Connections Between Different Types of El Nio and Southern/Northern Oscillation

It has long been acknowledged that there are two types of El Nio events, i.e., the eastern Pacific El Nio (EE) and the central Pacific El Nio (CE), according to the initial position of the anomalous warm water and its propagation direction. In this paper, the oceanic and atmospheric evolutions and the possible mechanisms of the two types of El Nio events were examined. It is found that all the El Nio events, CE or EE, could be attributed to the joint impacts of the eastward advection of warm water from the western Pacific warm pool (WPWP) and the local warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific. Before the occurrence of CE events, WPWP had long been in a state of being anomalous warm, so the strength of eastward advection of warm water was much stronger than that of EE, which played a major role in the formation of CE. While for the EE events, most contribution came from the local warming of the equatorial eastern Pacific. It is further identified that the immediate cause leading to the difference of the two types of El Nio events was the asynchronous variations of the Southern Oscillation (SO) and the Northern Oscillation (NO) as defined by Chen in 1984. When the transition from the positive phase of the NO (NO+) to NO- was prior to that from SO+ to SO-, there would be eastward propagation of westerly anomalies from the tropical western Pacific induced by NO and hence the growth of warm sea surface temperature anomalies in WPWP and its eastward propagation. This was followed by lagged SO-induced weakening of southeast trade winds and local warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific. These were conducive to the occurrence of the CE. On the contrary, the transition from SO+ to SO- leading the transition of NO would favor the occurrence of EE type events.     

Time-Dependent Nonlinear Forcing Singular Vector-Type Tendency Error of the Zebiak-Cane Model

Based on the Zebiak-Cane model, the timedependent nonlinear forcing singular vector （NFSV）-type tendency errors with components of 4 and 12 （denoted by NFSV-4 and NFSV-12） are calculated for predetermined El Nifio events and compared with the constant NFSV （denoted by NFSV-1） from their patterns and resultant prediction errors. Specifically, NFSV-1 has a zonal dipolar sea surface temperature anomaly （SSTA） pattern with negative anomalies in the equatorial eastern Pacific and positive anomalies in the equatorial central-western Pa- cific. Although the first few components in NFSV-4 and NFSV-12 present patterns similar to NFSV-1, they tend to extend their dipoles farther westward; meanwhile, the positive anomalies gradually cover much smaller regions with the lag times. In addition, the authors calculate the predic- tion errors caused by the three kinds of NFSVs, and the results indicate that the prediction error induced by NFSV-12 is the largest, followed by the NFSV-4. However, when compared with the prediction errors caused by random tendency errors, the NFSVs generate significantly larger prediction errors. It is therefore shown that the spatial structure of tendency errors is important for producing large prediction errors. Furthermore, in exploring the tendency errors that cause the largest prediction error for E1 Nifio events, the timedependent NFSV should be evaluated.     

Initial Error-induced Optimal Perturbations in ENSO Predictions,as Derived from an Intermediate Coupled Model

The initial errors constitute one of the main limiting factors in the ability to predict the El Nio–Southern Oscillation(ENSO) in ocean–atmosphere coupled models. The conditional nonlinear optimal perturbation(CNOP) approach was employed to study the largest initial error growth in the El Nio predictions of an intermediate coupled model(ICM). The optimal initial errors(as represented by CNOPs) in sea surface temperature anomalies(SSTAs) and sea level anomalies(SLAs) were obtained with seasonal variation. The CNOP-induced perturbations, which tend to evolve into the La Nia mode, were found to have the same dynamics as ENSO itself. This indicates that, if CNOP-type errors are present in the initial conditions used to make a prediction of El Nio, the El Nio event tends to be under-predicted. In particular, compared with other seasonal CNOPs, the CNOPs in winter can induce the largest error growth, which gives rise to an ENSO amplitude that is hardly ever predicted accurately. Additionally, it was found that the CNOP-induced perturbations exhibit a strong spring predictability barrier(SPB) phenomenon for ENSO prediction. These results offer a way to enhance ICM prediction skill and, particularly,weaken the SPB phenomenon by filtering the CNOP-type errors in the initial state. The characteristic distributions of the CNOPs derived from the ICM also provide useful information for targeted observations through data assimilation. Given the fact that the derived CNOPs are season-dependent, it is suggested that seasonally varying targeted observations should be implemented to accurately predict ENSO events.     

