Genesis of the 2014–2016 El Nio events

The 2015/2016 El Nio was one of the strongest El Nio events in history, and this strong event was preceded by a weak El Nio in 2014. This study systematically analyzed the dynamical processes responsible for the genesis of these events. It was found that the weak 2014 El Nio had two warming phases, the spring-summer warming was produced by zonal advection and downwelling Kelvin waves driven by westerly wind bursts(WWBs), and the autumn-winter warming was produced by meridional advection, surface heating as well as downwelling Kelvin waves. The 2015/2016 extreme El Nio, on the other hand, was primarily a result of sustained zonal advection and downwelling Kelvin waves driven by a series of WWBs, with enhancement from the Bjerknes positive feedback. The vast difference between these two El Nio events mainly came from the different amount of WWBs in 2014 and 2015. As compared to the 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 extreme El Nio events, the 2015/2016 El Nio exhibited some distinctive characteristics in its genesis and spatial pattern. We need to include the effects of WWBs to the theoretical framework of El Nio to explain these characteristics, and to improve our understanding and prediction of El Nio.     

Processes involved in the second-year warming of the 2015 El Nio event as derived from an intermediate ocean model

The tropical Pacific experienced a sustained warm sea surface condition that started in 2014 and a very strong El Nio event in 2015. One striking feature of this event was the horseshoe-like pattern of positive subsurface thermal anomalies that was sustained in the western-central equatorial Pacific throughout 2014–2015. Observational data and an intermediate ocean model are used to describe the sea surface temperature(SST) evolution during 2014–2015. Emphasis is placed on the processes involved in the 2015 El Nio event and their relationships with SST anomalies, including remote effects associated with the propagation and reflection of oceanic equatorial waves(as indicated in sea level(SL) signals) at the boundaries and local effects of the positive subsurface thermal anomalies. It is demonstrated that the positive subsurface thermal anomaly pattern that was sustained throughout 2014–2015 played an important role in maintaining warm SST anomalies in the equatorial Pacific. Further analyses of the SST budget revealed the dominant processes contributing to SST anomalies during 2014–2015. These analyses provide an improved understanding of the extent to which processes associated with the 2015 El Nio event are consistent with current El Nio and Southern Oscillation theories.     

Enlightenments from researches and predictions of 2014–2016 super El Nio event

<正>El Nio is a remarkable climate phenomenon with a basinwide warming of sea surface temperatures(SST) in the easterncentral tropical Pacific. El Nio means The Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish, and on the contrary, a basinwide cooling of the tropical Pacific SST is called La Nia that means The Little Girl in Spanish. Always, a large-scale SST change in the tropical     

The anomalous variation of the lightning activity in southern China during the 1997/98 El Nio event

The El Ni?o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a cli- mate anomaly responsible for worldwide weather im- pacts ranging from droughts to floods. It is of scien- tific importance to clarify the influences of the 1997/98 El Ni?o event (for simplicity, named the ENSO) on the regional and global lightning activity. Goodman et al.[1] noticed that during the El Ni?o ma- ture phase from December 1997 to February 1998, the total lightning frequencies recorded by LIS, lightning days and lightning ho…     

Conceptual model about the interaction between El Nio/Southern Oscillation and Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in far west equatorial Pacific

In the tropical Pacific region, El Ni?o/Southern Os- (COADS SST from 1945 to 1993) in the eastern cillation (ENSO) and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation in (150°W-90°W, 5°S-5°N) and the observed SST far west equatorial Pacific (QBOWP) are two most and zonal wind in the far western equatorial Pacific prominent interannual variation phenomena. The for- (120°-140°E, 0°-10°N) (Fig.1), in the eastern Pa- mer is characterized by coupled SST-wind variability cific the period of S…     

地球自转与El Nio——海气耦合理论

从低纬的海气耦合的浅水模式方程组出发 ,运用正交模和特殊函数的方法进一步讨论地球自转速率变化对海气耦合系统的影响 .研究表明 :地球自转速率的变化通过海气耦合一方面使大气和海洋的Kelvin波和Rossby波的移动及稳定性发生变化 ,另一方面使纬向风、洋流和海表温度发生变化 .特别是在地球自转减慢时 ,通过海气耦合 ,出现纬向风和洋流异常和大洋东部海表温度增加 ,从而导致引起全球气候异常的ElNi no现象     

Some characteristics and precipitation effects of the El Niño of 1997–1998

The 1997–1998 El Niño was the strongest in known history. However, its effects on rainfall in different parts of the globe were not all as expected (floods were expected in some regions and droughts in others). The characteristics of this El Niño, and the expected and observed precipitation effects are described; the reasons for the expectations not coming true in some regions are discussed. This paper attempts to review the important scientific issues involved in El Niño phenomena for the general reader.     

