Linking a sea level pressure anomaly dipole over North America to the central Pacific El Niño

This study demonstrates the close connection between the north–south dipole pattern of sea level pressure anomalies over northeastern North America to the western tropical North Atlantic, referred to as the North American dipole (NAD), and the central Pacific (CP)-type El Niño a year later. In contr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Climate dynamics 2017-08, Vol.49 (4), p.1321-1339
Main Authors: Ding, Ruiqiang, Li, Jianping, Tseng, Yu-heng, Sun, Cheng, Zheng, Fei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air-sea interaction
Anomalies
Basins
Climatology
Correlation
Correlation analysis
Dipoles
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
El Nino
El Nino phenomena
El Nino-Southern Oscillation event
Geophysics/Geodesy
NAD
North Pacific Oscillation
Ocean basins
Ocean currents
Oceanography
Pacific-North American (PNA) pattern
Pressure
Pressure anomalies
Sea level
Sea level pressure
Sea surface
Sea surface temperature
Sea surface temperature anomalies
Southern Oscillation
Surface temperature
Temperature anomalies
Temperature effects
Tropical climate
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Summary:This study demonstrates the close connection between the north–south dipole pattern of sea level pressure anomalies over northeastern North America to the western tropical North Atlantic, referred to as the North American dipole (NAD), and the central Pacific (CP)-type El Niño a year later. In contrast to other ENSO precursors, such as the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) and Pacific–North America (PNA) pattern, the NAD appears more closely related to the CP-type El Niño than to the eastern Pacific (EP)-type El Niño, indicating that the NAD may serve as a unique precursor for the CP El Niño. The wintertime NAD induces sea surface temperature anomalies in the northern tropical Atlantic (NTA), which subsequently play an important role in developing the CP El Niño-like pattern in the tropical Pacific over the course of the following year. It appears that the NAD influence on CP El Niño involves air–sea interaction over several major basins, including the subtropical/tropical Pacific and the NTA. Additional analysis indicates that the correlation of either the NAD index or the NPO index with the CP El Niño state a year later depends on the status of the other index. When the wintertime NAD index is of the opposite sign to the simultaneous NPO index, the correlation of the NAD or NPO index with the Niño4 index becomes much weaker.
ISSN:0930-7575
1432-0894
DOI:10.1007/s00382-016-3389-8