Indian Ocean mediates the ENSO teleconnections to the Central Southwest Asia during the wet season 

Author(s):  
Muhammad Adnan Abid ◽  
Moetasim Ashfaq ◽  
Fred Kucharski ◽  
Katherine J. Evans ◽  
Mansour Almazroui

<p>Central Southwest Asia (CSWA) is a region with the largest number of glaciers, outside the polar regions in its northeast and the Arabian desert to its southwest. The region receives precipitation from November to April period also known as the wet season, which contributes to the regional freshwater resources. Mainly, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modulates the wet season precipitation over CSWA, with a positive relationship. However, the intraseasonal characteristics of ENSO influence are largely unknown, which may be important to understand the regional sub-seasonal to seasonal hydroclimate variability. We noted that the ENSO‐CSWA teleconnection varies intraseasonally and is a combination of direct and indirect positive influences. The ENSO direct influence is through a Rossby wave‐like pattern in the tail months of the wet season, while the indirect influence is noted through an ENSO‐forced atmospheric dipole of diabatic heating anomalies in the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO), which also generates a Rossby wave‐like forcing and persists throughout the wet season. The stronger ENSO influence is found when both direct and indirect modes are in phase, while the relationship breaks down when the two modes are out of phase. Moreover, the idealized numerical simulations confirm and reproduce the observed circulation patterns. This suggests that improvements in sub-seasonal to seasonal scale predictability requires the better representation of intraseasonal variability of ENSO teleconnection, as well as the role of interbasin interactions in its propagation.</p>

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (21) ◽  
pp. 7509-7526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hoell ◽  
Mathew Barlow ◽  
Roop Saini

The leading pattern of precipitation for the Indian Ocean, one of the most intense areas of rainfall on the globe, is calculated for November–April 1979–2008. The associated regional circulation and thermodynamic forcing of precipitation over Asia are examined at both intraseasonal and interannual time scales. The leading pattern is determined using both empirical orthogonal function analysis of monthly precipitation data and a closely related index of daily outgoing longwave radiation filtered into intraseasonal (33–105 days) and interannual (greater than 105 days) components. The leading pattern has a maximum in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean, and is closely associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation at intraseasonal time scales and related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation at interannual time scales. Both time scales are associated with baroclinic Gill–Matsuno-like circulation responses extending over southern Asia, but the interannual component also has a strong equivalent barotropic circulation. Thermodynamically, both time scales are associated with cold temperature advection and subsidence over southwest Asia, with advection of the mean temperature by the anomalous wind more important at lower and midlevels and advection of the anomalous temperature by the mean wind more important at upper levels. For individual months, the intraseasonal variability can overwhelm the interannual variability. Enhanced Indian Ocean convection persisted for almost the entire 2007/08 season in association with severe drought over southwest Asia, but a strong intraseasonal signal in January 2008 reversed the pattern, resulting in damaging floods in the midst of drought.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Adnan Abid ◽  
Moetasim Ashfaq ◽  
Fred Kucharski ◽  
Katherine J. Evans ◽  
Mansour Almazroui

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Hyun-Ju Lee ◽  
Emilia-Kyung Jin

The global impact of the tropical Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific (IOWP) is expected to increase in the future because this area has been continuously warming due to global warming; however, the impact of the IOWP forcing on West Antarctica has not been clearly revealed. Recently, ice loss in West Antarctica has been accelerated due to the basal melting of ice shelves. This study examines the characteristics and formation mechanisms of the teleconnection between the IOWP and West Antarctica for each season using the Rossby wave theory. To explicitly understand the role of the background flow in the teleconnection process, we conduct linear baroclinic model (LBM) simulations in which the background flow is initialized differently depending on the season. During JJA/SON, the barotropic Rossby wave generated by the IOWP forcing propagates into the Southern Hemisphere through the climatological northerly wind and arrives in West Antarctica; meanwhile, during DJF/MAM, the wave can hardly penetrate the tropical region. This indicates that during the Austral winter and spring, the IOWP forcing and IOWP-region variabilities such as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) modes should paid more attention to in order to investigate the ice change in West Antarctica.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1605
Author(s):  
Mary T. Kayano ◽  
Wilmar L. Cerón ◽  
Rita V. Andreoli ◽  
Rodrigo A. F. Souza ◽  
Itamara P. Souza

