A Concise and Effective Expression Relating Subsurface Temperature to the Thermocline in the Equatorial Pacific

Yuan, Xinyi; Jin, Fei‐Fei; Zhang, Wenjun

doi:10.1029/2020GL087848

A Concise and Effective Expression Relating Subsurface Temperature to the Thermocline in the Equatorial Pacific

Journal Article · Tue Aug 04 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087848· OSTI ID:1645133

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CIC‐FEMD/ILCEC, Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education (KLME) Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology Nanjing China
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, SOEST University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Honolulu HI USA

Abstract

The temperature of the subsurface water entrained into the surface mixed layer plays a key role in controlling the sea surface temperature (SST) and its interannual variability in the equatorial Pacific. In this paper, we combine a hyperbolic tangent function bounded by the warm pool SST and centered at the thermocline depth with a variable sharpness parameter to describe the time‐space evolutions of the subsurface temperature. Under simple approximations of the sharpness parameter, this concise expression becomes remarkably efficient in capturing the observed and climate‐model simulated subsurface temperature variability in terms of anomalies of the thermocline depth and SST of the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. The formulations for the subsurface temperature and thermocline sharpness developed in this work should be useful tools for evaluating and understanding the role of the thermocline feedback in ENSO behaviors in both theoretical and comprehensive climate models.

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0005110

OSTI ID:: 1645133

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1801653

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 15 Vol. 47; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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