[1] Using observed data sets mainly for the period 1979-2005, we find that anomalous warming events different from conventional El Niño events occur in the central equatorial Pacific. This unique warming in the central equatorial Pacific associated with a horseshoe pattern is flanked by a colder sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) on both sides along the equator. empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of monthly tropical Pacific SSTA shows that these events are represented by the second mode that explains 12% of the variance. Since a majority of such events are not part of El Niño evolution, the phenomenon is named as El Niño Modoki (pseudo-El Niño) (''Modoki'' is a classical Japanese word, which means ''a similar but different thing''). The El Niño Modoki involves ocean-atmosphere coupled processes which include a unique tripolar sea level pressure pattern during the evolution, analogous to the Southern Oscillation in the case of El Niño. Hence the total entity is named as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Modoki. The ENSO Modoki events significantly influence the temperature and precipitation over many parts of the globe. Depending on the season, the impacts over regions such as the Far East including Japan, New Zealand, western coast of United States, etc., are opposite to those of the conventional ENSO. The difference maps between the two periods of 1979-2004 and 1958-1978 for various oceanic/atmospheric variables suggest that the recent weakening of equatorial easterlies related to weakened zonal sea surface temperature gradient led to more flattening of the thermocline. This appears to be a cause of more frequent and persistent occurrence of the ENSO Modoki event during recent decades.

In this paper, the application of the wavelet transform (WT) to climate time series analyses is introduced. A tutorial description of the basic concept of WT, compared with similar concepts used in music, is also provided. Using an analogy between WT representation of a time series and a music score, the authors illustrate the importance of local versus global information in the time-frequency localization of climate signals. Examples of WT applied to climate data analysis are demonstrated using analytic signals as well as real climate time series. Results of WT applied to two climate time series-that is, a proxy paleoclimate time series with a 2.5-Myr deep-sea sediment record of <5 18 0and a 140-yr monthly record of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature-are presented. The former shows the presence of a 40-kyr and a 100-kyr oscillation and an abrupt transition in the oscillation regime at 0.7 Myr before the present, consistent with previous studies. The latter possesses a myriad of oscillatory modes from interannual (2-5 yr), interdecadal (10-12 yr, 20-25 yr, and 40-60 yr), and century (-180 yr) scales at different periods of the data record. In spite of the large difference in timescales, common features in time-frequency characteristics of these two time series have been identified. These features suggest that the variations of the earth's climate are consistent with those exhibited by a nonlinear dynamical system under external forcings.

Present work uses 1979-2005 monthly observational data to study the impacts of El Niño Modoki on dry/wet conditions in the Pacific rim during boreal summer.

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