Contrasting effects of the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans on the atmospheric circulation and rainfall interannual variations over South America during southern winter are assessed considering the effects of the warm Indian Ocean basin-wide (IOBW) and El Niño (EN) events, and of the cold IOBW and La Niña events, which are represented by sea surface temperature-based indices. Analyses are undertaken using total and partial correlations. When the effects of the two warm events are isolated from each other, the contrasts between the associated rainfall anomalies in most of South America become accentuated. In particular, EN relates to anomalous wet conditions, and the warm IOBW event to opposite conditions in extensive areas of the 5° S–25° S band. These effects in the 5° S–15° S sector are due to the anomalous regional Hadley cells, with rising motions in this band for the EN and sinking motions for the warm IOBW event. Meanwhile, in subtropical South America, the opposite effects of the EN and warm IOBW seem to be due to the presence of anomalous anticyclone and cyclone and associated moisture transport, respectively. These opposite effects of the warm IOBW and EN events on the rainfall in part of central South America might explain the weak rainfall relation in this region to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Our results emphasize the important role of the tropical Indian Ocean in the South American climate and environment during southern winter.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1437
Author(s):  
Mary T. Kayano ◽  
Wilmar L. Cerón ◽  
Rita V. Andreoli ◽  
Rodrigo A. F. Souza ◽  
Itamara P. Souza ◽  
...  

This paper examines the effects of the tropical Pacific Ocean (TPO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) modes in the interannual variations of austral spring rainfall over South America (SA). The TPO mode refers to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The isolated effects between IOD and TPO were estimated, events were chosen from the residual TPO (R-TPO) or residual IOD (R-IOD), and the IOD (TPO) effects for the R-TPO (R-IOD) composites were removed from the variables. One relevant result was the nonlinear precipitation response to R-TPO and R-IOD. This feature was accentuated for the R-IOD composites. The positive R-IOD composite showed significant negative precipitation anomalies along equatorial SA east of 55° W and in subtropical western SA, and showed positive anomalies in northwestern SA and central Brazil. The negative R-IOD composite indicated significant positive precipitation anomalies in northwestern Amazon, central–eastern Brazil north of 20° S, and western subtropical SA, and negative anomalies were found in western SA south of 30° S. This nonlinearity was likely due to the distinct atmospheric circulation responses to the anomalous heating sources located in longitudinally distinct regions: the western tropical Indian Ocean and areas neighboring Indonesia. The results obtained in this study might be relevant for climate monitoring and modeling studies.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsun-Ying Kao ◽  
Jin-Yi Yu

Abstract Surface observations and subsurface ocean assimilation datasets are examined to contrast two distinct types of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the tropical Pacific: an eastern-Pacific (EP) type and a central-Pacific (CP) type. An analysis method combining empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis and linear regression is used to separate these two types. Correlation and composite analyses based on the principal components of the EOF were performed to examine the structure, evolution, and teleconnection of these two ENSO types. The EP type of ENSO is found to have its SST anomaly center located in the eastern equatorial Pacific attached to the coast of South America. This type of ENSO is associated with basinwide thermocline and surface wind variations and shows a strong teleconnection with the tropical Indian Ocean. In contrast, the CP type of ENSO has most of its surface wind, SST, and subsurface anomalies confined in the central Pacific and tends to onset, develop, and decay in situ. This type of ENSO appears less related to the thermocline variations and may be influenced more by atmospheric forcing. It has a stronger teleconnection with the southern Indian Ocean. Phase-reversal signatures can be identified in the anomaly evolutions of the EP-ENSO but not for the CP-ENSO. This implies that the CP-ENSO may occur more as events or epochs than as a cycle. The EP-ENSO has experienced a stronger interdecadal change with the dominant period of its SST anomalies shifted from 2 to 4 yr near 1976/77, while the dominant period for the CP-ENSO stayed near the 2-yr band. The different onset times of these two types of ENSO imply that the difference between the EP and CP types of ENSO could be caused by the timing of the mechanisms that trigger the ENSO events.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1850-1858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Yi Yu ◽  
Fengpeng Sun ◽  
Hsun-Ying Kao