El Ni?o and El Ni?o Modoki variability based on a new ocean reanalysis

A new ocean reanalysis, covering the period from 1990 to 2009, is evaluated against observational sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface height (SSH) data in reproducing the temporal characteristics of El Ni?o and El Ni?o Modoki. The new reanalysis assimilates the available SST, temperature–salinity profile, and satellite altimetry data sets into a global ocean model forced with surface boundary conditions from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction atmospheric reanalysis 2. Using the Ni?o 3 index and the improved El Ni?o Modoki index, to distinguish between El Ni?o and El Ni?o Modoki signals, our results show that the two time series in the new reanalysis are in agreement with those obtained from observations during the study period. A composite analysis method is used to demonstrate the temporal evolution of these two types of El Ni?o. The new reanalysis has the advantage of representing the strength and location of El Ni?o events better than the control run, with an increase in the spatial correlation, but El Ni?o variability in the reanalysis is weak in the eastern Pacific, particularly off the coast of South America. As for the El Ni?o Modoki events, the initiation, development, and termination of the warm SST anomalies all occur in the central Pacific. All main features associated with the warm SST anomaly pattern of El Ni?o Modoki are well represented in the reanalysis. Furthermore, using this new ocean reanalysis, we select two strong cases to investigate possible mechanisms that may lead to the different warm SST anomaly patterns.     

The critical role of Indian summer monsoon on the remote forcing between Indian and Northwest Pacific during El Nio decaying year

Recent studies have found a connection between Indian Ocean Basin Warming and the anomalous Northwest Pacific Anticyclone(ANPWA) during El Ni?o decaying year.This study focuses on the necessary condition for this connection by using observation and numerical simulation.The seasonal transition of the Indian Ocean sea surface wind is critical to the climatic effect of Indian Ocean Basin Warming.When the South Asian Summer Monsoon reaches its peak,the background wind becomes desirable for basin warming,which then affects the climate in the Northwest Pacific.Via the Kelvin waves and Ekman divergence,the wind anomalies exist in the lower atmosphere east of the Indian Ocean warm Sea Surface Temperature(SST) anomalies,and intensify and sustain the ANWPA throughout the El Nio decaying summer.This impact plays an important role in the inter-annual variability of the East Asian Summer Monsoon.     

Seasonal compensation implied no weakening of the land carbon sink in the Northern Hemisphere under the 2015/2016 El Ni?o

The recurrent extreme El Ni?o events are commonly linked to reduced vegetation growth and the land carbon sink over many but discrete regions of the Northern Hemisphere(NH). However, we reported here a pervasive and continuous vegetation greening and no weakened land carbon sink in the maturation phase of the 2015/2016 El Ni?o event over the NH(mainly in the extra-tropics), based on multiple evidences from remote sensing observations, global ecosystem model simulations and atmospheric CO₂     

Impact of El Nio on atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China: Role of the anomalous western North Pacific anticyclone

This paper presents a review on the impact of El Nio on the interannual variability of atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China through the anomalous anticyclone over western North Pacific(WNPAC). It explains the formation mechanisms of the WNPAC and physical processes by which the WNPAC affects the rainfall in China. During the mature phase of El Nio, the convective cooling anomalies over western tropical Pacific caused by the weakened convections trigger up an atmospheric Rossby wave response, resulting in the generation of the WNPAC. The WNPAC can persist from the winter when the El Nio is in its peak to subsequent summer, which is maintained by multiple factors including the sustained presence of convective cooling anomalies and the local air-sea interaction over western tropical Pacific, and the persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies(SSTA) in tropical Indian and tropical North Atlantic. The WNPAC can influence the atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall in China not only simultaneously, but also in the subsequent summer after an El Nio year, leading to more rainfall over southern China. The current paper also points out that significant anomalies of atmospheric circulations over East Asia and rainfall over southern China occur in El Nio winter but not in La Nio winter, suggesting that El Nio and La Nio have an asymmetric effect. Other issues, including the impact of El Nio diversity and its impact as well as the relations of the factors affecting the persistence of the WNPAC with summer rainfall anomalies in China, are also discussed. At the end of this paper some issues calling for further investigation are discussed.     

