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Three Evolution Patterns of the Central-Pacific El Niño

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Three Evolution Patterns of the Central-Pacific El Niño 1 2 Relationships between Extratropical Sea Level Pressure Variations and the Central- 3 Pacific and Eastern-Pacific Types of ENSO 4 5 6 7 8 Jin-Yi Yu* and Seon Tae Kim 9 10 Department of Earth System Science 11 University of California 12 Irvine, California, USA 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 February, 2010, Submitted 21 August, 2010, Revised 22 In Press, Journal of Climate 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 ________________________ 38 *. Corresponding author address: Dr. Jin-Yi Yu, Department of Earth System Science, 39 University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3100. E-mail: [email protected] 1 40 41 ABSTRACT 42 This study examines the linkages between leading patterns of interannual sea level 43 pressure (SLP) variability over the extratropical Pacific (20°N-60°N) and the Eastern- 44 Pacific (EP) and Central-Pacific (CP) types of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The 45 first Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) mode of the extratropical SLP anomalies 46 represents variations of the Aleutian Low, and the second EOF mode represents the North 47 Pacific Oscillation (NPO) and is characterized by a meridional SLP anomaly dipole with 48 a nodal point near 50°N. It is shown that a fraction of the 1st SLP mode can be excited by 49 both the EP and CP types of ENSO. The SLP response to the EP type is stronger and 50 more immediate. The tropical-extratropical teleconnection appears to act slower for the 51 CP ENSO. During the decay phase of EP events, the associated extratropical SLP 52 anomalies shift from the 1st SLP mode to the 2nd SLP mode. As the 2nd SLP mode 53 grows, subtropical SST anomalies are induced beneath via surface heat flux anomalies. 54 The SST anomalies persist after the peak in strength of the 2nd SLP mode, likely due to 55 the seasonal footprinting mechanism, and lead to the development of the CP type of 56 ENSO. This study shows that the CP ENSO is an extratropically-excited mode of tropical 57 Pacific variability and also suggests that the decay of an EP type of ENSO can lead to the 58 onset of a CP type of ENSO with the aid of the NPO. This connection appears to be at 59 work during the 1972, 1982, and 1997 strong El Niño events, which are all EP events and 60 were all followed by strong CP La Niña events after the NPO was excited in the 61 extratropics. This study concludes that extratropical SLP variations play an important role 62 in exciting the CP type of ENSO and in linking the transitions between the EP and CP 63 events. 64 2 65 1. Introduction 66 It is becoming increasingly recognized that there are two different types of El 67 Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (Larkin and Harrison 2005; Yu and Kao 2007; Ashok 68 et al. 2007; Kao and Yu 2009; Kug et al. 2009). One type is characterized by sea surface 69 temperature (SST) anomalies centered in the tropical eastern Pacific, and the other by 70 SST anomalies centered in the tropical central Pacific. Kao and Yu (2009) refer to these 71 two types as the Eastern-Pacific (EP) and Central-Pacific (CP) types, respectively. 72 Different terms have also been used to describe the CP type, including ―Dateline El 73 Niño‖ (Larkin and Harrison 2005), ―El Niño Modoki‖ (Ashok et al. 2007), and ―Warm 74 pool El Niño‖ (Kug et al. 2009). Studies have shown these two ENSO types have 75 different impacts on global weather and climate (e.g., Larkin and Harrison 2005; Kao and 76 Yu 2009; Weng et al. 2009; Kim et al. 2009; Yeh et al. 2009). Before this two-type view 77 of ENSO emerged, El Niño was already known to produce teleconnections with the 78 extratropics by forcing sea level pressure (SLP) variations characterized by a deepened 79 Aleutian Low and a ridge downstream over North America (Horel and Wallace 1981). 80 This wave-like pattern resembles the so-called Pacific-North American (PNA) 81 teleconnection pattern (Wallace and Gutzler 1981). It has also been suggested that the 82 extratropical SLP response to ENSO can be sensitive to the longitudinal position of the 83 tropical SST anomalies (Mo and Higgins 1998). An obvious question is then whether the 84 extratropical SLP variations associated with the CP ENSO are similar to or different from 85 those described for the conventional EP ENSO. An answer to this question is crucial to 86 contrast and explain the global impacts of these two types of tropical SST variability. 87 3 88 Previous studies have also suggested extratropical SLP variations can influence 89 the occurrence of El Niño events. A seasonal footprinting mechanism was proposed by 90 Vimont et al. (2001, 2003, 2009) to suggest how mid-latitude atmospheric variability 91 could lead to tropical SST variability via atmosphere-ocean coupling in the subtropics. 