The signature of ENSO in global temperature and precipitation fields derived from the microwave sounding unit

Abstract

Fluctuations in mean tropical tropospheric temperature lagged the OLR (outgoing longwave radiation) anomalies and the related temperature pattern by about 3 months. The same dumbbell-shaped pattern was evident, with reversed polarity, in the lower stratosphere, together with the zonally symmetric signature of the quasi-biennial oscillation. The fluctuations in mean tropical tropospheric temperature that occur in association with the ENSO cycle are highly coherent with the fluctuations in surface air temperature over the tropical landmasses and sea surface temperatures over the tropical Indian and North Atlantic Oceans. The warming of the tropical troposphere is accompanied by a strengthening of the zonally averaged jet stream in both hemispheres induced by an intensified Hadley circulation. -from Authors