian Ocean. The annual cycle in cirrus clouds around the base of the TTL is equatorially asymmetric, with more cirrus observed in the summer hemisphere. Higher in the TTL, the annual cycle in cirrus clouds is more equatorially symmetric, with a maximum in the boreal winter throughout most of the tropics. The ENSO signature in TTL cirrus is marked by a zonal shift of the peak cloudiness toward the central Pacific during El Niño and toward the Maritime Continent during La Niña.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 1485-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Choi ◽  
Soon-Il An ◽  
Sang-Wook Yeh ◽  
Jin-Yi Yu

Abstract Outputs from coupled general circulation models (CGCMs) are used in examining tropical Pacific decadal variability (TPDV) and their relationships with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Herein TPDV is classified as either ENSO-induced TPDV (EIT) or ENSO-like TPDV (ELT), based on their correlations with a decadal modulation index of ENSO amplitude and spatial pattern. EIT is identified by the leading EOF mode of the low-pass filtered equatorial subsurface temperature anomalies and is highly correlated with the decadal ENSO modulation index. This mode is characterized by an east–west dipole structure along the equator. ELT is usually defined by the first EOF mode of subsurface temperature, of which the spatial structure is similar to ENSO. Generally, this mode is insignificantly correlated with the decadal modulation of ENSO. EIT closely interacts with the residuals induced by ENSO asymmetries, both of which show similar spatial structures. On the other hand, ELT is controlled by slowly varying ocean adjustments analogous to a recharge oscillator of ENSO. Both types of TPDV have similar spectral peaks on a decadal-to-interdecadal time scale. Interestingly, the variances of both types of TPDV depend on the strength of connection between El Niño–La Niña residuals and EIT, such that the strong two-way feedback between them enhances EIT and reduces ELT. The strength of the two-way feedback is also related to ENSO variability. The flavors of El Niño–La Niña with respect to changes in the tropical Pacific mean state tend to be well simulated when ENSO variability is larger in CGCMs. As a result, stronger ENSO variability leads to intensified interactive feedback between ENSO residuals and enhanced EIT in CGCMs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 595-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Huang

Anomalous rainfall in the tropical Pacific driven by El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a crucial pathway of ENSO’s global impacts. The changes in ENSO rainfall under global warming vary among the models, even though previous studies have shown that many models project that ENSO rainfall will likely intensify and shift eastward in response to global warming. The present study evaluates the robustness of the changes in ENSO rainfall in 32 CMIP5 models forced under the representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. The robust increase in mean-state moisture dominates the robust intensification of ENSO rainfall. The uncertain amplitude changes in ENSO-related SST variability are the largest source of the uncertainty in ENSO rainfall changes through influencing the amplitude changes in ENSO-driven circulation variability, whereas the structural changes in ENSO SST and ENSO circulation enhancement in the central Pacific are more robust than the amplitude changes. The spatial pattern of the mean-state SST changes—the departure of local SST changes from the tropical mean—with an El Niño–like pattern is a relatively robust factor, although it also contains pronounced intermodel differences. The intermodel spread of historical ENSO circulation is another noteworthy source of the uncertainty in ENSO rainfall changes. The intermodel standard deviation of ENSO rainfall changes increases along with the increase in global-mean surface temperature. However, the robustness of enhanced ENSO rainfall changes in the central-eastern Pacific is almost unchanged, whereas the eastward shift of ENSO rainfall is increasingly robust along with the increase in global-mean surface temperature.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (15) ◽  
pp. 7919-7926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenxiu Zhong ◽  
Xiao-Tong Zheng ◽  
Wenju Cai

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-50

Abstract El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a huge influence on Antarctic climate variability via Rossby wave trains. In this study, the asymmetry of the ENSO teleconnection in the Southern Hemisphere, as along with the mechanisms involved, is systematically investigated. In four reanalysis datasets, the composite atmospheric circulation anomaly in austral winter over the Amundsen Sea during La Niña is situated more to the west than during El Niño. This asymmetric feature is reproduced by ECHAM5.3.2 forced with both composite and idealized symmetric sea surface temperature anomalies. Utilizing a linear baroclinic model, we find that ENSO-triggered circulation anomalies in the subtropics can readily extract kinetic energy from the climatological mean flow and develop efficiently at the exit of the subtropical jet stream (STJ). The discrepancy in the location of the STJ between El Niño and La Niña causes asymmetric circulation responses by affecting the energy conversion. During El Niño years, anomalous tropical convective precipitation increases the meridional temperature gradient, which in turn leads to the strengthening of the STJ and the eastward movement of the jet core and jet exit in the Pacific. With the movement of the STJ exit, the wave train tends to develop over the eastern region. The opposite is the case during La Niña when the westward shift of the jet exit favors the development of the wave train in the western region. Our findings expand the current understanding regarding ENSO teleconnection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 813-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunzai Wang

Abstract The El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurrence can be usually explained by two views of (i) a self-sustained oscillatory mode and (ii) a stable mode interacting with high-frequency forcing such as westerly wind bursts and Madden-Julian Oscillation events. The positive ocean–atmosphere feedback in the tropical Pacific hypothesized by Bjerknes leads the ENSO event to a mature phase. After ENSO event matures, negative feedbacks are needed to cease the ENSO anomaly growth. Four negative feedbacks have been proposed: (i) reflected Kelvin waves at the ocean western boundary, (ii) a discharge process due to Sverdrup transport, (iii) western-Pacific wind-forced Kelvin waves and (iv) anomalous zonal advections and wave reflection at the ocean eastern boundary. These four ENSO mechanisms are respectively called the delayed oscillator, the recharge–discharge oscillator, the western-Pacific oscillator and the advective–reflective oscillator. The unified oscillator is developed by including all ENSO mechanisms, i.e. all four ENSO oscillators are special cases of the unified oscillator. The tropical Pacific Ocean and atmosphere interaction can also induce coupled slow westward- and eastward-propagating modes. An advantage of the coupled slow modes is that they can be used to explain the propagating property of interannual anomalies, whereas the oscillatory modes produce a standing oscillation. The research community has recently paid attention to different types of ENSO events by focusing on the central-Pacific El Niño. All of the ENSO mechanisms may work for the central-Pacific El Niño events, with an addition that the central-Pacific El Niño may be related to forcing or processes in the extra-tropical Pacific.


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