92 These extratropical and subtropical air-sea interactions were suggested to be capable of 93 leading to the onset of El Niño events (Anderson 2003, 2004; Chang et al. 2007). These 94 views suggest that extratropical SLP variations can force ENSO events, which is opposite 95 to the interaction mentioned in the previous paragraph in which ENSO SST variability 96 forces extratropical SLP variations. In this study, we examine force-and-response 97 relationships between extratropical SLP variations and tropical Pacific SST variations 98 associated with the EP and CP types of ENSO. 99 100 2. Data and EOF analysis 101 Two data sets are used in this study. For the SST, we use the Extended 102 Reconstruction of Historical Sea Surface Temperature version 3 (ERSST V3; Smith and 103 Reynolds 2003) from National Climate Data Center (NCDC). For the atmospheric fields, 104 we use the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for 105 Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) Reanalysis (Kistler et al. 2001). We choose to 106 analyze the period 1958-2007, during which both the ERSST and NCEP-NCAR 107 reanalysis are available. Anomalous quantities are computed by removing the monthly- 108 mean climatology and a linear trend. A running mean with a boxcar filter is applied to the 109 anomalies to remove variability shorter than twelve months. 4 110 We first perform Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis to identify the 111 leading patterns of interannual SLP variations in the extratropical Pacific. The EOF 112 analysis is applied to the covariance matrix of monthly SLP anomalies between 20°N and 113 60°N and between 120°E and 80°W. The first two leading EOF modes are shown in 114 Figure 1. The first EOF mode (Fig. 1a) explains 40% of the total SLP variance and is 115 characterized by a SLP anomaly pattern that has large values in the north Pacific where 116 the Aleutian Low is located. Therefore, this SLP mode represents interannual variations 117 of the Aleutian Low. The second EOF mode (Fig. 1b) explains 16% of the total SLP 118 variance and is characterized by out-of-phase SLP variations between the subtropical 119 Pacific (20°N-40°N) and the higher-latitude Pacific (50°N-60°N). This mode resembles 120 the so-called North Pacific Oscillation (NPO, Walker and Bliss 1932; Rogers 1981). To 121 examine the SLP anomalies associated with these two modes over other parts of the 122 Pacific, SLP anomalies between 30°S and 60°N are regressed onto the principal 123 components (PCs) of these two EOF modes (PC1 and PC2, hereafter). The results are 124 shown in Figures 1c-d, where the regression coefficients that are significant at the 99 % 125 level using a student’s t-test are shaded. For the 1st EOF mode, Aleutian Low variations 126 are associated with significant tropical SLP anomalies that are out-of-phase between 127 eastern and western Pacific (Fig. 1c). The tropical SLP anomaly pattern resembles the 128 Southern Oscillation pattern. Because SLP anomalies in the tropics are typically much 129 smaller than those in the higher latitudes (Kutzbach 1970; Kidson 1975), we also show in 130 Fig. 1e the correlation coefficients between PC1 and basin-wide Pacific SLP anomalies. 131 The Southern Oscillation pattern is better revealed in this figure in which the SLP 132 anomalies have been normalized by their local standard deviations. For the 2nd EOF 133 mode, the associated SLP anomalies extend to the tropical central Pacific from the 5 134 southern center of the NPO, as is evident in both the regression and correlation analyses 135 (Figs. 1d and 1f). 136 137 3. Aleutian Low variations and the EP and CP types of ENSO 138 139 We next identify the SST anomalies associated with these two SLP variation 140 modes by regressing Pacific SST anomalies onto the PCs of the two SLP modes. As 141 shown in Figure 2, the 1st SLP mode is associated with an ENSO SST pattern in the 142 tropical Pacific whose SST anomaly center is located in the eastern Pacific and attached 143 to the South America coast, both of which major characteristics of the EP type of ENSO 144 identified by Kao and Yu (2009). The pattern correlation between the SST regression 145 pattern shown in Fig. 2 between 20°S and 20°N and the SST anomaly pattern obtained by 146 Kao and Yu (2009; their Fig. 3) for the EP ENSO is 0.83, which is larger than the 147 corresponding pattern correlation with the CP ENSO (0.59). To further examine the 148 relations between the 1st SLP mode and the EP and CP types of ENSO, we calculate the 149 lead-lag correlations between PC1 and the SST indices for these two types of ENSOs (the 150 EP and CP indices, hereafter).
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