Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Wang, Dongxiao
• Qin, Yinghao
• Xiao, Xianjun
• Zhang, Zuqiang
• Wu, Xiangyu

Titel

El Niño and El Niño Modoki variability based on a new ocean reanalysis

Ist Teil von

• Ocean dynamics, 2012-09, Vol.62 (9), p.1311-1322

Ort / Verlag

Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

SpringerLink (Online service)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• A new ocean reanalysis, covering the period from 1990 to 2009, is evaluated against observational sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface height (SSH) data in reproducing the temporal characteristics of El Niño and El Niño Modoki. The new reanalysis assimilates the available SST, temperature–salinity profile, and satellite altimetry data sets into a global ocean model forced with surface boundary conditions from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction atmospheric reanalysis 2. Using the Niño 3 index and the improved El Niño Modoki index, to distinguish between El Niño and El Niño Modoki signals, our results show that the two time series in the new reanalysis are in agreement with those obtained from observations during the study period. A composite analysis method is used to demonstrate the temporal evolution of these two types of El Niño. The new reanalysis has the advantage of representing the strength and location of El Niño events better than the control run, with an increase in the spatial correlation, but El Niño variability in the reanalysis is weak in the eastern Pacific, particularly off the coast of South America. As for the El Niño Modoki events, the initiation, development, and termination of the warm SST anomalies all occur in the central Pacific. All main features associated with the warm SST anomaly pattern of El Niño Modoki are well represented in the reanalysis. Furthermore, using this new ocean reanalysis, we select two strong cases to investigate possible mechanisms that may lead to the different warm SST anomaly patterns.