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The influence of boreal spring Arctic Oscillation on the subsequent winter ENSO in CMIP5 models

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Abstract

This study examines the influence of boreal spring Arctic Oscillation (AO) on the subsequent winter El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) using 15 climate model outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Results show that, out of the 15 CMIP5 models, CCSM4 and CNRM-CM5 can well reproduce the significant AO–ENSO connection. These two models capture the observed spring AO related anomalous cyclone (anticyclone) over the subtropical western-central North Pacific, and westerly (easterly) winds over the tropical western-central Pacific. In contrast, the spring AO-related anomalous circulation over the subtropical North Pacific is insignificant in the other 13 models, and the simulations in these models cannot capture the significant influence of the spring AO on ENSO. Further analyses indicate that the performance of the CMIP5 simulations in reproducing the AO–ENSO connection is related to the ability in simulating the spring North Pacific synoptic eddy intensity and the spring AO’s Pacific component. Strong synoptic-scale eddy intensity results in a strong synoptic eddy feedback on the mean flow, leading to strong cyclonic circulation anomalies over the subtropical North Pacific, which contributes to a significant AO–ENSO connection. In addition, a strong spring AO’s Pacific component and associated easterly wind anomalies to its south may provide more favorable conditions for the development of spring AO-related cyclonic circulation anomalies over the subtropical North Pacific.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, which led to significant improvement in the manuscript. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 1 of this paper) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. This study is supported by the Project Funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2015M581151) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants (41230527, 41530425).

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  1. Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Shangfeng Chen & Wen Chen

  2. Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Bin Yu

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  1. Shangfeng Chen
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Correspondence to Wen Chen.

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Chen, S., Chen, W. & Yu, B. The influence of boreal spring Arctic Oscillation on the subsequent winter ENSO in CMIP5 models. Clim Dyn 48, 2949–2965 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3243-z

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