The equatorial undercurrent, meridional overturning circulation, and their roles in mass and heat exchanges during El Nino events in the tropical Pacific ocean

The equatorial undercurrent (EUC), the shallow meridional overturning cells feeding it, and their role in El Nino and decadal variability in the equatorial Pacific are studied using both in situ data and an ocean general circulation model. Using temperature and current data from the TAO/TRITON moorings at the equator, their data gaps are filled and it was shown that continuous time series of mass transport, temperature, depth, and kinetic energy of the EUC could be constructed for the period 1980-2002 with an excellent accuracy. This dataset was analysed and used to validate the output from an oceanic general circulation model (OGCM). The OGCM was then used to find that variations in the strength of the EUC, shallow meridional overturning (pycnocline convergence and surface divergence), and equatorial upwelling had the same variations in mass transport on interannual and longer time scales within the period 1951-1999. These variations are all caused by variations of the zonal wind stress zonally integrated, in agreement with simple linear and steady dynamics theories. Impact of these mass transport variations and of temperature variations on heat budgets in the entire equatorial band of the Pacific and in its eastern part are quantified.