Contrasting the Skills and Biases of Deterministic Predictions for the Two Types of El Nio

The tropical Pacific has begun to experience a new type of El Nio, which has occurred particularly frequently during the last decade, referred to as the central Pacific(CP) El Nio. Various coupled models with different degrees of complexity have been used to make real-time El Nio predictions, but high uncertainty still exists in their forecasts. It remains unknown as to how much of this uncertainty is specifically related to the new CP-type El Nio and how much is common to both this type and the conventional Eastern Pacific(EP)-type El Nio. In this study, the deterministic performance of an El Nio–Southern Oscillation(ENSO) ensemble prediction system is examined for the two types of El Nio. Ensemble hindcasts are run for the nine EP El Nio events and twelve CP El Nio events that have occurred since 1950. The results show that(1) the skill scores for the EP events are significantly better than those for the CP events, at all lead times;(2) the systematic forecast biases come mostly from the prediction of the CP events; and(3) the systematic error is characterized by an overly warm eastern Pacific during the spring season, indicating a stronger spring prediction barrier for the CP El Nio. Further improvements to coupled atmosphere–ocean models in terms of CP El Nio prediction should be recognized as a key and high-priority task for the climate prediction community.     

Variable and Robust East Asian Monsoon Rainfall Response to El Nio over the Past 60 Years(1957–2016)

Severe flooding occurred in southern and northern China during the summer of 2016 when the 2015 super El Nio decayed to a normal condition. However, the mean precipitation during summer(June–July-August) 2016 does not show significant anomalies, suggesting that — over East Asia(EA) — seasonal mean anomalies have limited value in representing hydrological hazards. Scrutinizing season-evolving precipitation anomalies associated with 16 El Nio episodes during 1957–2016 reveals that, over EA, the spatiotemporal patterns among the four categories of El Nio events are quite variable, due to a large range of variability in the intensity and evolution of El Nio events and remarkable subseasonal migration of the rainfall anomalies. The only robust seasonal signal is the dry anomalies over central North China during the El Nio developing summer. Distinguishing strong and weak El Nio impacts is important. Only strong El Nio events can persistently enhance EA subtropical frontal precipitation from the peak season of El Nio to the ensuing summer, by stimulating intense interaction between the anomalous western Pacific anticyclone(WPAC) and underlying dipolar sea surface temperature anomalies in the Indo-Pacific warm pool, thereby maintaining the WPAC and leading to a prolonged El Nio impact on EA. A weak El Nio may also enhance the post-El Nio summer rainfall over EA, but through a different physical process: the WPAC re-emerges as a forced response to the rapid cooling in the eastern Pacific. The results suggest that the skillful prediction of rainfall over continental EA requires the accurate prediction of not only the strength and evolution of El Nio, but also the subseasonal migration of EA rainfall anomalies.     

Role of the oceanic channel in the relationships between the basin/dipole mode of SST anomalies in the tropical Indian Ocean and ENSO transition

The relationships between the tropical Indian Ocean basin(IOB)/dipole(IOD) mode of SST anomalies(SSTAs) and ENSO phase transition during the following year are examined and compared in observations for the period 1958–2008.Both partial correlation analysis and composite analysis show that both the positive(negative) phase of the IOB and IOD(independent of each other) in the tropical Indian Ocean are possible contributors to the El Nio(La Nia) decay and phase transition to La Nia(El Nio) about one year later. However, the influence on ENSO transition induced by the IOB is stronger than that by the IOD. The SSTAs in the equatorial central-eastern Pacific in the coming year originate from subsurface temperature anomalies in the equatorial eastern Indian and western Pacific Ocean, induced by the IOB and IOD through eastward and upward propagation to meet the surface. During this process, however the contribution of the oceanic channel process between the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans is totally different for the IOB and IOD. For the IOD, the influence of the Indonesian Throughflow transport anomalies could propagate to the eastern Pacific to induce the ENSO transition. For the IOB, the impact of the oceanic channel stays and disappears in the western Pacific without propagation to the eastern Pacific.     

