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On the Atlantic–Pacific Niños connection: a multidecadal modulated mode

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Abstract

Atlantic and Pacific El Niño are the leading tropical oceanic variability phenomena at interannual timescales. Recent studies have demonstrated how the Atlantic Niño is able to influence on the dynamical processes triggering the development of the Pacific La Niña and vice versa. However, the stationarity of this interbasin connection is still controversial. Here we show for the first time that the Atlantic–Pacific Niños connection takes place at particular decades, coinciding with negative phases of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). During these decades, the Atlantic–Pacific connection appears as the leading coupled covariability mode between Tropical Atlantic and Pacific interannual variability. The mode is defined by a predictor field, the summer Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature (SST), and a set of predictand fields which represent a chain of atmospheric and oceanic mechanisms to generate the Pacific El Niño phenomenon: alteration of the Walker circulation, surface winds in western Pacific, oceanic Kelvin wave propagating eastward and impacting on the eastern thermocline and changes in the Pacific SST by internal Bjerknes feedback. We suggest that the multidecadal component of the Atlantic acts as a switch for El Niño prediction during certain decades, putting forward the AMO as the modulator, acting through changes in the equatorial Atlantic convection and the equatorial Pacific SST variability. These results could have a major relevance for the decadal prediction systems.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the European project PREFACE (ref.603521) the Spanish MINNECO projects CGL2009-10295, CGL2011-13564-E and CGL2012-38923-C02-01 and for the Spanish Public Employment Service (SEPE). The authors want to thank the editor for his help during the whole process of submission and also the useful and constructive comments of the two anonymous referees, which have been considerably improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Geociencias, IGEO, Centro Mixto UCM-CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Marta Martín-Rey & Belén Rodríguez-Fonseca

  2. Departamento de Física de la Tierra, Astronomía y Astrofísica I (Geofísica y Meteorología), 4 planta, Facultad de C.C. Físicas, UCM, Pza de las Ciencias, Av/Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Marta Martín-Rey & Belén Rodríguez-Fonseca

  3. NCAS-Climate, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 243, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    Irene Polo

  4. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, ICTP, Trieste, Italy

    Fred Kucharski

  5. Department of Meteorology, Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    Fred Kucharski

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  1. Marta Martín-Rey
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  2. Belén Rodríguez-Fonseca
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  3. Irene Polo
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  4. Fred Kucharski
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Correspondence to Marta Martín-Rey.

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This paper is a contribution to the special issue on tropical Atlantic variability and coupled model climate biases that have been the focus of the recently completed Tropical Atlantic Climate Experiment (TACE), an international CLIVAR program (http://www.clivar.org/organization/atlantic/tace). This special issue is coordinated by William Johns, Peter Brandt, and Ping Chang, representatives of the TACE Observations and TACE Modeling and Synthesis working groups.

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Martín-Rey, M., Rodríguez-Fonseca, B., Polo, I. et al. On the Atlantic–Pacific Niños connection: a multidecadal modulated mode. Clim Dyn 43, 3163–3178 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2305-3

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