Middle Atmosphere Response to the El Nino Southern Oscillation Using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model - Extended
Abstract
Changes in the middle atmosphere in response to surface temperature changes due to the El Nino Southern Oscillation is examined using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model - Extended. The global data is analyzed over a 34-year period (January 1980 to November 2014) to identify multiple scales of periodicity. Previous studies using earlier versions of the aforementioned model have shown that El Nino events cause a strengthening of the stratospheric meridional wind flow, resulting in higher stratospheric and lower mesospheric temperatures over polar regions (Li et al 2014). This study further strengthens that result using data over a full climatological period by showing a positive correlation between Central Pacific sea surface temperature and temperature over the northern hemisphere polar stratosphere, as well as a negative correlation to temperature in the northern hemisphere polar mesosphere. Correlations with the strength of the global circulation are also assessed, showing a general weakening of the zonal flow during El Nino events.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A31S2833K
- Keywords:
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- 1616 Climate variability;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1807 Climate impacts;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4263 Ocean predictability and prediction;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES