On the atmospheric responses to tropical pacific heating during the mature phase of El Niño

Abstract

The atmospheric heating and sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies during the mature phase of El Nino are observed to show both eastern and western Pacific anomaly patterns, with positive anomalies in the equatorial eastern/central Pacific and negative anomalies in the off-equatorial western Pacific. The detailed spatial patterns of the heating anomalies differ from the SST anomalies. The heating anomalies are more equatorially confined than the SST anomalies, and maxima of positive and negative heating anomalies are located farther to the west than the SST anomalies. The Gill-Zebiak atmospheric model assumes that the atmospheric initial heating has the same spatial patterns as the SST anomalies. This assumption results in some unrealistic model simulations for El Nino. When the model heating anomaly forcing is modified to resemble the observed heating anomalies during the mature phase of El Nino, the model simulations have been improved to 1) successfully simulate equatorial easterly wind anomalies in the western Pacific, 2) correctly simulate the position of maximum westerly wind anomalies, and 3) reduce unrealistic easterly wind anomalies in the off-equatorial eastern Pacific. This paper shows that off-equatorial western Pacific negative atmospheric heating (or cold SST) anomalies are important in producing equatorial easterly wind anomalies in the western Pacific. These off-equatorial cold SST anomalies in the western Pacific also contribute to equatorial westerly wind anomalies observed in the central Pacific during the mature phase of El Nino. Although off-equatorial cold SST anomalies in the western Pacific are smaller than equatorial positive SST anomalies in the eastern Pacific, they are enough to produce atmospheric responses of comparable magnitude to the equatorial eastern Pacific. This is because the atmospheric mean state is convergent in the western Pacific and divergent in the equatorial eastern Pacific. By either removing the atmospheric mean convergence or removing off-equatorial cold SST anomalies in the western Pacific, the atmospheric responses show no equatorial easterly wind anomalies in the western Pacific. In the Gill-Zebiak model, the mean wind divergence field is an important background state, whereas the mean SST is secondary.