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Impacts of central Pacific and eastern Pacific El Niños on tropical cyclone tracks over the western North Pacific
Author(s) -
Hong ChiCherng,
Li YuanHsing,
Li Tim,
Lee MingYing
Publication year - 2011
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 - 10.1029/2011gl048821
Subject(s) - tropical cyclone , landfall , climatology , subtropical ridge , subtropics , walker circulation , geology , oceanography , boreal , hadley cell , geography , general circulation model , precipitation , sea surface temperature , climate change , meteorology , paleontology , fishery , biology
This study examines the different impacts of two types of El Niños, the eastern Pacific El Niño (EP‐EN) and the central Pacific El Niño (CP‐EN), on tropical cyclone (TC) tracks over the western North Pacific (WNP) based on observational data. Whereas TC tracks between CP‐EN and EP‐EN show a small difference in boreal summer (JJA), they do exhibit a great difference in boreal autumn (SON), that is, TCs recurve northward at a further westward location near the coastline of East Asia during CP‐EN. As a consequence, more TCs make landfall to Taiwan and South China during CP‐EN. A further observational analysis indicates that the westward shift of the subtropical high and associated steering flow during CP‐EN is a key factor that causes the difference in the TC tracks in autumn. Numerical experiments further suggest that the difference of local SST in the WNP between CP‐EN and EP‐EN accounts for the distinctive differences in the local Hadley circulation, the subtropical high and the TC steering flow.