A surface layer variance heat budget for ENSO

Boucharel, Julien; Timmermann, Axel; Santoso, Agus; England, Matthew H.; Jin, Fei‐Fei; Balmaseda, Magdalena A.

doi:10.1002/2015GL063843

Title: A surface layer variance heat budget for ENSO

Journal Article · Wed May 13 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL063843· OSTI ID:1402300

Boucharel, Julien ^[1]; Timmermann, Axel ^[2]; Santoso, Agus ^[1]; England, Matthew H. ^[1]; Jin, Fei‐Fei ^[3]; Balmaseda, Magdalena A. ^[4]

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science University of New South Wales Sydney New South Wales Australia
International Pacific Research Center and Department of Oceanography University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Honolulu Hawaii USA
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, SOEST University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Honolulu Hawaii USA, Laboratory for Climate Studies, Beijing Climate Center Chinese Meteorological Agency Beijing China
European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts Reading UK

Abstract Characteristics of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), such as frequency, propagation, spatial extent, and amplitude, strongly depend on the climatological background state of the tropical Pacific. Multidecadal changes in the ocean mean state are hence likely to modulate ENSO properties. To better link background state variations with low‐frequency amplitude changes of ENSO, we develop a diagnostic framework that determines locally the contributions of different physical feedback terms on the ocean surface temperature variance. Our analysis shows that multidecadal changes of ENSO variance originate from the delicate balance between the background‐state‐dependent positive thermocline feedback and the atmospheric damping of sea surface temperatures anomalies. The role of higher‐order processes and atmospheric and oceanic nonlinearities is also discussed. The diagnostic tool developed here can be easily applied to other tropical ocean areas and climate phenomena.

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Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: DESC005110

OSTI ID:: 1402300

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 42 Journal Issue: 9; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 13 works

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