Person:

Tziperman, Eli

Some key elements of ENSO are not consistently well captured in GCMs. However, modifying the wrong parameters may lead to the right result for the wrong reason. We introduce “transfer functions” to quantify the input/ output relationship of individual processes from model output, to compare them to the corresponding observed processes. Two key transfer functions are calculated: first, the relationship between western Pacific Rossby waves and the reflecting Kelvin waves; second, the frequency-dependent relation between Kelvin waves traveling toward the eastern boundary and sea surface temperature response. These are estimated for TAO array data, the Cane-Zebiak model, and the GFDL CM2.1 coupled GCM. Some feedbacks are found to be biased in both models. Re-tuning parameters to fit observed transfer functions leads to a deteriorated solution, implying that compensating errors lead to the seemingly accurate simulation. This approach should be broadly useful in making climate model improvement more systematic and observation-driven.

Numerous studies have demonstrated statistical associations between the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and precipitation in the Mediterranean basin. The dynamical bases for these teleconnections have yet to be fully identified. Here, observational analyses and model simulations are used to show how ENSO variability affects rainfall over southwestern Europe (Iberia, Southern France, and Italy). A precipitation index for the region, named southwestern European Precipitation (SWEP), is used. The observational analyses show that ENSO modulates SWEP during the September–December wet season. These precipitation anomalies are associated with changes in large-scale atmospheric fields to the west of Iberia that alter low-level westerly winds and onshore moisture advection from the Atlantic. The vorticity anomalies associated with SWEP variability are linked to ENSO through a stationary barotropic Rossby wave train that emanates from the eastern equatorial Pacific and propagates eastward to the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Solutions of the linearized barotropic vorticity equation produce such eastward-propagating Rossby waves with trajectories that traverse the region of observed ENSO-related anomalies. In addition, these linearized barotropic vorticity equation solutions produce a dipole of positive and negative vorticity anomalies to the west of Iberia that matches observations and is consistent with the onshore advection of moisture. Thus, interannual variability of fall and early winter precipitation over southwestern Europe is linked to ENSO variability in the eastern Pacific via an eastward-propagating atmospheric stationary barotropic Rossby wave train.