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ENSO teleconnections pathways in South America

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Abstract

ENSO events are the most important interannual phenomena impacting climate and weather in South America and have been studied for a long time. Most studies gave special focus on its warm phase (El Niño events) during the austral summer months. However, it is not yet conclusive how the teleconnection patterns are modified according to the different intensities of ENSO events in different seasons and consequently impact South America. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how the different phases, intensities, and seasons of the ENSO events modulate the Stationary Rossby Waves that impact South America. For this, we developed a free and open-source tool called raytracing. The distribution of the SST anomalies influences ENSO intensity. When SST anomalies are higher and spread along the Equatorial Pacific Ocean, ENSO tends to be stronger. This has an impact on the convective source intensity and shapes leading to different Rossby wave sources. Weak ENSO events drive weak anomaly precipitation over South America, mainly in the southeast region. Stationary Rossby waves starting positions are slightly closer to the equator during El Niño over downstream crests/upstream troughs. During La Niña events, they are positioned poleward over downstream troughs/upstream crests. Stationary wavenumbers \({K}_{s}\) = 2 and 3 are predominant over South America during El Niño events and DJF La Niña events, while \({K}_{s}\) = 2 are predominant in the remaining La Niña events. The wave shape and amplitudes are almost constant during summer events independent of the ENSO intensity, configuring the robustness of the precipitation anomaly patterns over South America. However, in the other seasons, those wave features vary largely, influencing the position and signal of the precipitation anomalies over South America. As a general rule, positive precipitation anomalies regions are associated with a downstream crest and upstream trough in both ENSO phases. While downstream troughs/upstream crests are associated with negative precipitation impacts.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to their large volume but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. As defined in the present study at Sect. 2.2.

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Acknowledgements

AR was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Grants 2016/10557-0, 2018/16217-2, and 2021/07992-5. TA was partially funded by the National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change Phase 2 under CNPq, grant number 465501/2014-1; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) grant numbers 2014/50848-9 and 2017/09659-6. TA also had partial support from CNPq 301397/2019-8.

Funding

Author A.R. has received research support from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) (Grants number 2016/10557-0, 2018/16217-2, and 2021/07992-5). TA was partially funded by the National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change Phase 2 under CNPq, Grant number 465501/2014-1; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) grant numbers 2014/50848-9 and 2017/09659-6. TA also had partial support from CNPq 301397/2019-8.

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  1. Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

    Amanda Rehbein & Tercio Ambrizzi

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  1. Amanda Rehbein
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  2. Tercio Ambrizzi
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception, design, and analysis. Material preparation and data collection were performed by AR. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Amanda Rehbein.

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Rehbein, A., Ambrizzi, T. ENSO teleconnections pathways in South America. Clim Dyn 61, 1277–1292 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06624-3

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