Warm El Nino-Southern Oscillation Conditions Research Articles

Effect of remote forcings on the winter precipitation of central southwest Asia part 1: observations

We investigate the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on winter precipitation in Central Southwest Asia (CSWA) using an analysis of available observed climate data. The analysis is based on correlations, composites and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) performed using the gridded dataset of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and station data for the region. We find that both the NAO and ENSO affect climate over the region. In particular a positive precipitation anomaly is typically found in correspondence of the positive NAO phase and warm ENSO phase over a sub-region encompassing northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan. This conclusion is supported by a consistency across the different analysis methods and observation datasets employed in our study. A physical mechanism for such effect is proposed, by which western disturbances are intensified over the region as they encounter a low pressure trough, which is a dominant feature during positive NAO and warm ENSO conditions. Our results give encouraging indications towards the development of statistically-based prediction tools for winter precipitation over the CSWA region.

Tropical Pacific Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies, El Niño, and Equatorial Westerly Wind Events*

Abstract The authors examine global statistical relationships between westerly wind events (WWEs) and sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) variability, using a compositing technique for the period 1986–98. The authors describe the extent to which equatorial WWEs are associated with central and eastern equatorial Pacific waveguide warming and with local SSTA changes under the WWE. Their goal is to quantify the extent to which equatorial WWEs are fundamental to the onset and maintenance of warm El Nino–Southern Oscillation conditions. In order to understand the effect of WWEs on SSTA evolution, they begin by examining how SSTA changes in the absence of equatorial WWEs. They find that SSTA tends toward mean climate values in the absence of equatorial WWEs, whether the eastern equatorial Pacific has close to normal SSTA or warmer than normal SSTA. The two equatorial WWE types whose main surface wind anomalies are west of the date line are associated with weak local surface cooling. The equatorial WWE type t...