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Relationship between SST anomalies and the intensity of intraseasonal variability

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Abstract

Intraseasonal variability (ISV) is a primary source for the sub-seasonal prediction that affects the livelihood of billions of people. Interannual variation of ISV intensity is important for seasonal prediction of ISV impacts on severe weathers. Existing measures of overall tropical ISV intensity, however, do not show any significant simultaneous relationship with external sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs). In this study, it is proposed that the ISV intensity, represented by the seasonal standard deviation of the 30–90-day filtered outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), has a good relation with the external SSTAs. With this measure, two major components of the interannual variability of global ISV intensity are detected for both boreal summer and winter: EOF1 calls its variability over the central Pacific and EOF2 is associated with the variability over the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool region. More importantly, each of these two components is significantly related to SSTAs over a specific tropical region. The central Pacific ISV intensity is strong during central Pacific warming, while the ISV intensity is strong over the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool region during eastern Pacific cooling. The eastern and central Pacific warming has very different impacts on the ISV intensity: The eastern Pacific warming largely reduces the winter ISV intensity over the Indian Ocean, while the central Pacific warming only induces neutral winter ISV intensity anomalies over the Indian Ocean. In the summer, the ISV intensity variability is confined near the equator associated with the central Pacific warming; the eastern Pacific warming, however, induces large ISV intensity variability over the western North pacific because of strong northeastward propagation of the boreal summer ISV under the easterly vertical shear.

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Acknowledgments

Data to support this article include the Interpolated OLR data, ERSST_V3 data, and NCEP Reanalysis 2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/. This study was supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Project of China No. 2013CB430302 and No. 2015CB453200, the Natural Science Foundation of China No. 41425019 and No. 41376034, and Open Research Fund Program of Plateau Atmosphere and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province Grants PAEKL-2014-K2. This paper is ESMC Contribution No. 0043.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth System Modeling Center and Climate Dynamics Research Center, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210024, China

    Fei Liu

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Fei Liu

  3. State Key Lab of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics, Second Institute of Oceanography, Hangzhou, China

    Lei Zhou

  4. The State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Jian Ling & Gang Huang

  5. International Pacific Research Center and Department of Meteorology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Xiouhua Fu

  6. Joint Center for Global Change Studies (JCGCS), Beijing, 100875, China

    Gang Huang

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  1. Fei Liu
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  2. Lei Zhou
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  3. Jian Ling
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  4. Xiouhua Fu
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  5. Gang Huang
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Correspondence to Gang Huang.

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Liu, F., Zhou, L., Ling, J. et al. Relationship between SST anomalies and the intensity of intraseasonal variability. Theor Appl Climatol 124, 847–854 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1458-2

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