Chinese Journal of Oceanology and Limnology

, Volume 35, Issue 1, pp 23–38 | Cite as

Climate variability and predictability associated with the Indo-Pacific Oceanic Channel Dynamics in the CCSM4 Coupled System Model

  • Dongliang Yuan (袁东亮)
  • Peng Xu (徐鹏)
  • Tengfei Xu (徐腾飞)
Physics
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

An experiment using the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4), a participant of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase-5 (CMIP5), is analyzed to assess the skills of this model in simulating and predicting the climate variabilities associated with the oceanic channel dynamics across the Indo-Pacific Oceans. The results of these analyses suggest that the model is able to reproduce the observed lag correlation between the oceanic anomalies in the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean and those in the cold tongue in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean at a time lag of 1 year. This success may be largely attributed to the successful simulation of the interannual variations of the Indonesian Throughflow, which carries the anomalies of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) into the western equatorial Pacific Ocean to produce subsurface temperature anomalies, which in turn propagate to the eastern equatorial Pacific to generate ENSO. This connection is termed the “oceanic channel dynamics” and is shown to be consistent with the observational analyses. However, the model simulates a weaker connection between the IOD and the interannual variability of the Indonesian Throughflow transport than found in the observations. In addition, the model overestimates the westerly wind anomalies in the western-central equatorial Pacific in the year following the IOD, which forces unrealistic upwelling Rossby waves in the western equatorial Pacific and downwelling Kelvin waves in the east. This assessment suggests that the CCSM4 coupled climate system has underestimated the oceanic channel dynamics and overestimated the atmospheric bridge processes.