Abstract The Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3), is known to produce many aspects of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) realistically, but the simulated ENSO exhibits an overly strong biennial periodicity. Hypotheses on the cause of this excessive biennial tendency have thus far focused primarily on the model’s biases within the tropical Pacific. This study conducts CCSM3 experiments to show that the model’s biases in simulating the Indian Ocean mean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the Indian and Australian monsoon variability also contribute to the biennial ENSO tendency. Two CCSM3 simulations are contrasted: a control run that includes global ocean–atmosphere coupling and an experiment in which the air–sea coupling in the tropical Indian Ocean is turned off by replacing simulated SSTs with an observed monthly climatology. The decoupling experiment removes CCSM3’s warm bias in the tropical Indian Ocean and reduces the biennial variability in Indian and Australian monsoons by about 40% and 60%, respectively. The excessive biennial ENSO is found to reduce dramatically by about 75% in the decoupled experiment. It is shown that the biennial monsoon variability in CCSM3 excites an anomalous surface wind pattern in the western Pacific that projects well into the wind pattern associated with the onset phase of the simulated biennial ENSO. Therefore, the biennial monsoon variability is very effective in exciting biennial ENSO variability in CCSM3. The warm SST bias in the tropical Indian Ocean also increases ENSO variability by inducing stronger mean surface easterlies along the equatorial Pacific, which strengthen the Pacific ocean–atmosphere coupling and enhance the ENSO intensity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaqi Wang ◽  
Juan Feng ◽  
Jianping Li ◽  
Ran An ◽  
Lanning Wang

<p>The variability of boreal spring Hadley circulation (HC) over the Asian monsoon domain over the last four decades is explored. The climatological distribution of the regional HC is symmetric of the equator, with the ascending branch around the equator and sinking branch around the subtropics in each hemisphere. The first dominant mode (EOF1) of the regional HC is equatorial asymmetric, with the main body in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) and the ascending branch to the north of the equator. This mode is mainly characterized by interannual variation and is related to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Significant negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies are observed over the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) along with the development of La Niña events; however, the magnitude of SST anomalies in the southern Indian Ocean is greater than that in the northern counterpart, contributing to EOF1 formation. The spatial distribution of the second dominant mode (EOF2) is with the main body lying in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and the ascending branch located to the south of the equator. The temporal variation of this mode is connected to the warming of the TIO. The warming rate of the southern TIO SST is faster than that in the northern counterpart, resulting in the southward migration of the rising branch. The above result indicates the critical role of the meridional distribution of SST on the variability of the regional HC.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 2359-2372
Author(s):  
Gengxin Chen ◽  
Dongxiao Wang ◽  
Weiqing Han ◽  
Ming Feng ◽  
Fan Wang ◽  
...  

AbstractIn the eastern tropical Indian Ocean, intraseasonal variability (ISV) affects the regional oceanography and marine ecosystems. Mooring and satellite observations documented two periods of unusually weak ISV during the past two decades, associated with suppressed baroclinic instability of the South Equatorial Current. Regression analysis and model simulations suggest that the exceptionally weak ISVs were caused primarily by the extreme El Niño events and modulated to a lesser extent by the Indian Ocean dipole. Additional observations confirm that the circulation balance in the Indo-Pacific Ocean was disrupted during the extreme El Niño events, impacting the Indonesian Throughflow Indian Ocean dynamics. This research provides substantial evidence for large-scale modes modulating ISV and the abnormal Indo-Pacific dynamical connection during extreme climate modes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (13) ◽  
pp. 3269-3283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Oke ◽  
Andreas Schiller

Abstract A series of observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) are performed for the tropical Indian Ocean (±15° from the equator) using a simple analysis system. The analysis system projects an array of observations onto the dominant empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) derived from an intermediate-resolution (2° × 0.5°) ocean circulation model. This system produces maps of the depth of the 20°C isotherm (D20), representing interannual variability, and the high-pass-filtered mixed layer depth (MLD), representing intraseasonal variability. The OSSEs are designed to assess the suitability of the proposed Indian Ocean surface mooring array for resolving intraseasonal to interannual variability. While the proposed array does a reasonable job of resolving the interannual time scales, it may not adequately resolve the intraseasonal time scales. A procedure is developed to rank the importance of observation locations by determining the observation array that best projects onto the EOFs used in the analysis system. OSSEs using an optimal array clearly outperform the OSSEs using the proposed array. The configuration of the optimal array is sensitive to the number of EOFs considered. The optimal array is also different for D20 and MLD, and depends on whether fixed observations are included that represent an idealized Argo array. Therefore, a relative frequency map of observation locations identified in 24 different OSSEs is compiled and a single, albeit less optimal, array that is referred to as a consolidated array is objectively determined. The consolidated array reflects the general features of the individual optimal arrays derived from all OSSEs. It is found that, in general, observations south of 8°S and off of the Indonesian coast are most important for resolving the interannual variability, while observations a few degrees south of the equator, and west of 75°E, and a few degrees north of the equator, and east of 75°E, are important for resolving the intraseasonal variability. In a series of OSSEs, the consolidated array is shown to outperform the proposed array for all configurations of the analysis system for both D20 and MLD.


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