4.7 Article

Indian Ocean sea surface temperature and El Nino-Southern Oscillation: A new perspective

Journal

JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
Volume 18, Issue 9, Pages 1351-1368

Publisher

AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI3338.1

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Here the 1976-77 climate regime shift that was accompanied by a remarkable change in the lead-lag relationships between Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) and El Ni (n) over tildeo evolution is shown. After the 1976-77 regime shift, a correlation analysis suggests that southern Indian Ocean SSTs observed during late boreal winter are a key precursor in predicting El Ni (n) over tildeo evolution as the traditional oceanic heat content anomalies in the equatorial Pacific or zonal wind anomalies over the equatorial western Pacific. The possible physical mechanisms underlying this highly significant statistical relationship are discussed. After the 1976-77 regime shift, southern Indian Ocean SST anomalies produced by Mascarene high pulses during boreal winter trigger coupled air-sea processes in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean during the following seasons. This produces a persistent remote forcing on the Pacific climate system, promoting wind anomalies over the western equatorial Pacific and modulating the regional Hadley cell in the southwest Pacific. These modulations, in turn, excite Rossby waves, which produce quasi-stationary circulation anomalies in the extratropical South Pacific, responsible for the development of the southern branch of the '' horseshoe '' El Nino pattern. The change of the background SST state that occurred in the late 1970s over the Indian Ocean may also explain why ENSO evolution is different before and after the 1976-77 regime shift. These results shed some light on the possible influence of global warming or decadal fluctuations on El Nino evolution through changes in teleconnection patterns between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

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