Abstract
The present study analyses the possible change in the seasonal prediction skill of El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in association with the reported climate modification in the tropical Pacific during the early twenty-first century. Both the boreal summer (JJAS) and winter (DJF) seasons ENSO hindcasts from nine models that participated in the National Multi-model Ensemble Project (NMME) for the period 1981–2019/20 are used in the study. The analysis shows that after 2000 (period 2), all the models have reduced interannual variability as observations (for both 4-month and 1-month lead hindcasts or ICs) for both the target seasons. But the loss of skill during that period is mainly confined to the JJAS season. This JJAS season ENSO skill loss for Feb IC (4-month lead) during the second period is more for CanSIPSv2, CCSM3, and NEMO model hindcasts, while it is least for CCSM4. The same is increased for three GFDL models after 2000, initialised using Feb IC. It is observed that during the second period, proper representation of initial month SST anomalies (ie, February month for 4-month lead and May month for 1-month lead hindcasts) in the north Atlantic (NA) play a major role in the evolution of ENSO during summer. During the first period (1981–2000), the NA SST warming (cooling) was associated with divergence (convergence) and central Pacific cooling (warming) similar to central Pacific ENSO. Meanwhile, during the second period, the NA SST anomalies are confined to the Atlantic by summer, and the central Pacific SST anomalies extend further eastward. Most of the model hindcasts, mainly initialized during February are not able to capture the NA SST pattern during pre-monsoon and the co-occurred ENSO events. The models with better or close to observe patterns for Atlantic SST induced ENSO is only able to maintain the same skill as previous decades.
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Data availability
All the observed data sets used are available online downloadable from ECMWF (atmospheric variables) https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5., HadISST from https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html and model outputs from http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.Models/.NMME/.
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Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to Prof. Ravi S. Nanjundiah, Director, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), and Dr. Suryachandra A Rao, Program manager, Monsoon Mission, IITM for encouraging to carry out this research work. The IITM is fully funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. All the figures are prepared using GrADS software freely available from http://cola.gmu.edu/grads/. The editor and the two anomalous reviewers are acknowledged for their constructive comments.
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PAP: conceptualisation, Formal analysis, supervision, methodology and validation., writing-original, reviewing, and editing. ARD: validation, software, writing-corrections, and editing.
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Pillai, P.A., Dhakate, A.R. Role of Atlantic SST anomalies in the recent ENSO predictability change in NMME model hindcasts. Clim Dyn 59, 3683–3699 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06290-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06290-5