A complementary depiction of the interannual variation of atmospheric circulation associated with ENSO events: Research note

Tsing Chang Chen, Ming Cheng Yen, James Pfaendtner, Y. C. Sud

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A simple diagnostic scheme, which combines a low-pass temporal filter (with an 18-month cutoff time) with a regular empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, is used to delineate the synchronous evolution of El Nino-Southern Oscillation-related (ENSO-related) modes in various variables of the ocean-atmosphere system. Based on the causal relation chain of diabatic heating, divergent circulation and rotational flow, the diagnostic scheme extracts ENSO modes from the following data sources: the Pacific sea surface temperature (SST), the past 14-years (1979–1992) of data generated by the Global Data Assimilation System of the National Meteorological Center, and a 10-year (1979–1988) general circulation model climate simulation made at the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres. The analysis reveals the following: (a) the eigencoefficient time series of the first eigenmodes of selected filtered variables, which explain about 40–50% of their total variance, synchronize with the filtered SST averaged over Area NINO-3; (b) the spatial structures of the first eigenmodes resemble the ensemble departures associated with ENSO events of these variables from their long term means; and (c) the results show that the proposed scheme can be easily applied to isolate and illustrate the time evolution of ENSO modes which exist in the long term observational database as well as in climate simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)417-433
Number of pages17
JournalAtmosphere - Ocean
Volume34
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 1996

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