Asymmetric response of the South China Sea SST to El Niño and La Niña

The interannual variability of the sea surface temperature (SST) in the South China Sea (SCS) is investigated according to its relationship with El Nio/La Nia (EN/LN) using monthly products from ICOADS. The SCS SST bears two peaks associated with EN/LN and shows the asymmetric features. Coinciding with the mature phase of EN/LN, the first SST warming/cooling peaks in December(0)-February(1) (DJF(1)) and centers in the southern part. The major difference is in the amplitude associated with the strength of EN/LN. However, the SCS SST anomaly shows distinct difference after the mature phase of EN/LN. The EN SST warm-ing develops a mid-summer peak in June-August(1) (JJA(1)) and persists up to September-October(1), with the same amplitude of the first warming peak. Whereas the LN SST cooling peaks in May(1), it decays slowly until the end of the year, with amplitude much weaker. Comparing with SST and atmospheric circulations, the weak response and early termination of the second cooling is due to the failure of the cyclonic wind anomalies to develop in the northwest Pacific during JJA(1).     

Distribution of the tropical Pacific surface zonal wind anomaly and its relation with two types of El Niño

El Nio events with an eastern Pacific pattern(EP) and central Pacific pattern(CP) were first separated using rotated empirical orthogonal functions(REOF).Lead/lag regression and rotated singular value decomposition(RSVD) analyses were then carried out to study the relation between the surface zonal wind(SZW) anomalies and sea surface temperature(SST) anomalies in the tropical Pacific.A possible physical process for the CP El Ni o was proposed.For the EP El Ni o,strong westerly anomalies that spread eastward continuously produce an anomalous ocean zonal convergence zone(ZCZ) centered on about 165°W.This SZW anomaly pattern favors poleward and eastward Sverdrup transport at the equator.For the CP El Nio,westerly anomalies and the ZCZ are mainly confined to the western Pacific,and easterly anomalies blow in the eastern Pacific.This SZW anomaly pattern restrains poleward and eastward Sverdrup transport at the equator;however,there is an eastward Sverdrup transport at about 5°N,which favors the warming of the north-eastern tropical Pacific.It is found that the slowness of eastward propagation of subsurface warm water(partly from the downwelling caused by Ekman convergence and the ZCZ) is due to the slowdown of the undercurrent in the central basin,and vertical advection in the central Pacific may be important in the formation and disappearance of the CP El Nio.     

Surface thermal centroid anomaly of the eastern equatorial Pacific as a unified Niño index

By analyzing the variability of global SST(sea surface temperature) anomalies,we propose a unified Ni o index using the surface thermal centroid anomaly of the region along the Pacific equator embraced by the 0.7°C contour line of the standard deviation of the SST anomalies and try to unify the traditional Ni o regions into a single entity.The unified Ni o region covers almost all of the traditional Ni o regions.The anomaly time series of the averaged SST over this region are closely correlated to historical Ni o indices.The anomaly time series of the zonal and meridional thermal centroid have close correlation with historical TNI(Trans-Ni o index) indices,showing differences among El Ni o(La Ni a) events.The meridional centroid anomaly suggests that areas of maximum temperature anomaly are moving meridionally(although slightly) with synchronous zonal movement.The zonal centroid anomalies of the unified Ni o region are found helpful in the classification of the Eastern Pacific(EP)/Central Pacific(CP) types of El Ni o events.More importantly,the zonal centroid anomaly shows that warm areas might move during a single warming/cooling phase.All the current Ni o indices can be well represented by a simple linear combination of unified Ni o indices,which suggests that the thermal anomaly(SSTA) and thermal centroid location anomaly of the unified Ni o region would yield a more complete image of each El Ni o/ La Ni a event.     

Meridional Variation of the 1955-2003 Sea Level Anomalies in the Tropical Pacific Ocean Associated with El Nio Events

The Sea Level Anomaly-Torque (SLAT, relative to a reference location in the Pacific Ocean), which means the total torque of the gravity forces of sea waters with depths equal to the Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) in the tropical Pacific Ocean, is defined in this study. The time series of the SLAT from merged altimeter data (1993-2003) had a great meridional variation during the 1997-1998 El Nio event. By using historical upper layer temperature data (1955-2003) for the tropical Pacific Ocean, the tempera- ture-based SLAT is also calculated and the meridional variation can be found in the historical El Nio events (1955-2003), which suggests that the meridional shifts of the sea level anomaly are also intrinsic oscillating modes of the El Nio cycles like the zonal shifts.     

