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Title: Revisiting ENSO/Indian Ocean Dipole phase relationships

Abstract

Here in this paper we show that the characteristics of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), such as its power spectrum and phase relationship with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), can be succinctly explained by ENSO combination mode (C-mode) wind and heat flux forcing together with a seasonal modulation of the air/sea coupled Indian Ocean (IO) Bjerknes feedback. This model explains the observed high-frequency near-annual IOD variability in terms of deterministic ENSO/annual cycle interactions. ENSO-independent IOD events can be understood as a seasonally modulated ocean response to white noise atmospheric forcing. Under this new physical null hypothesis framework, IOD predictability is determined by both ENSO predictability and the ENSO signal-to-noise ratio. We further emphasize that lead/lag correlations between different climate variables are easily misinterpreted when not accounting properly for the seasonal modulation of the underlying climate phenomena.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7];  [8]
  1. Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences; Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences; Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), Boulder, CO (United States). Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS)
  2. Pusan National Univ., Busan (Korea, Republic of). IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP); Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). International Pacific Research Center (IPRC)
  3. Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
  4. Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States). Dept. of Plants, Soils and Climate
  5. Nanjing Univ. of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing (China). Key Lab. of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education (KLME)
  6. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Princeton, NJ (United States). Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab.
  7. Univ. of Hawaii at West O’ahu, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Mathematics
  8. Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences; Nanjing Univ. of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing (China). Key Lab. of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education (KLME)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1465346
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1402344
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0005110; AGS-1406601
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Geophysical Research Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 44; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 58 GEOSCIENCES

Citation Formats

Stuecker, Malte F., Timmermann, Axel, Jin, Fei-Fei, Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu, Zhang, Wenjun, Wittenberg, Andrew T., Widiasih, Esther, and Zhao, Sen. Revisiting ENSO/Indian Ocean Dipole phase relationships. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1002/2016GL072308.
Stuecker, Malte F., Timmermann, Axel, Jin, Fei-Fei, Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu, Zhang, Wenjun, Wittenberg, Andrew T., Widiasih, Esther, & Zhao, Sen. Revisiting ENSO/Indian Ocean Dipole phase relationships. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL072308
Stuecker, Malte F., Timmermann, Axel, Jin, Fei-Fei, Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu, Zhang, Wenjun, Wittenberg, Andrew T., Widiasih, Esther, and Zhao, Sen. Mon . "Revisiting ENSO/Indian Ocean Dipole phase relationships". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL072308. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1465346.
@article{osti_1465346,
title = {Revisiting ENSO/Indian Ocean Dipole phase relationships},
author = {Stuecker, Malte F. and Timmermann, Axel and Jin, Fei-Fei and Chikamoto, Yoshimitsu and Zhang, Wenjun and Wittenberg, Andrew T. and Widiasih, Esther and Zhao, Sen},
abstractNote = {Here in this paper we show that the characteristics of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), such as its power spectrum and phase relationship with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), can be succinctly explained by ENSO combination mode (C-mode) wind and heat flux forcing together with a seasonal modulation of the air/sea coupled Indian Ocean (IO) Bjerknes feedback. This model explains the observed high-frequency near-annual IOD variability in terms of deterministic ENSO/annual cycle interactions. ENSO-independent IOD events can be understood as a seasonally modulated ocean response to white noise atmospheric forcing. Under this new physical null hypothesis framework, IOD predictability is determined by both ENSO predictability and the ENSO signal-to-noise ratio. We further emphasize that lead/lag correlations between different climate variables are easily misinterpreted when not accounting properly for the seasonal modulation of the underlying climate phenomena.},
doi = {10.1002/2016GL072308},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 5,
volume = 44,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Mar 13 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Mon Mar 13 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

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Cited by: 145 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: (a, b) Observed and (c, d) CM2.1 500 year PICTRL model regression patterns (SSTA and 10 m winds) for the normalized monthly DMI (Figures 1a and 1c) and normalized monthly C-mode* reconstruction (Figures 1b and 1d), respectively. The observational data (HadISST for SSTA and JRA-55 for surface winds)more » are for the period 1971–2015. The green boxes indicate the DMI index regions.« less

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