Open AccessImpact of El Niño/La Niña on the Seasonality of Oceanic Water Vapor: A Proposed Scheme for Determining the ITCZ
Author(s) -
G. E. Chen,
Hui Lin
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
monthly weather review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.862
H-Index - 179
eISSN - 1520-0493
pISSN - 0027-0644
DOI - 10.1175/mwr3013.1
Subject(s) - intertropical convergence zone , equator , climatology , middle latitudes , latitude , seasonality , amplitude , environmental science , annual cycle , northern hemisphere , troposphere , southern hemisphere , forcing (mathematics) , water vapor , atmospheric sciences , sea surface temperature , geology , geography , meteorology , geodesy , physics , precipitation , statistics , mathematics , quantum mechanics
Previous research has shown that oceanic water vapor (OWV) is a useful quantity for studying the low-frequency variability of the atmosphere–ocean system. In this work, 10 years (1993–2002) of high-quality OWV data derived from the Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX) microwave radiometer are used to investigate the impact of El Niño/La Niña on the amplitude and phase of the annual cycle. These results suggest that El Niños (La Niñas) can weaken (strengthen) the seasonality of OWV by decreasing (increasing) the annual amplitude. The change of amplitude is usually slight but significant, especially for the five most dynamic seasonal belts across the major continents at midlatitudes. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impact on the annual phase of OWV is seen to be fairly systematic and geographically correlated. The most striking feature is a large-scale advancing/delay of about 10 days (as estimated through empirical modeling) for the midlatitude oceans of the Northern Hemisphere in reaching their summer maxima during the El Niño/La Niña years. In addition, an alternative scheme for estimating the mean position of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) based on the annual phase map of OWV is proposed. This ITCZ climatology favors 4°N in mean latitude, and agrees with existing results in that its position meanders from 2°S to 8°N oceanwide, and stays constantly north of the equator over the Atlantic and eastern Pacific.