The Influence of El Ni?o on MJO over the Equatorial Pacific

In this paper, the influence of El Ni?o event on the Madden-Julian Oscillation(MJO) over the equatorial Pacific is studied by using reanalysis data and relevant numerical simulation results. It is clearly shown that El Ni?o can reduce the intensity of MJO. The kinetic energy of MJO over the equatorial Pacific is stronger before the occurrence of the El Ni?o event, but it is reduced rapidly after El Ni?o event outbreak, and the weakened MJO even can continue to the next summer. The convection over the central-western Pacific is weakened in El Ni?o winter. The positive anomalous OLR over the central-western Pacific has opposite variation in El Ni?o winter comparing to the non-ENSO cases. The vertical structure of MJO also affected by El Ni?o event, so the opposite direction features of the geopotential height and the zonal wind in upper and lower level troposphere for the MJO are not remarkable in the El Ni?o winter and tend to be barotropic features. El Ni?o event also has an influence on the eastward propa- gation of the MJO too. During El Ni?o winter, the eastward propagation of the MJO is not so regular and unanimous and there exists some eastward propagation, which is faster than that in non-ENSO case. Dynamic analyses suggest that positive SSTA(El Ni?o case) affects the atmospheric thickness over the equatorial Pacific and then the excited atmospheric wave-CISK mode is weakened, so that the intensity of MJO is reduced; the combining of the barotropic unstable mode in the atmosphere excited by external forcing(SSTA) and the original MJO may be an important reason for the MJO vertical structure tending to be barotropic during the El Ni?o.     

Variations of the Eco-Hydro-Climatic Environment Response to the 2015/2016 Super El Niño Event in the Mindanao Dome Upwelling System

A super El Ni?o event occurred in the equatorial Pacific during 2015-2016,accompanied by considerable regional eco-hydro-climatic variations within the Mindanao Dome(MD)upwelling system in the tropical western Pacific.Using timeseries of various oceanic data from 2013 to 2017,the variability of eco-hydro-climatic conditions response to the 2015/2016 super El Ni?o in the upper 300 m of the MD region are analyzed in this paper.Results showed that during the 2015/2016 super El Ni?o event,the upwelling in the MD region was greatly enhanced compared to those before and after this El Ni?o event.Upwelling Rossby waves and the massive loss of surface water in the western Pacific were suggested to be the main reasons for this enhanced upwelling.De-creased precipitation caused by changes in large-scale air-sea interaction led to the increased surface salinities.Changes in the struc-tures of the thermohaline and nutrient distribution in deep waters contributed to the increased surface chlorophyll a,suggesting a po-sitive effect of El Ni?o on surface carbon storage in the MD region.Based on the above analysis,the synopsis mechanism illustrating the eco-hydro-climatic changing processes over the MD upwelling system responding to the El Ni?o event was proposed.It high-lights the prospect for the role played by El Ni?o in local eco-hydro-climatic effects,which has further profound implications for understanding the influence of the global climate changes on the ocean carbon cycle.     

Forecasts of South China Sea surface temperature anomalies using the Nio indices and dipole mode index as predictors

Based on an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the monthly NCEP Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) data in the South China Sea (SCS) after removing the climatological mean and trends of SST,over the period of January 1982 to October 2003,the corresponding TCF correlates best with the Dipole Mode Index (DMI),Nio1+2,Nio3.4,Nio3,and Nio4 indices with time lags of 10,3,6,5,and 6 months,respectively.Thus,a statistical hindcasts in the prediction model are based on a canonical correlation analysis (CCA) model using the above indices as predictors spanning from 1993/1994 to 2003/2004 with a 1-12 month lead time after the canonical variants are calculated,using data from the training periods from January 1982 to December1992.The forecast model is successful and steady when the lead times are 1-12 months.The SCS warm event in 1998 was successfully predicted with lead times from 1-12 months irrespective of the strength or time extent.The prediction ability for SSTA is lower during weak ENSO years,in which other local factors should be also considered as local effects play a relatively important role in these years.We designed the two forecast models:one using both DMI and Nio indices and the other using only Nio indices without DMI,and compared the forecast accuracies of the two cases.The spatial distributions of forecast accuracies show different confidence areas.By turning off the DMI,the forecast accuracy is lower in the coastal areas off the Philippines in the SCS,suggesting some teleconnection may occur with the Indian Ocean in this area.The highest forecast accuracies occur when the forecast interval is five months long without using the DMI,while using both of Nio indices and DMI,the highest accuracies occur when the forecast interval time is eight months,suggesting that the Nio indices dominate the interannual variability of SST anomalies in the SCS.Meanwhile the forecast accuracy is evaluated over an independent test period of more than 11 years (1993/94 to October 2004) by comparing the model performance with a simple prediction strategy involving the persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies over a 1-12 month lead time (the persisted prediction).Predictions based on the CCA model show a significant improvement over the persisted prediction,especially with an increased lead time (longer than 3 months).The forecast model performs steadily and the forecast accuracy,i.e.,the correlation coefficients between the observed and predicted SSTA in the SCS are about 0.5 in most middle and southern SCS areas,when the thresholds are greater than the 95% confidence level.For all 1 to 12 month lead time forecasts,the root mean square errors have a standard deviation of about 0.2.The seasonal differences in the prediction performance for the 1-12 month lead time are also examined.