The Amplitude-Duration Relation of Observed El Nino Events

The authors demonstrate that the El Ni o events in the pre-and post-1976 periods show two ampli-tude-duration relations. One is that the stronger El Ni o events have longer durations, which is robust for the moderate El Ni o events; the other is that the stronger El Ni o events have shorter durations but for strong El Nio events. By estimating the sign and amplitude of the nonlinear dynamical heating (NDH) anomalies, the authors illustrate that the NDH anomalies are negligible for moderate El Nio events but large for strong El Nio events. In particular, the large NDH anomalies for strong El Nio events are positive during the growth and mature phases, which favor warmer El Nio events. During the decay phase, however, the negative NDH anomalies start to arise and become increasingly significant with the evolution of the El Nio events, in which the negative NDH anomalies dampen the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) and cause the El Nio events to reach the SST normal state earlier. This pattern suggests that the nonlinearity tends to increase the intensities of strong El Nio events and shorten their duration, which, together with the previous results showing a positive correlation between the strength of El Nio events and the significance of the effect of nonlinear advection on the events (especially the suppression of nonlinearity on the SSTA during the decay phase), shows that the strong El Nio events tend to have the amplitude-duration relation of the stronger El Nio events with shorter durations. This result also lends support to the assertion that moderate El Nio events possess the amplitude-duration relation of stronger El Nio events with longer durations.     

ECHAM5-Simulated Impacts of Two Types of El Nio on the Winter Precipitation Anomalies in South China

The authors used an atmospheric general circulation model(AGCM) of European Centre Hamburg Model(ECHAM5.4) and investigated the possible impacts of eastern Pacific(EP) and central Pacific(CP) El Nio on the winter precipitation anomalies in South China.A composite analysis suggested much more rainfall during the mature phase of EP El Nio than in the case of CP El Nio,and their corresponding observed wet centers to be located in the southeast coast and the region to the south of the Yangtze River,respectively.Results obtained on the basis of model-sensitive run imply that the modelsimulated rainfall anomalies agree well with the observation,and the magnitude of simulated rainfall anomalies were found to be reduced when the amplitude of sea surface temperature anomaly(SSTA) forcing of EP and CP El Nio was cut down.These results imply that the rainfall anomaly in South China is very sensitive not only to the type of El Nio but also to its intensity.     

A New Approach for Classifying Two Types of El Nino Events

In recent decades, the typical El Nio events with the warmest SSTs in the tropical eastern Pacific have become less common, and a different of El Nio with the warmest SSTs in the central Pacific, which is flanked on the east and west by cooler SSTs, has become more fre-quent. The more recent type of El Nio was referred to as central Pacific El Nio, warm pool El Nio, or dateline El Nio, or the El Nio Modoki. Central Pacific El Nio links to a different tropical-to-extratropical teleconnection and exerts different impacts on climate, and several classification approaches have been proposed. In this study, a new classification approach is proposed, which is based on the linear combination (sum or difference) of the two leading Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) of tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), and the typical El Ni o index (TENI) and the central El Nio index (CENI) are able to be derived by projecting the observed SSTA onto these combinations. This classification not only reflects the characteristics of non-orthogonality between the two types of events but also yields one period peaking at approximate two to seven years. In particular, this classification can distin-guish the different impacts of the two types of events on rainfall in the following summer in East China. The typical El Nio events tend to induce intensified rainfall in the Yangtze River valley, whereas the central Pacific El Nio tends to induce intensified rainfall in the Huaihe River valley. Thus, the present approach may be appropriate for studying the impact of different types of El Nio on the East Asian climate.     

Nonlinearity Modulating Intensities and Spatial Structures of Central Pacific and Eastern Pacific El Nio Events

This paper compares data from linearized and nonlinear Zebiak–Cane model, as constrained by observed sea surface temperature anomaly(SSTA), in simulating central Pacific(CP) and eastern Pacific(EP) El Nio. The difference between the temperature advections(determined by subtracting those of the linearized model from those of the nonlinear model),referred to here as the nonlinearly induced temperature advection change(NTA), is analyzed. The results demonstrate that the NTA records warming in the central equatorial Pacific during CP El Nio and makes fewer contributions to the structural distinctions of the CP El Nio, whereas it records warming in the eastern equatorial Pacific during EP El Nio, and thus significantly promotes EP El Nio during El Nio–type selection. The NTA for CP and EP El Nio varies in its amplitude,and is smaller in CP El Nio than it is in EP El Nio. These results demonstrate that CP El Nio are weakly modulated by small intensities of NTA, and may be controlled by weak nonlinearity; whereas, EP El Nio are significantly enhanced by large amplitudes of NTA, and are therefore likely to be modulated by relatively strong nonlinearity. These data could explain why CP El Nio are weaker than EP El Nio. Because the NTA for CP and EP El Nio differs in spatial structures and intensities, as well as their roles within different El Nio modes, the diversity of El Nio may be closely related to changes in the nonlinear characteristics of the tropical Pacific.     

