Premium
Distinct persistence barriers in two types of ENSO
Author(s) -
Ren HongLi,
Jin FeiFei,
Tian Ben,
Scaife Adam A.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl071015
Subject(s) - el niño southern oscillation , boreal , anomaly (physics) , climatology , multivariate enso index , environmental science , sea surface temperature , spring (device) , persistence (discontinuity) , pacific decadal oscillation , oceanography , geology , atmospheric sciences , la niña , physics , geotechnical engineering , paleontology , thermodynamics , condensed matter physics
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is usually subject to a persistence barrier (PB) in boreal spring. This study quantifies the PB and then reveals its distinct features in the two types of ENSO, the eastern Pacific (EP) and central Pacific (CP) types. We suggest that the PB of ENSO can be measured by the maximum rate of autocorrelation decline of Niño sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) indices. Results show that the PB of ENSO generally occurs in boreal late spring to early summer in terms of Niño3.4 index, and the EP ENSO has the PB in late spring, while the CP type has the PB in summer. By defining an index to quantify PB intensity of ENSO, we find that the CP ENSO type features a much weaker PB, compared to the EP type, and the PB intensity of equatorial SSTAs is larger over the EP than the western Pacific and the far EP.