Regional differences in the effects of El Niño and La Niña on low flows and floods

Abstract

The response of monthly 7-day low flow, monthly instantaneous peak flow, and monthly frequency of flood events to El Niño and La Niña episodes is investigated for 18 rivers that represent a diverse range of climatic types throughout New Zealand. A significant positive or negative deviation from the long-term average was observed in over half the possible combinations of river, streamflow index, and type of ENSO episode; significant deviations were most frequent in the case of low flow, especially during La Niña episodes. Patterns of streamflow response differ widely between rivers, and the response of a given river to individual ENSO episodes is very variable. The patterns of streamflow response to ENSO are consistent to some extent with the climatic effects of ENSO already identified by meteorologists. Two core regions can be defined in which streamflow tends to respond in the same way. These are in the northeast of the North Island, and in the axial ranges of the South Island, where there are significant effects of ENSO on the frequency and duration of rain-bearing northeasterly and westerly winds respectively. The patterns of response strongly reflect topography, and the exposure of catchments to predominant air masses.     

Displacements and transformations of nitrate-rich and nitrate-poor water masses in the tropical Pacific during the 1997 El Niño

A Lagrangian analysis was applied to the outputs of a coupled physical-biogeochemical model to describe the redistribution of nitrate-rich and nitrate-poor surface water masses in the tropical Pacific throughout the major 1997 El Niño. The same tool was used to analyze the causes of nitrate changes along trajectories and to investigate the consequences of the slow nitrate uptake in the high nutrient low chlorophyll (HNLC) region during the growth phase of the event. Three patterns were identified during the drift of water masses. The first mechanism is well known along the equator: oligotrophic waters from the western Pacific are advected eastward and retain their oligotrophic properties along their drift. The second concerns the persistent upwelling in the eastern basin. Water parcels have complex trajectories within this retention zone and remain mesotrophic. This study draws attention to the third process which is very specific to the HNLC region and to the El Niño period. During the 1997 El Niño, horizontal and vertical inputs of nitrate decreased so dramatically that nitrate uptake by phytoplankton became the only mechanism driving nitrate changes along pathways. The study shows that because of the slow nitrate uptake characteristic of the tropical Pacific HNLC system, nitrate in the pre-El Niño photic layer can support biological production for a period of several months. As a consequence, the slow nitrate uptake delays the gradual onset of oligotrophic conditions over nearly all the area usually occupied by upwelled waters. Owing to this process, mesotrophic conditions persist in the tropical Pacific during El Niño events.     

Comparison of the effects of soil moisture and El Niño on summer precipitation in eastern China

Science China Earth Sciences - The effects of spring soil moisture over the vast region from the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze River valley to North China (YRNC) and El Niño on the...     

Influences of Indian Ocean interannual variability on different stages of El Nio: A FOAM1.5 model approach

Both the tropical Indian and tropical Pacific Oceans are active atmosphere-ocean interactive regions with robust interannual variability, which also constitutes a linkage between the two basins in the mode of variability. Using a global atmosphereocean coupled model, we conducted two experiments(CTRL and PC) to explore the contributions of Indian Ocean interannual sea surface temperature(SST) modes to the occurrence of El Ni?o events. The results show that interannual variability of the SST in the Indian Ocean induces a rapid growth of El Ni?o events during the boreal autumn in an El Ni?o developing year. However, it weakens El Ni?o events or even promotes cold phase conversions in an El Ni?o decaying year. Therefore, the entire period of the El Ni?o is shortened by the interannual variations of the Indian Ocean SST. Specifically, during the El Ni?o developing years, the positive Indian Ocean Dipole(IOD) events force an anomalous Walker circulation, which then enhances the existing westerly wind anomalies over the west Pacific. This will cause a warmer El Ni?o event, with some modulations by ocean advection and oceanic Rossby and Kelvin waves. However, with the onset of the South Asian monsoon, the Indian Ocean Basin(IOB) warming SST anomalies excite low level easterly wind anomalies over the west tropical Pacific during the El Ni?o decaying years. As a result, the El Ni?o event is prompted to change from a warm phase to a cold phase. At the same time, an associated atmospheric anticyclone anomaly appears and leads to a decreasing precipitation anomaly over the northwest Pacific. In summary, with remote forcing in the atmospheric circulation, the IOD mode usually affects the El Ni?o during the developing years, whereas the IOB mode affects the El Ni?o during the decaying years.     

The Relationship Between the Interannual Variation of Earth’s Rotation and El Niño Events

We analyzed the relationship between the earth’s rotational variation and sea-surface temperature anomaly. By means of using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) bandpass filter on the change of length-of-day (ΔLOD) data, the interannual variation series having time periods greater than 1.5-year and less than 8-year was obtained. Time series analyses of the interannual variation, which corresponds to the El Niño period, reveal a close linkage between the earth’s rotation and El Niño. A detailed comparison suggests, that six of seven El Niño events are nearly synchronous with the interannual variation of the earth’s rotation, and all ΔLOD peak are in El Niño years except 1991–92, which means the interannual variation of the earth’s rotation in these years is relatively slow. The correlation between ΔLOD and sea-surface temperature is about 0.517 (1 month-lag), which far exceeds the 99% significance level.     

