Open AccessThe role of atmosphere feedbacks during ENSO in the CMIP3 models
Author(s) -
Lloyd James,
Guilyardi Eric,
Weller Hilary,
Slingo Julia
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
atmospheric science letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 45
ISSN - 1530-261X
DOI - 10.1002/asl.227
Subject(s) - shortwave , el niño southern oscillation , atmosphere (unit) , environmental science , climatology , atmospheric sciences , atmospheric model , flux (metallurgy) , amplitude , multivariate enso index , latent heat , meteorology , southern oscillation , geography , geology , physics , radiative transfer , materials science , quantum mechanics , metallurgy
Several studies using ocean‐atmosphere GCMs suggest that the atmospheric component plays a dominant role in the modelled ENSO. To help elucidate these findings, the two main atmosphere feedbacks relevant to ENSO, the Bjerknes positive feedback (µ) and the heat flux negative feedback (α), are analysed here in 12 coupled GCMs. We find that the models generally underestimate both feedbacks, leading to an error compensation. The strength of α is inversely related to the ENSO amplitude in the models and the latent heat and shortwave flux components of this feedback dominate. Furthermore, the shortwave component could help explain the model diversity in both overall α and ENSO amplitude. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society and Crown copyright.