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

Abstract

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.