Understanding the Weakening Relationship of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Indian Ocean Basin Mode During Boreal Winter

While it is known that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) leads the Indian Ocean Basin Mode (IOBM) with the same phase via the atmospheric bridge, we found that the relationship of PDO-IOBM during boreal winter is not stationary. Here, we investigated the PDO-IOBM relationship changes on low-frequency timescales by analyzing the observations, a long-term simulation of climate model with its large ensembles as well as the pacemaker experiments. A long-term simulation of climate model with its large ensemble simulations indicated that the non-stationary relationship of PDO-IOBM is intrinsic in a climate system and it could be at least partly due to internal climate variability. In details, we compared the PDO structures during the entire period with those during the period when the PDO-IOBM relationship was weak (i.e., 1976-2006). We found that the structures of sea surface temperature (SST) as well as its associated tropical Pacific convective forcing during the negative phase of PDO for 1976-2006 are far away from the typical structures of the negative PDO phase during the entire period, which were responsible for the weakening relationship of the PDO-IOBM in the observation. The results of the two pacemaker experiments support that a non-stationary relationship of PDO-IOBM is primarily due to the SST forcing in the Pacific.

Interdecadal Strengthening in the Independent Relationship Between the East Asian Summer Monsoon and the Indian Ocean Basin Mode around the Early 1990s

This study conducts correlation and regression analyses of the JRA-55 reanalysis data and observational rainfall datasets from China’s National Climate Center. The analyses reveal that interdecadal enhancement in the relationship between the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and the Indian Ocean Basin mode (IOBM) after the early 1990s, and the diminished correlation between the EASM and the Niño-3 index. The analyses also reveal that the relationship between EASM-related rainfall/circulation with IOBM also experienced an interdecadal shift at the same time. During the first epoch (1977–1989), EASM-related rainfall was correlated significantly with the Niño-3 index, and accompanied by a Pacific–Japan-like anomaly pattern of horizontal winds. In a subsequent epoch (1994–2014), EASM-related rainfall was correlated significantly with IOBM, and accompanied by a meridional dipole pattern in the horizontal winds. After the 1990s, IOBM exerted influence on EASM through land–sea thermal contrast, and the critical land area was the region 33°–47°N, 110°–140°E. The interdecadal strengthening in the EASM–IOBM linkage around the early 1990s may be attributable to a faster rate of decay of El Niño after the 1990s.

Modulation of the Impacts of the Indian Ocean Basin Mode on Tropical Cyclones over the Northwest Pacific during the Boreal Summer by La Niña Modoki

This paper investigates how La Niña Modoki modulates the impacts of the warm Indian Ocean basin mode (IOBM) on the boreal summer climate and the genesis of tropical cyclones (TCs) over the northwest Pacific (NWP). The results showed that the influence of the Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) on TC genesis is the primary mechanism during the boreal summer, while La Niña Modoki exerts a secondary influence. However, although the summertime index of the IOBM shows a high negative correlation with the number of TCs generated over the NWP, warm IOBM events without La Niña Modoki have only limited influences on the boreal summertime circulations and TC genesis. The present study showed that when warm IOBM events and La Niña Modoki coexisted, the average location of TC genesis shifted westward, and the annual number of generated TCs substantially decreased. La Niña Modoki–related cold sea surface temperature anomalies over the central Pacific further suppressed convective activities over the eastern NWP compared with warm IOBM events without La Niña Modoki. Upper-level convergence and enlarged tropospheric vertical wind shears both contributed to the weakening of the low-level relative vorticity in the coupled cases, leading to a suppressed NWP monsoon trough. Additionally, together with the weaker moisture supply, the impacts of warm IOBM cases were significantly enhanced under the modulation of La Niña Modoki, leading to poorer TC genesis conditions over the eastern NWP. In addition, the energy conversion processes in the aforementioned modulation showed that joint cases will provide fewer initial disturbance seedlings for TC genesis. These results are useful for further understanding the role of warm IOBM cases in TC genesis over the NWP.

