The 1997/98 El Niño: A test for climate models

Version 3 of the Hadley Centre Atmospheric Model (HadAM3) has been used to demonstrate one means of comparing a general circulation model with observations for a specific climate perturbation, namely the strong 1997/98 El Niño. This event was characterized by the collapse of the tropical Pacific...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2004-06, Vol.31 (12), p.L12216.1-n/a
Main Authors: Lu, Riyu, Dong, Buwen, Cess, Robert D., Potter, Gerald L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CLIMATE MODELS
CLIMATES
CLOUDS
Earth, ocean, space
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Exact sciences and technology
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
Marine
SEAS
SOUTHERN OSCILLATION
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
TESTING
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Version 3 of the Hadley Centre Atmospheric Model (HadAM3) has been used to demonstrate one means of comparing a general circulation model with observations for a specific climate perturbation, namely the strong 1997/98 El Niño. This event was characterized by the collapse of the tropical Pacific's Walker circulation, caused by the lack of a zonal sea surface temperature gradient during the El Niño. Relative to normal years, cloud altitudes were lower in the western portion of the Pacific and higher in the eastern portion. HadAM3 likewise produced the observed collapse of the Walker circulation, and it did a reasonable job of reproducing the west/east cloud structure changes. This illustrates that the 1997/98 El Niño serves as a useful means of testing cloud‐climate interactions in climate models.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2004GL019956