Keywords

Indian Ocean Dipole El Niño-Southern Oscillations (ENSO) oceanic channel Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) Indonesian Throughflow ENSO predictability 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Alexander M A, Bladé I, Newman M, Lanzante J R, Lau N C, Scot J D. 2002. The atmospheric bridge: the influence of Enso teleconnections on air-sea interaction over the global oceans. J. Climate. 15(16): 2205–2231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. An S I, Ham Y G, Kug J S, Jin F F, Kang I S. 2005. El Niño La Niña asymmetry in the coupled model intercomparison project simulations. J. Climate. 18(14): 2617–2627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Annamalai H, Xie S P, McCreary J P, Murtugudde R. 2005. Impact of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature on developing El Nino. J. Climate. 18(2): 302–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Clarke A J, Liu X. 1994. Interannual sea level in the northern and eastern Indian Ocean. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 24(6): 1224–1235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Clarke A J, van Gorder S. 2003. Improving El Niño prediction using a space-time integration of Indo-Pacific winds and equatorial Pacific upper ocean heat content. Geophys. Res. Lett., 30 (7), http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002GL016673.Google Scholar
  6. Craig A P, Vertenstein M, Jacob R. 2012. A new flexible coupler for earth system modeling developed for CCSM4 and CESM1. Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Appl., 26(1): 31–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Dommenget D, Bayr T, Frauen C. 2013. Analysis of the nonlinearity in the pattern and time evolution of El Niño southern oscillation. Climate Dynam ics. 40(11-12): 2825–2847.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Gent P R, Danabasoglu G, Donner L J, Holland M M, Hunke E C, Jayne S R, Lawrence D M, Neale R B, Rasch P J, Vertenstein M, Worley P H, Yang Z L, Zhang M H. 2011. The community climate system model version 4. J. Climate. 24: 4973–4991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Hunke E C, Lipscomb W H. 2008. CICE: the los alamos sea ice model, documentation and software user’s manual, version 4.0. Los Alamos National Laboratory. Technology Report, LA-CC-06-012.Google Scholar
  10. Izumo T, Vialard J, Lengaigne M, Montegut C D B, Behera S K, Luo JJ, Cravatte S, Masson S, Yamagata T. 2010. Influence of the state of the Indian Ocean Dipole on the following year’s El Niño. Nat. Geosci., 3(3): 168–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Kalnay E, Kanamitsu M, Kistler R et al. 1996. The NCEPNCAR 40-Year reanalysis project. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc., 77(3): 437–472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Klein S A, Soden B J, Lau N C. 1999. Remote sea surface temperature variations during ENSO: evidence for a tropical atmospheric bridge. J. Climate. 12(4): 917–932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Kug J S, Kang I S. 2006. Interactive feedback between ENSO and the Indian Ocean. J. Climate., 19(9): 1784–1801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Kug J S, Li T, An S I, Kang I S, Luo J J, Masson S. 2006. Role of the ENSO-Indian Ocean coupling on ENSO variability in a coupled GCM. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33 (9), http://dx. doi.org/10.1029/2005GL024916.Google Scholar
  15. Lau N C, Leetmaa A, Nath M J, Wang H L. 2005. Influence of ENSO-induced Indo-Western Pacific SST anomalies on extratropical atmospheric variability during the boreal summer. J. Climate. 18(15): 2922–2942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Lau N C, Nath M J. 2003. Atmosphere-ocean variations in the Indo-Pacific sector during ENSO episodes. J. Climate. 16(1): 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Lawrence D M, Oleson K W, Flanner M G, Thornton P E, Swenson S C, Lawrence P J, Zeng X B, Yang Z L, Levis S, Skaguchi K, Bonan G B, Slater A G. 2011. Parameterization improvements and functional and structural advances in version 4 of the Community Land Model. J. Adv. Model Earth Syst., 3 (1), http://dx.doi. org/10.1029/2011MS000045.Google Scholar
  18. Luo J J, Zhang R C, Behera S K, Masumoto Y, Jin F F, Lukas R, Yamagata T. 2010. Interaction between El Niño and extreme Indian Ocean dipole. J. Climate. 23(3): 726–742, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI3104.1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Meehl G A, Boer G J, Covey C et al. 2000. The coupled model intercomparison project (CMIP). Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc., 81(2): 313–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Meyers G, Bailey R J, Woorby A P. 1995. Geostrophic transport of Indonesian Throughflow. Deep Sea Res earch Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers. 42(7): 1163–1174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Meyers G. 1996. Variation of indonesian throughflow and the El Niño-southern oscillation. J. Geophys. Res. 101 (C5): 12255–12263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Neale R B, Richter J, Park S, Lauritzen P H, Vavrus S J, Rasch P J, Zhang M H. 2013. The mean climate of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM4) in forced SST and fully coupled experiments. J. Climate. 26(14): 5150–5168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Ohba M, Nohara D, Ueda H. 2010. Simulation of asymmetric ENSO transition in WCRP CMIP3 multimodel experiments. J. Climate. 23(22): 6051–6067.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Ohba M, Ueda H. 2005. Basin-wide warming in the equatorial Indian Ocean associated with El Niño. SOLA. 1: 89–92, http://dx.doi.org//10.2151/sola.2005-024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Ohba M, Ueda H. 2007. An impact of SST anomalies in the Indian Ocean in acceleration of the El Niño to La Niña transition. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan. 85(3): 335–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Ohba M, Ueda H. 2009. Role of nonlinear atmospheric response to SST on the asymmetric transition process of ENSO. J. Climate. 22(1): 177–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Ohba M, Ueda H. 2009. Seasonally different response of the Indian Ocean to the remote forcing of El Niño: linking the dynamics and thermodynamics. SOLA. 5: 176–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Ohba M, Watanabe M. 2012. Role of the Indo-Pacific interbasin coupling in predicting asymmetric ENSO transition and duration. J. Climate. 25(9): 3321–3335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Ohba M. 2013. Important factors for long-term change in ENSO transitivity. Int. J. Climatol., 33(6): 1495–1509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Okumura Y M, Ohba M, Deser C, Ueda H. 2011. A proposed mechanism for the asymmetric duration of El Niño and La Niña. J. Climate. 24(15): 3822–3829.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Rayner N A, Parker D E, Horton E B, Folland C K, Alexander L V, Rowell D P, Kent E C, Kaplan A. 2003. Global analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice, and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century. J. Geophys. Res., 108 (D14), http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002670.Google Scholar
  32. Saji N H, Goswami B N, Vinayachandran P N, Yamagata T. 1999. A dipole mode in the tropical Indian Ocean. Nat ure. 401(6751): 360–363.Google Scholar
  33. Smith R D, Jones P W, Briegleb B et al. 2010. The parallel ocean program (POP) reference manual: ocean component of the community climate system model (CCSM). Los Alamos National Laboratory, LAUR-10-01853.Google Scholar
  34. Taylor K E, Stouffer R J, Meehl G A. 2012. An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc., 93(4): 485–498, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. White W B. 1995. Design of a global observing system for gyre-scale upper ocean temperature variability. Prog. Oceanogr., 36(3): 169–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Wijffels S E, Meyers G, Godfrey J S. 2008. A 20-yr average of the Indonesian Throughflow: regional currents and the interbasin exchange. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 38(9): 1965–1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Wijffels S E, Meyers G. 2004. An intersection of oceanic waveguides: variability in the Indonesian Throughflow region. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 34(5): 1232–1253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. Xie S P, Hu K M, Hafner J et al. 2009. Indian Ocean capacitor effect on Indo-western Pacific climate during the summer following El Niño. J. Climate. 22(3): 730–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. Xu T F, Yuan D L, Yu Y Q, Zhao X. 2013. An assessment of Indo-Pacific oceanic channel dynamics in the FGOALS-g2 coupled climate system model. Adv. Atmos. Sci., 30(4): 997–1016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00376-013-2131-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Yuan D L, Wang J, Xu T F, Xu P, Hui Z, Zhao X. 2011. Forcing of the indian ocean dipole on the interannual variations of the tropical pacific ocean: roles of the Indonesian Throughflow. J. Climate. 24(14): 3593–3608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. Yuan D L, Zhou H, Zhao X. 2013. Interannual climate variability over the tropical Pacific Ocean induced by the Indian Ocean Dipole through the Indonesian Throughflow. J. Climate. 26(9): 2845–2861.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Chinese Society for Oceanology and Limnology, Science Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dongliang Yuan (袁东亮)
    • 1
    • 2
  • Peng Xu (徐鹏)
    • 1
    • 3
  • Tengfei Xu (徐腾飞)
    • 4
  1. 1.Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves (KLOCAW), Institute of OceanologyChinese Academy of SciencesQingdaoChina
  2. 2.Qingdao Collaborative Innovation Center of Marine Science and TechnologyQingdaoChina
  3. 3.University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
  4. 4.First Institute of OceanographyState Oceanic AdministrationQingdaoChina

Personalised recommendations