Cloud Radiative Feedbacks and El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Middlemas, Eleanor A.; Clement, Amy C.; Medeiros, Brian; Kirtman, Ben

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-18-0842.1

Cloud Radiative Feedbacks and El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Journal Article · Tue Jul 02 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Journal of Climate

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-18-0842.1· OSTI ID:1609294

Middlemas, Eleanor A. ^[1]; Clement, Amy C. ^[2]; Medeiros, Brian ^[3]; Kirtman, Ben ^[2]

Univ. of Miami, FL (United States); DOE/OSTI
Univ. of Miami, FL (United States)
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

Cloud radiative feedbacks are disabled via “cloud-locking” in the Community Earth System Model, version 1.2 (CESM1.2), to result in a shift in El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) periodicity from 2–7 years to decadal time scales. We hypothesize that cloud radiative feedbacks may impact the periodicity in three ways: by 1) modulating heat flux locally into the equatorial Pacific subsurface through negative shortwave cloud feedback on sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA), 2) damping the persistence of subtropical southeast Pacific SSTA such that the South Pacific meridional mode impacts the duration of ENSO events, or 3) controlling the meridional width of off-equatorial westerly winds, which impacts the periodicity of ENSO by initiating longer Rossby waves. The result of cloud-locking in CESM1.2 contrasts that of another study, which found that cloud-locking in a different global climate model led to decreased ENSO magnitude across all time scales due to a lack of positive longwave feedback on the anomalous Walker circulation. CESM1.2 contains this positive longwave feedback on the anomalous Walker circulation, but either its influence on the surface is decoupled from ocean dynamics or the feedback is only active on interannual time scales. The roles of cloud radiative feedbacks in ENSO in other global climate models are additionally considered. In particular, it is shown that one cannot predict the role of cloud radiative feedbacks in ENSO through a multimodel diagnostic analysis. Instead, they must be directly altered.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: FC02-97ER62402

OSTI ID:: 1609294

Journal Information:: Journal of Climate, Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Issue: 15 Vol. 32; ISSN 0894-8755

Publisher:: American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Cloud radiative effects
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ENSO
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Cloud Radiative Feedbacks and El Niño–Southern Oscillation

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