Temperature anomalies in high northerly latitudes and their link with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation

I report the discovery of a low frequency temperature oscillation in the eastern North Atlantic (NA), which was significantly correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) in the tropical Pacific, but led the latter index by a number of months. This discovery is significant, because it demonstrates a link between the tropical Pacific and the high northerly latitudes which cannot readily be explained in terms of El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) feedbacks from the tropics, and opens up the possibility that ENSO and temperature anomalies in northerly climes, may actually have a common origin within, or even external to, the global climate system.     

The anomalous variation of the lightning activity in southern China during the 1997/98 El Niño event

This paper presents the EOF analysis results of the lightning density (LD) anomalies for the different seasons in southeastern China and Indochina Peninsula by using the OTD/LIS database (June 1995 to Feb. 2003) of the global LD with 2.5Ü×2.5× resolution offered by Global Hydrology Resource Center. It is shown that the LD positive anomalies in the region occurred at the same time of NINO3 SSTA steep increase in the spring of 1997 and remained to be a higher level till the next spring, as well the corresponding anomaly percent maximum in different seasons was 89%, 30%, 45%, 498% and 55% successively from the beginning to the end of the 1997/98 El Niño event (ENSO). The centre of the LD positive anomalies for the spring or winter season is located at southeastern China and the adjacent coastal areas, but it for the summer or autumn season is located at the southern Indochina Peninsula and Gulf of Thailand, whose position for each season in the ENSO as contrasted with the normal years has a westward shift, and especially for winter or spring season a northward shift at the same time. In addition, an analysis of the interannual variations in the LD anomaly percent, convective precipitation and H-CAPE days in southern China shows that each among the three anomaly percents is correlative with the other for the positive anomaly zone and Kuroshio area. The relative variation of LD during the El Niño period is the highest among the three rates and is larger than that during the non-El Niño period, meaning that the response of lightning activities to the ENSO is the most sensitive in both areas. But the response of lightning activities and precipitation to the ENSO appears to be more complex and diversified either in Kuroshio area or in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and northwestern and northeastern China.     

El Niño and La Niña influence on mean river flows of southern South America in the 20th century

The influence of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon on monthly mean river flows of 12 rivers in the extreme south of South America in the 20th century is analysed. The original dataset of each river is divided into two subsets, i.e. warm ENSO events or El Niño, and cold ENSO events or La Niña. The elements of the subsets are composites of 24 consecutive months, from January of the year when the ENSO event begins to December of the following year. The ENSO signal is analysed by comparing the monthly mean value of each subset to the long-term monthly mean. The results reveal that, in general, monthly mean El Niño (La Niña) river flows are predominantly larger (smaller) than the long-term monthly mean in the rivers studied. The anomalies are more evident during the second half of the year in which the event starts and the first months of the following year.     

Using CMIP5 model outputs to investigate the initial errors that cause the “spring predictability barrier” for El Nio events

Most ocean-atmosphere coupled models have difficulty in predicting the El Nio-Southern Oscillation(ENSO) when starting from the boreal spring season. However, the cause of this spring predictability barrier(SPB) phenomenon remains elusive. We investigated the spatial characteristics of optimal initial errors that cause a significant SPB for El Nio events by using the monthly mean data of the pre-industrial(PI) control runs from several models in CMIP5 experiments. The results indicated that the SPB-related optimal initial errors often present an SST pattern with positive errors in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific, and a subsurface temperature pattern with positive errors in the upper layers of the eastern equatorial Pacific, and negative errors in the lower layers of the western equatorial Pacific. The SPB-related optimal initial errors exhibit a typical La Ni-a-like evolving mode, ultimately causing a large but negative prediction error of the Nio-3.4 SST anomalies for El Nio events. The negative prediction errors were found to originate from the lower layers of the western equatorial Pacific and then grow to be large in the eastern equatorial Pacific. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that the El Nio predictions may be most sensitive to the initial errors of temperature in the subsurface layers of the western equatorial Pacific and the Nio-3.4 region, thus possibly representing sensitive areas for adaptive observation. That is, if additional observations were to be preferentially deployed in these two regions, it might be possible to avoid large prediction errors for El Nio and generate a better forecast than one based on additional observations targeted elsewhere. Moreover, we also confirmed that the SPB-related optimal initial errors bear a strong resemblance to the optimal precursory disturbance for El Nio and La Nia events. This indicated that improvement of the observation network by additional observations in the identified sensitive areas would also be helpful in detecting the signals provided by the precursory disturbance, which may greatly improve the ENSO prediction skill.