Significant climate anomalies persist through the summer (June-August) after El Niñ o dissipates in spring over the equatorial Pacific. They include the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) sea surface temperature (SST) warming, increased tropical tropospheric temperature, an anomalous anticyclone over the subtropical northwest Pacific, and increased mei-yu-baiu rainfall over East Asia. The cause of these lingering El Niñ o effects during summer is investigated using observations and an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). The results herein indicate that the TIO warming acts like a capacitor anchoring atmospheric anomalies over the Indo-western Pacific Oceans. It causes tropospheric temperature to increase by a moistadiabatic adjustment in deep convection, emanating a baroclinic Kelvin wave into the Pacific. In the northwest Pacific, this equatorial Kelvin wave induces northeasterly surface wind anomalies, and the resultant divergence in the subtropics triggers suppressed convection and the anomalous anticyclone. The GCM results support this Kelvin wave-induced Ekman divergence mechanism. In response to a prescribed SST increase over the TIO, the model simulates the Kelvin wave with low pressure on the equator as well as suppressed convection and the anomalous anticyclone over the subtropical northwest Pacific. An additional experiment further indicates that the north Indian Ocean warming is most important for the Kelvin wave and northwest Pacific anticyclone, a result corroborated by observations. These results have important implications for the predictability of Indo-western Pacific summer climate: the spatial distribution and magnitude of the TIO warming, rather than simply whether there is an El Niñ o in the preceding winter, affect summer climate anomalies over the Indo-western Pacific and East Asia.

ENSO induces coherent climate anomalies over the Indo-western Pacific, but these anomalies outlast SST anomalies of the equatorial Pacific by a season, with major effects on the Asian summer monsoon. This review provides historical accounts of major milestones and synthesizes recent advances in the endeavor to understand summer variability over the Indo-Northwest Pacific region. Specifically, a large-scale anomalous anticyclone (AAC) is a recurrent pattern in post-El Niño summers, spanning the tropical Northwest Pacific and North Indian oceans. Regarding the ocean memory that anchors the summer AAC, competing hypotheses emphasize either SST cooling in the easterly trade wind regime of the Northwest Pacific or SST warming in the westerly monsoon regime of the North Indian Ocean. Our synthesis reveals a coupled oceanatmosphere mode that builds on both mechanisms in a two-stage evolution. In spring, when the northeast trades prevail, the AAC and Northwest Pacific cooling are coupled via wind-evaporation-SST feedback. The Northwest Pacific cooling persists to trigger a summer feedback that arises from the interaction of the AAC and North Indian Ocean warming, enabled by the westerly monsoon wind regime. This Indo-western Pacific ocean capacitor (IPOC) effect explains why El Niño stages its last act over the monsoonal Indo-Northwest Pacific and casts the Indian Ocean warming and AAC in leading roles. The IPOC displays interdecadal modulations by the ENSO variance cycle, significantly correlated with ENSO at the turn of the 20th century and after the 1970s, but not in between. Outstanding issues, including future climate projections, are also discussed.

El Niñ o induces a basin-wide increase in tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) sea surface temperature (SST) with a lag of one season. The north IO (NIO), in particular, displays a peculiar double-peak warming with the second peak larger in magnitude and persisting well through the summer. Motivated by recent studies suggesting the importance of the TIO warming for the Northwest Pacific and East Asian summer monsoons, the present study investigates the mechanisms for the second peak of the NIO warming using observations and general circulation models. This analysis reveals that internal air-sea interaction within the TIO is key to sustaining the TIO warming through summer. During El Niñ o, anticyclonic wind curl anomalies force a downwelling Rossby wave in the south TIO through Walker circulation adjustments, causing a sustained SST warming in the tropical southwest IO (SWIO) where the mean thermocline is shallow. During the spring and early summer following El Niñ o, this SWIO warming sustains an antisymmetric pattern of atmospheric anomalies with northeasterly (northwesterly) wind anomalies north (south) of the equator. Over the NIO as the mean winds turn into southwesterly in May, the northeasterly anomalies force the second SST peak that persists through summer by reducing the wind speed and surface evaporation. Atmospheric general circulation model experiments show that the antisymmetric atmospheric pattern is a response to the TIO warming, suggestive of their mutual interaction. Thus, ocean dynamics and Rossby waves in particular are important for the warming not only locally in SWIO but also on the basin-scale north of the equator, a result with important implications for climate predictability and prediction.