Interdecadal Indian Ocean Basin Mode Driven by Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation: A Season-Dependent Growth Mechanism

The interdecadal variability of basinwide sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO), referred to as the interdecadal Indian Ocean basin mode (ID-IOBM), is caused by remote forcing of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), as demonstrated by the observational datasets and tropical Pacific pacemaker experiments of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). It is noted that the growth of the ID-IOBM shows a season-dependent characteristic, with a maximum tendency of mixed layer heat anomalies occurring in early boreal winter. Three factors contribute to this maximum tendency. In response to the positive IPO forcing, the eastern TIO is covered by the descending branch of the anomalous Walker circulation. Thus, the convection over the southeastern TIO is suppressed, which increases local downward shortwave radiative fluxes. Meanwhile, the equatorial easterly anomalies to the west of the suppressed convection weaken the background mean westerly and thus decrease the upward latent heat fluxes over the equatorial Indian Ocean. Third, anomalous westward Ekman currents driven by the equatorial easterly anomalies advect climatological warm water westward and thus warm the western TIO. In summer, the TIO is out of the control of the positive IPO remote forcing. The ID-IOBM gradually decays due to the Newtonian damping effect.

Role of Equatorial Basin-Mode Resonance for the Seasonal Variability of the Angola Current at 11°S

Multiyear moored velocity observations of the Angola Current near 11°S reveal a weak southward mean flow superimposed by substantial intraseasonal to seasonal variability, including annual and semiannual cycles with distinct baroclinic structures. In the equatorial Atlantic these oscillations are associated with basin-mode resonances of the fourth and second baroclinic modes, respectively. Here, the role of basin-mode resonance and local forcing for the Angola Current seasonality is investigated. A suite of linear shallow-water models for the tropical Atlantic is employed, each model representing a single baroclinic mode forced at a specific period. The annually and semiannually oscillating forcing is given by 1) an idealized zonally uniform zonal forcing restricted to the equatorial band corresponding to a remote equatorial forcing or 2) realistic, spatially varying Fourier components of wind stress data that include local forcing off Angola, particularly alongshore winds. Model-computed modal amplitudes are scaled to match moored velocity observations from the equatorial Atlantic. The observed annual cycle of alongshore velocity at 11°S is well reproduced by the remote equatorial forcing. Including local forcing slightly improves the agreement between observed and simulated semiannual oscillations at 11°S compared to the purely equatorial forcing. However, the model-computed semiannual cycle lacks amplitude at middepth. This could be the result of either underestimating the strength of the second equatorial basin mode of the fourth baroclinic mode or other processes not accounted for in the shallow-water models. Overall, the findings underline the importance of large-scale linear equatorial wave dynamics for the seasonal variability of the boundary circulation off Angola.

Selective Response of the South China Sea Circulation to Summer Monsoon

The response of the South China Sea (SCS) circulation to intraseasonal variability of the summer monsoon is studied with both observations and a 1.5-layer reduced-gravity model. Intraseasonal variability of the SCS summer monsoon is characterized by evolution of the wind jet intensity in the midbasin with typical amplitude of 6 m s−1 and several peaks on its power spectrum between 10 and 60 days. However, this study finds that intraseasonal variability of the sea surface height (SSH) in the SCS presents significant variability to the southeast of Vietnam with amplitude of 6 cm and a period only between 40 and 60 days. This implicates the frequency selectivity of oceanic response to wind forcing. Numerical experiments suggest that the intrinsic variability of the SCS circulation accounts for this phenomenon. Based on the Rossby basin mode theory, this is explained by the interaction between the long, westward-propagating Rossby waves and the short, eastward-propagating Rossby waves.

Forcing of the Atlantic Equatorial Deep Jets Derived from Observations

The equatorial deep jets (EDJs) are a ubiquitous feature of the equatorial oceans; in the Atlantic Ocean, they are the dominant mode of interannual variability of the zonal flow at intermediate depth. On the basis of more than 10 years of moored observations of zonal velocity at 23°W, the vertically propagating EDJs are best described as superimposed oscillations of the 13th to the 23rd baroclinic modes with a dominant oscillation period for all modes of 1650 days. This period is close to the resonance period of the respective gravest equatorial basin mode for the dominant vertical modes 16 and 17. It is argued that since the equatorial basin mode is composed of linear equatorial waves, a linear reduced-gravity model can be employed for each baroclinic mode, driven by spatially homogeneous zonal forcing oscillating with the EDJ period. The fit of the model solutions to observations at 23°W yields a basinwide reconstruction of the EDJs and the associated vertical structure of their forcing. From the resulting vertical profile of mean power input and vertical energy flux on the equator, it follows that the EDJs are locally maintained over a considerable depth range, from 500 to 2500 m, with the maximum power input and vertical energy flux at 1300 m. The strong dissipation closely ties the apparent vertical propagation of energy to the vertical distribution of power input and, together with the EDJs’ prevailing downward phase propagation, requires the phase of the forcing of the EDJs to propagate downward.