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Reduction of the thermocline feedback associated with mean SST bias in ENSO simulation

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Abstract

Associated with the double Inter-tropical convergence zone problem, a dipole SST bias pattern (cold in the equatorial central Pacific and warm in the southeast tropical Pacific) remains a common problem inherent in many contemporary coupled models. Based on a newly-developed coupled model, we performed a control run and two sensitivity runs, one is a coupled run with annual mean SST correction and the other is an ocean forced run. By comparison of these three runs, we demonstrated that a serious consequence of this SST bias is to severely suppress the thermocline feedback in a realistic simulation of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Firstly, the excessive cold tongue extension pushes the anomalous convection far westward from the equatorial central Pacific, prominently diminishing the convection-low level wind feedback and thus the air-sea coupling strength. Secondly, the equatorial surface wind anomaly exhibits a relatively uniform meridional structure with weak gradient, contributing to a weakened wind-thermocline feedback. Thirdly, the equatorial cold SST bias induces a weakened upper-ocean stratification and thus yields the underestimation of the thermocline-subsurface temperature feedback. Finally, the dipole SST bias underestimates the mean upwelling through (a) undermining equatorial mean easterly wind stress, and (b) enhancing convective mixing and thus reducing the upper ocean stratification, which weakens vertical shear of meridional currents and near-surface Ekman-divergence.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Drs. Tim Li, Niklas Schneider, Kevin P Hamilton for fruitful discussions and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments. This work has been supported by the Climate Dynamics Program of the National Science Foundation under award No AGS-1005599, and APEC Climate Center. BW acknowledges partial support from International Pacific Research Center which is sponsored by the JAMSTEC, NASA (NNX07AG53G) and NOAA (NA09OAR4320075). QD acknowledges support from the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington. This is SOEST contribution number 8425 and IPRC contribution number 810.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2525 Correa Rd., HIG 350, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Baoqiang Xiang, Bin Wang & Fei–Fei Jin

  2. International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Bin Wang & Xiouhua Fu

  3. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Qinghua Ding

  4. Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 236-0001, Japan

    Hyung-Jin Kim

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  1. Baoqiang Xiang
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Correspondence to Baoqiang Xiang.

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Xiang, B., Wang, B., Ding, Q. et al. Reduction of the thermocline feedback associated with mean SST bias in ENSO simulation. Clim Dyn 39, 1413–1430 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1164-4

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