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Zhu J, Kumar A, Huang B, et al. The role of off-equatorial surface temperature anomalies in the 2014 El Niño prediction. Sci Rep. 2016;6:19677doi: 10.1038/srep19677.
Zhu, J., Kumar, A., Huang, B., Balmaseda, M. A., Hu, Z. Z., Marx, L., & Kinter, J. L. (2016). The role of off-equatorial surface temperature anomalies in the 2014 El Niño prediction. Scientific reports, 619677. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep19677
Zhu, Jieshun, et al. "The role of off-equatorial surface temperature anomalies in the 2014 El Niño prediction." Scientific reports vol. 6 (2016): 19677. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep19677
Zhu J, Kumar A, Huang B, Balmaseda MA, Hu ZZ, Marx L, Kinter JL. The role of off-equatorial surface temperature anomalies in the 2014 El Niño prediction. Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 20;6:19677. doi: 10.1038/srep19677. PMID: 26785846; PMCID: PMC4726215.
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Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 20;6:19677. doi: 10.1038/srep19677.

The role of off-equatorial surface temperature anomalies in the 2014 El Niño prediction.

Scientific reports

Jieshun Zhu, Arun Kumar, Bohua Huang, Magdalena A Balmaseda, Zeng-Zhen Hu, Lawrence Marx, James L Kinter

Affiliations

  1. Climate Prediction Center, NOAA/NWS/NCEP, College Park, Maryland, USA.
  2. Innovim, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
  3. Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.
  4. Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences, College of Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.
  5. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, United Kingdom.

PMID: 26785846 PMCID: PMC4726215 DOI: 10.1038/srep19677

Abstract

The 2014 El Niño, anticipated to be a strong event in early 2014, turned out to be fairly weak. In early 2014, the tropical Pacific exhibited persistent negative SST anomalies in the southeastern Pacific and positive SST anomalies in north, following the pattern of the Southern Pacific Meridional Mode. In this study, we explored the role of the off-equatorial SST anomalies in the 2014 prediction. Our experiments show that 40% of the amplitude error at the peak phase could be attributed to the lack of prediction of negative SST anomalies in the southeastern Pacific. However, the impact of this model error is partially compensated by the absence of the positive SST anomalies in the tropical western North Pacific in the model. The model response to the amplitude of negative southeastern Pacific SST anomalies is nonlinear in terms of equatorial warming, because the enhanced meridional pressure gradient forces very strong meridional winds without accelerating the zonal wind component near the equator. Our study suggests that reliable forecasts of ENSO strongly rely on correctly modeling the meridional SST gradient, as well as its delicate feedback with the zonal (ENSO) mode.

References

  1. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Nov 13;109(46):18701-6 - PubMed
  2. Sci Rep. 2014 Oct 29;4:6821 - PubMed

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