Distinguished Effects of Interannual Salinity Variability on the Development of the Central-Pacific El Ni o Events

El Nio events in the central equatorial Pacific (CP) are gaining increased attention,due to their increasing intensity within the global warming context.Various physical processes have been identified in the climate system that can be responsible for the modulation of El Nio,especially the effects of interannual salinity variability.In this work,a comprehensive data analysis is performed to illustrate the effects of interannual salinity variability using surface and subsurface salinity fields from the Met Office ENSEMBLES (EN3) quality controlled ocean dataset.It is demonstrated that during the developing phase of an El Nio event,a negative sea surface salinity (SSS) anomaly in the western-central basin acts to freshen the mixed layer (ML),decrease oceanic density in the upper ocean,and stabilize the upper layers.These related oceanic processes tend to reduce the vertical mixing and entrainment of subsurface water at the base of the ML,which further enhances the warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies associated with the El Nio event.However,the effects of interannually variable salinity are much more significant during the CP-El Nio than during the eastern Pacific (EP) El Nio,indicating that the salinity effect might be an important contributor to the development of CP-El Nio events.     

Interannual Thermocline Signals and E1 Nino-La Nina Turnabout in the Tropical Pacific Ocean

One of the fundamental questions concerning the nature and prediction of the oceanic states in the equatorial eastern Pacific is how the turnabout from a cold water state (La Ni?na) to a warm water state (El Ni?no) takes place, and vice versa. Recent studies show that this turnabout is directly linked to the interannual thermocline variations in the tropical Pacific Ocean basin. An index, as an indicator and precursor to describe interannual thermocline variations and the turnabout of oceanic states in our previous paper (Qian and Hu, 2005), is also used in this study. The index, which shows the maximum subsurface temperature anomaly (MSTA), is derived from the monthly 21-year (1980–2000) expendable XBT dataset in the present study. Results show that the MSTA can be used as a precursor for the occurrences of El Ni?no (or La Ni?na) events. The subsequent analyses of the MSTA propagations in the tropical Pacific suggest a one-year potential predictability for El Ni?no and La Ni?na events by identifying ocean temperature anomalies in the thermocline of the western Pacific Ocean. It also suggests that a closed route cycle with the strongest signal propagation is identified only in the tropical North Pacific Ocean. A positive (or negative) MSTA signal may travel from the western equatorial Pacific to the eastern equatorial Pacific with the strongest signal along the equator. This signal turns northward along the tropical eastern boundary of the basin and then moves westward along the north side of off-equator around 16N. Finally, the signal returns toward the equator along the western boundary of the basin. The turnabout time from an El Ni?no event to a La Ni?na event in the eastern equatorial Pacific depends critically on the speed of the signal traveling along the closed route, and it usually needs about 4 years. This finding may help to predict the occurrence of the El Ni?no or La Ni?na event at least one year in advance.     

A New Approach for Classifying Two Types of El Nio Events

正In recent decades, the typical El Nio events with the warmest SSTs in the tropical eastern Pacific have become less common, and a different of El Nio with the warmest SSTs in the central Pacific, which is flanked on the east and west by cooler SSTs, has become more fre-quent. The more recent type of El Nio was referred to as central Pacific El Nio, warm pool El Nio, or dateline El Nio, or the El Nio Modoki. Central Pacific El Nio links to a different tropical-to-extratropical teleconnection and exerts different impacts on climate, and several classification approaches have been proposed. In this study, a new classification approach is proposed, which is based on the linear combination (sum or difference) of the two leading Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) of tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), and the typical El Ni o index (TENI) and the central El Nio index (CENI) are able to be derived by projecting the observed SSTA onto these combinations. This classification not only reflects the characteristics of non-orthogonality between the two types of events but also yields one period peaking at approximate two to seven years. In particular, this classification can distin-guish the different impacts of the two types of events on rainfall in the following summer in East China. The typical El Nio events tend to induce intensified rainfall in the Yangtze River valley, whereas the central Pacific El Nio tends to induce intensified rainfall in the Huaihe River valley. Thus, the present approach may be appropriate for studying the impact of different types of El Nio on the East Asian climate.     

