ENSO Regime Changes Responsible for Decadal Phase Relationship Variations Between ENSO Sea Surface Temperature and Warm Water Volume

Zhang, Wenjun; Li, Sixu; Jin, Fei‐Fei; Xie, Rui; Liu, Chao; Stuecker, Malte F.; Xue, Aoyun

doi:10.1029/2019gl082943

Cited by 27 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…The peak correlation coefficient between these two indices decreases from 0.75 before 2000 to 0.66 after 2000 (significant at the 95% confidence level), and the time by which WWV leads the Niño3.4 index also decreases (from seven to four months). These results indicate that the WWV, the dominant signal from the tropical Pacific, is not sufficient to predict ENSO variation after 2000, in agreement with previous studies (Horii, Ueki, and Hanawa 2012;Clarke 2014;Neske and Mcgregor 2018;Zhang et al 2019).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Contributions of tropical-extratropical oceans to the prediction skill of ENSO after 2000

Shi

Ding

2020

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

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The skill of most ENSO prediction models has declined significantly since 2000. This decline may be due to a weakening of the correlation between tropical predictors and ENSO. Moreover, the effects of extratropical ocean variability on ENSO have increased during this period. To improve ENSO predictability, the authors investigate the influence of the extratropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans on ENSO during the pre-2000 and post-2000 periods, and find that the influence of the northern tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature (NTA SST) on ENSO has significantly increased since 2000. Furthermore, there is a much earlier and stronger correlation between NTA SST and ENSO over the central-eastern Pacific during June-July-August in the post-2000 period compared with the pre-2000 period. The extratropical Pacific SST predictors for ENSO retain an approximate 10-month lead time after 2000. The authors use SST signals in the extratropical Atlantic and Pacific to predict ENSO using a statistical prediction model. This results in a significant improvement in ENSO prediction skill and an obvious decrease in the spring predictability barrier phenomenon of ENSO. These results indicate that extratropical Atlantic and Pacific SSTs can make substantial contributions to ENSO prediction, and can be used to enhance ENSO predictability after 2000.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Contributions of tropical-extratropical oceans to the prediction skill of ENSO after 2000

Shi

Ding

2020

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

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“…ENSO predictability has experienced a pronounced shift around 2000 with a skillful lead time decrease from about three seasons to one season (Hendon et al, 2009;McPhaden, 2012;W. Wang et al, 2010), which has been attributed to an ENSO regime shift with more frequent CP El Niño events occurring post-2000 (Zhang et al, 2019). The seasonal prediction of Australian precipitation is expected to struggle with the significantly reduced ENSO predictability in recent decades (Hendon et al, 2009;W.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical Indo‐Pacific Compounding Thermal Conditions Drive the 2019 Australian Extreme Drought

Zhang

Mao

Jiang

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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As one of the world's driest inhabited continents with a highly variable climate, Australia is frequently subject to prolonged and intensive droughts on seasonal to interannual timescales (Gallant et al., 2007; King et al., 2020; Ummenhofer et al., 2009). The year 2019 was characterized by prominent precipitation deficiencies and an extensive drought with devastating wildfires over Australia (Bureau of Meteorology, 2019a, Bureau of Meteorology, 2019b; Ell, 2020; see also Figure 1). It was the driest year on record across Australia as a whole in the recent four decades, suffering the strongest fire weather danger with high values in areas of all States and Territories (Bureau of Meteorology, 2019b). Understanding the mechanisms that led to this disastrous drought is of importance not only for assessing potential predictability of extreme droughts, but also for improving future resource management and strategic wildfire prevention. The 2019 extreme drought witnessed remarkable sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans (Figure 2a). SST warming was evident in the Central Pacific throughout almost all seasons of 2019, which was classified as a moderate El Niño event by the Climate Prediction Center (CPC). El Niño, the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), features a large-scale SST warming in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific in concert with coupled changes of the atmospheric circulation (McPhaden et al., 2006; Philander, 1990). Impacts of ENSO on Australian precipitation have

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“…ENSO is further energized by stochastic atmospheric forcing 7 and modulated by the seasonal cycle 8,9 . Counterintuitively, despite significant advances in both ENSO theory and ENSO representation in climate models, the predictability of central-to-eastern tropical Pacific SST anomalies has decreased in the past two decades to only one season [10][11][12] . Research over the past years has further revealed that SST anomalies in other ocean basins may also play an important role shaping the evolution of El Niño events and its predictability [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Spurious North Tropical Atlantic precursors to El Niño

et al. 2021

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The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the primary driver of year-to-year global climate variability, is known to influence the North Tropical Atlantic (NTA) sea surface temperature (SST), especially during boreal spring season. Focusing on statistical lead-lag relationships, previous studies have proposed that interannual NTA SST variability can also feed back on ENSO in a predictable manner. However, these studies did not properly account for ENSO’s autocorrelation and the fact that the SST in the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as their interaction are seasonally modulated. This can lead to misinterpretations of causality and the spurious identification of Atlantic precursors for ENSO. Revisiting this issue under consideration of seasonality, time-varying ENSO frequency, and greenhouse warming, we demonstrate that the cross-correlation characteristics between NTA SST and ENSO, are consistent with a one-way Pacific to Atlantic forcing, even though the interpretation of lead-lag relationships may suggest otherwise.

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ENSO Regime Changes Responsible for Decadal Phase Relationship Variations Between ENSO Sea Surface Temperature and Warm Water Volume

Cited by 27 publications

References 46 publications

Contributions of tropical-extratropical oceans to the prediction skill of ENSO after 2000

Contributions of tropical-extratropical oceans to the prediction skill of ENSO after 2000

Tropical Indo‐Pacific Compounding Thermal Conditions Drive the 2019 Australian Extreme Drought

Spurious North Tropical Atlantic precursors to El Niño

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