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The influence of El Niño on MJO over the equatorial pacific

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Abstract

In this paper, the influence of El Niño event on the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) over the equatorial Pacific is studied by using reanalysis data and relevant numerical simulation results. It is clearly shown that El Niño can reduce the intensity of MJO. The kinetic energy of MJO over the equatorial Pacific is stronger before the occurrence of the El Niño event, but it is reduced rapidly after El Niño event outbreak, and the weakened MJO even can continue to the next summer. The convection over the central-western Pacific is weakened in El Niño winter. The positive anomalous OLR over the central-western Pacific has opposite variation in El Niño winter comparing to the non-ENSO cases. The vertical structure of MJO also affected by El Niño event, so the opposite direction features of the geopotential height and the zonal wind in upper and lower level troposphere for the MJO are not remarkable in the El Niño winter and tend to be barotropic features. El Niño event also has an influence on the eastward propagation of the MJO too. During El Niño winter, the eastward propagation of the MJO is not so regular and unanimous and there exists some eastward propagation, which is faster than that in non-ENSO case. Dynamic analyses suggest that positive SSTA (El Niño case) affects the atmospheric thickness over the equatorial Pacific and then the excited atmospheric wave-CISK mode is weakened, so that the intensity of MJO is reduced; the combining of the barotropic unstable mode in the atmosphere excited by external forcing (SSTA) and the original MJO may be an important reason for the MJO vertical structure tending to be barotropic during the El Niño.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Meteorology and Oceanography, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 211101, P. R. China

    Xiong Chen, Chongyin Li & Yanke Tan

  2. LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS, Beijing, 100029, P. R. China

    Chongyin Li

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Correspondence to Chongyin Li.

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Chen, X., Li, C. & Tan, Y. The influence of El Niño on MJO over the equatorial pacific. J. Ocean Univ. China 14, 1–8 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-015-2381-y

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