The Amplitude-Duration Relation of Observed El Nio Events

The authors demonstrate that the El Ni o events in the pre-and post-1976 periods show two ampli-tude-duration relations. One is that the stronger El Ni o events have longer durations, which is robust for the moderate El Ni o events; the other is that the stronger El Ni o events have shorter durations but for strong El Nio events. By estimating the sign and amplitude of the nonlinear dynamical heating (NDH) anomalies, the authors illustrate that the NDH anomalies are negligible for moderate El Nio events but large for strong El Nio events. In particular, the large NDH anomalies for strong El Nio events are positive during the growth and mature phases, which favor warmer El Nio events. During the decay phase, however, the negative NDH anomalies start to arise and become increasingly significant with the evolution of the El Nio events, in which the negative NDH anomalies dampen the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) and cause the El Nio events to reach the SST normal state earlier. This pattern suggests that the nonlinearity tends to increase the intensities of strong El Nio events and shorten their duration, which, together with the previous results showing a positive correlation between the strength of El Nio events and the significance of the effect of nonlinear advection on the events (especially the suppression of nonlinearity on the SSTA during the decay phase), shows that the strong El Nio events tend to have the amplitude-duration relation of the stronger El Nio events with shorter durations. This result also lends support to the assertion that moderate El Nio events possess the amplitude-duration relation of stronger El Nio events with longer durations.     

Comparison of Constant and Time-variant Optimal Forcing Approaches in El Nio Simulations by Using the Zebiak–Cane Model

Model errors offset by constant and time-variant optimal forcing vector approaches(termed COF and OFV, respectively)are analyzed within the framework of El Nio simulations. Applying the COF and OFV approaches to the well-known Zebiak–Cane model, we re-simulate the 1997 and 2004 El Nio events, both of which were poorly degraded by a certain amount of model error when the initial anomalies were generated by coupling the observed wind forcing to an ocean component. It is found that the Zebiak–Cane model with the COF approach roughly reproduced the 1997 El Nio, but the 2004 El Nio simulated by this approach defied an ENSO classification, i.e., it was hardly distinguishable as CP-El Nio or EP-El Nio. In both El Nio simulations, substituting the COF with the OFV improved the fit between the simulations and observations because the OFV better manages the time-variant errors in the model. Furthermore, the OFV approach effectively corrected the modeled El Nio events even when the observational data(and hence the computational time) were reduced.Such a cost-effective offset of model errors suggests a role for the OFV approach in complicated CGCMs.     

Sensitivity Difference in the Extratropical Atmosphere to Two Types of El Nio Events

A comparison of sensitivity in extratropical circulation in the Northern Hemisphere(NH)and Southern Hemisphere(SH)is conducted through observational analyses and diagnostic linear model experiments for two types of El Nio events,the traditional El Nio with the strongest warmth in the eastern tropical Pacific(EP El Nio)and the El Nio Modoki with the strongest warmth in the central tropical Pacific(CP El Nio).It is shown that CP El Nio favors the occurrence of a negative-phase Northern Annular Mode(NAM),while EP El Nio favors that of the Pacific-North American(PNA)pattern.In SH,both EP and CP El Nio induce a negative phase Southern Annular Mode(SAM).However,the former has a greater amplitude,which is consistent with the stronger sea surface temperature(SST)warmth.The difference in the two types of El Nio events in NH may originate from the dependence of heating-induced extratropical response on the location of initial heating,which may be associated with activity of the stationary wave.In SH,the lack of sensitivity to the location of heating can be associated with weaker activity of the stationary wave therein.     

Upper-Ocean Dynamical Features and Prediction of the Super El Ni?o in 2015/16:A Comparison with the Cases in 1982/83 and 1997/98

The 2015/16 super El Ni?o event has been widely recognized as comparable to the 1982/83 and 1997/98 El Ni?o events.This study examines the main features of upper-ocean dynamics in this new super event,contrasts them to those in the two historical super events,and quantitatively compares the major oceanic dynamical feedbacks based on a mixed-layer heat budget analysis of the tropical Pacific.During the early stage,this new event is characterized by an eastward propagation of SST anomalies and a weak warm-pool El Ni?o;whereas during its mature phase,it is characterized by a weak westward propagation and a westward-shifted SST anomaly center,mainly due to the strong easterly wind and cold upwelling anomalies in the far eastern Pacific,as well as the westward anomalies of equatorial zonal current and subsurface ocean temperature.The heat budget analysis shows that the thermocline feedback is the most crucial process inducing the SST anomaly growth and phase transition of all the super events,and particularly for this new event,the zonal advective feedback also exerts an important impact on the formation of the strong warming and westward-shifted pattern of SST anomalies.During this event,several westerly wind burst events occur,and oceanic Kelvin waves propagate eastwards before being maintained over eastern Pacific in the mature stage.Meanwhile,there is no evidence for westward propagation of the off-equatorial oceanic Rossby waves though the discharging process of equatorial heat during the development and mature stages.The second generation El Ni?o prediction system of the Beijing Climate Center produced reasonable event real-time operational prediction during 2014–16,wherein the statistical prediction model that considers the preceding oceanic precursors plays an important role in the multi-method ensemble prediction of this super.     

