Modulation of the ENSO teleconnection to the North Atlantic by the tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean

Abstract

Abstract. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can bring about inter-basin interactions, whereby Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) may influence the North Atlantic European (NAE) region. However, ENSO's overall influence on the NAE remains unclear. One potential reason for this uncertainty may arise due to the region being dominated by several different mechanisms. Here we focus on one potential region, namely the Tropical North Atlantic (TNA), and determine how the SSTAs modulate the ENSO teleconnection towards the NAE region. As numerous pathways from the TNA may exist for this modulation, we further center our analysis onto the Caribbean region and Walker cells. We force an idealized atmospheric circulation model with three different seasonally varying sea surface temperature patterns that represent an ENSO event with or without the influence of the Atlantic. Our results demonstrate that modulation of the NAE region by the TNA SSTA and Caribbean region occurs in the boreal spring and summer following an ENSO event. In boreal spring, this modulation is primarily through a propagating Rossy wave train, while in the summer, the TNA's influence is nonlinear and tends to strengthen the ENSO influence over the NAE sector. Overall, this study offers a deeper understanding of the inter-basin interactions of the Walker cell following an ENSO event and the central role of tropical Atlantic SSTAs in modulating the teleconnection to the NAE region.