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Reevaluating the impacts of oceanic vertical resolution on the simulation of Madden–Julian Oscillation eastward propagation in a climate system model

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Abstract

The upper ocean plays a critical role in determining the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) characteristics through modulating the tropical atmosphere–ocean interaction. By increasing the oceanic vertical resolution, its impacts on the MJO eastward propagation are discussed in this study by using a climate system model. With a refined vertical resolution in the upper ocean, warmer surface ocean and shallower mixed layer depth are produced in the tropics, which induces associated atmospheric changes as the response to the ocean feedbacks. Enhanced November–April-mean vertically-integrated specific humidity is found around the equatorial region with the increased vertical resolution, which strengthens the zonal and meridional moisture gradients. The lead-lag correlation of MJO precipitation demonstrates that the simulated MJO eastward propagation is improved with increased oceanic vertical resolution by improving the simulations of convective instability at the east of the MJO convective center, the boundary layer moisture convergence, the low- and upper-level circulation, and the vertical structure of equivalent potential temperature and diabatic heating. Moreover, the zonal asymmetry of the tendency of specific humidity is also improved by increasing the oceanic vertical resolution. The vertically-integrated moisture budget analysis is applied to further investigate the dominance of the moistening and drying processes. Results reveal that the drying processes are successfully reproduced over the central Indian Ocean in the case of increased oceanic vertical resolution, whilst the moistening processes are not well captured over the Maritime Continent and the MJO “detour” region. It suggests that additional modifications are needed to further improve the MJO simulation.

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Acknowledgements

This study was sponsored by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2019YFC1510001) and the Basic Research Fund of CAMS (Grant nos. 2018Z007 and 2020Y006).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Severe Disaster, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Libin Ma

  2. School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Hunan First Normal University, Changsha, 410205, China

    Zijun Jiang

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Ma, L., Jiang, Z. Reevaluating the impacts of oceanic vertical resolution on the simulation of Madden–Julian Oscillation eastward propagation in a climate system model. Clim Dyn 56, 2259–2278 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05587-7

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