Influence of positive and negative Indian Ocean Dipoles on ENSO via the Indonesian Throughflow: Results from sensitivity experiments

The role of the Indonesian Throughflow(ITF) in the influence of the Indian Ocean Dipole(IOD) on ENSO is investigated using version 2 of the Parallel Ocean Program(POP2) ocean general circulation model. We demonstrate the results through sensitivity experiments on both positive and negative IOD events from observations and coupled general circulation model simulations. By shutting down the atmospheric bridge while maintaining the tropical oceanic channel, the IOD forcing is shown to influence the ENSO event in the following year, and the role of the ITF is emphasized. During positive IOD events,negative sea surface height anomalies(SSHAs) occur in the eastern Indian Ocean, indicating the existence of upwelling.These upwelling anomalies pass through the Indonesian seas and enter the western tropical Pacific, resulting in cold anomalies there. These cold temperature anomalies further propagate to the eastern equatorial Pacific, and ultimately induce a La Nia-like mode in the following year. In contrast, during negative IOD events, positive SSHAs are established in the eastern Indian Ocean, leading to downwelling anomalies that can also propagate into the subsurface of the western Pacific Ocean and travel further eastward. These downwelling anomalies induce negative ITF transport anomalies, and an El Nio-like mode in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that persists into the following year. The effects of negative and positive IOD events on ENSO via the ITF are symmetric. Finally, we also estimate the contribution of IOD forcing in explaining the Pacific variability associated with ENSO via ITF.     

Diagnosing SST Error Growth during ENSO Developing Phase in the BCC_CSM1.1(m) Prediction System

In this study, the predictability of the El Nino-South Oscillation(ENSO) in an operational prediction model from the perspective of initial errors is diagnosed using the seasonal hindcasts of the Beijing Climate Center System Model,BCC;SM1.1(m). Forecast skills during the different ENSO phases are analyzed and it is shown that the ENSO forecasts appear to be more challenging during the developing phase, compared to the decay phase. During ENSO development, the SST prediction errors are significantly negative and cover a large area in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, thus limiting the model skill in predicting the intensity of El Nino. The large-scale SST errors, at their early stage, are generated gradually in terms of negative anomalies in the subsurface ocean temperature over the central-western equatorial Pacific,featuring an error evolutionary process similar to that of El Nino decay and the transition to the La Nina growth phase.Meanwhile, for short lead-time ENSO predictions, the initial wind errors begin to play an increasing role, particularly in linking with the subsurface heat content errors in the central-western Pacific. By comparing the multiple samples of initial fields in the model, it is clearly found that poor SST predictions of the Nino-3.4 region are largely due to contributions of the initial errors in certain specific locations in the tropical Pacific. This demonstrates that those sensitive areas for initial fields in ENSO prediction are fairly consistent in both previous ideal experiments and our operational predictions,indicating the need for targeted observations to further improve operational forecasts of ENSO.     

Distinguished Effects of Interannual Salinity Variability on the Development of the Central-Pacific El Nino Events

El Nio events in the central equatorial Pacific (CP) are gaining increased attention,due to their increasing intensity within the global warming context.Various physical processes have been identified in the climate system that can be responsible for the modulation of El Nio,especially the effects of interannual salinity variability.In this work,a comprehensive data analysis is performed to illustrate the effects of interannual salinity variability using surface and subsurface salinity fields from the Met Office ENSEMBLES (EN3) quality controlled ocean dataset.It is demonstrated that during the developing phase of an El Nio event,a negative sea surface salinity (SSS) anomaly in the western-central basin acts to freshen the mixed layer (ML),decrease oceanic density in the upper ocean,and stabilize the upper layers.These related oceanic processes tend to reduce the vertical mixing and entrainment of subsurface water at the base of the ML,which further enhances the warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies associated with the El Nio event.However,the effects of interannually variable salinity are much more significant during the CP-El Nio than during the eastern Pacific (EP) El Nio,indicating that the salinity effect might be an important contributor to the development of CP-El Nio events.