Role of ocean biology‐induced climate feedback in the modulation of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation

Busalacchi, Antonio J.; Wang, Xiujun; Ballabrera-Poy, Joaquim; Murtugudde, Raghu; Hackert, Eric C.; Chen, Dake

doi:10.1029/2008gl036568

Cited by 38 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In response to increased chlorophyll concentrations, a reduction in ENSO amplitude is reported in one full GCM (Wetzel et al 2006), and in two intermediate coupled models with statistical atmospheres and simplified ecosystems (Timmermann and Jin 2002;R.-H. Zhang et al 2009); and an increase in amplitude is reported in two full GCMs (Lengaigne et al 2007;Anderson et al 2007), and in two intermediate coupled models with full ecosystems (Marzeion et al 2005;Ballabrera-Poy et al 2007). The implicit null hypothesis in the studies above is that light absorption through chlorophyll strengthens (or weakens) ENSO.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification of the Feedback between Phytoplankton and ENSO in the Community Climate System Model

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The current coarse-resolution version of the Community Climate System Model is used to assess the impact of phytoplankton on El Niñ o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The experimental setup allows for the separation of the effects of climatological annual cycle of chlorophyll distribution from its interannually varying part. The main finding is that the chlorophyll production by phytoplankton is important beyond modifying the mean and seasonal cycle of shortwave absorption; interannual modifications to the absorption have an impact as well, and they dampen ENSO variability by 9%. The magnitude of damping is the same in the experiment with smaller-than-observed, and in the experiment with larger-than-observed, chlorophyll distribution. This result suggests that to accurately represent ENSO in GCMs, it is not sufficient to use a prescribed chlorophyll climatology. Instead, some form of an ecosystem model will be necessary to capture the effects of phytoplankton coupling and feedback.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification of the Feedback between Phytoplankton and ENSO in the Community Climate System Model

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Many sensitivity studies have shown that adequately accounting for short-wave radiation penetration and its spacial and seasonal variation is important for simulating sea surface temperature (SST) and mixed layer depth at low latitude, equatorial undercurrents, and tropical cyclones and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (Schneider and Zhu, 1998;Nakamoto et al, 2001;Rochford et al, 2001;Murtugudde et al, 2002;Timmermann et al, 2002;Sweeney et al, 2005;Marzeion et al, 2005;Anderson et al, 2007;BallabreraPoy et al, 2007;Zhang et al, 2009;Jochum et al, 2010;Gnanadesikan et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2012). The solar radiation absorption is influenced by ocean colour on a global scale, so the bio-physical feedbacks have a global impact on the simulated results, including sea-ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean and the MOC (Lengaigne et al, 2009;Patara et al, 2012).…”

Section: Penetrative Short-wave Radiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Finite Element Sea Ice-Ocean Model (FESOM) v.1.4: formulation of an ocean general circulation model

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The Finite Element Sea Ice-Ocean Model (FE-SOM) is the first global ocean general circulation model based on unstructured-mesh methods that has been developed for the purpose of climate research. The advantage of unstructured-mesh models is their flexible multi-resolution modelling functionality. In this study, an overview of the main features of FESOM will be given; based on sensitivity experiments a number of specific parameter choices will be explained; and directions of future developments will be outlined. It is argued that FESOM is sufficiently mature to explore the benefits of multi-resolution climate modelling and that its applications will provide information useful for the advancement of climate modelling on unstructured meshes.

show abstract

“…For example, studies using simplified coupled atmosphere-ocean models reported a reduction in ENSO magnitude in response to increased chlorophyll concentrations (Timmermann and Jin 2002;Zhang et al 2009). Specifically, Timmermann and Jin (2002) showed that changes in the shortwave absorption profile within the mixed layer intensify the asymmetry of ENSO, and suggested that the negative biological feedback may compensate for the systematic bias of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in current climate models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of bio-physical feedbacks on the tropical climate in coupled and uncoupled GCMs

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The bio-physical feedback process between the marine ecosystem and the tropical climate system is investigated using both an ocean circulation model and a fully-coupled ocean-atmosphere circulation model, which interact with a biogeochemical model. We found that the presence of chlorophyll can have significant impact on the characteristics of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), including its amplitude and asymmetry, as well as on the mean state. That is, chlorophyll generally increases mean sea surface temperature (SST) due to the direct biological heating. However, SST in the eastern equatorial Pacific decreases due to the stronger indirect dynamical response to the biological effects outweighing the direct thermal response. It is demonstrated that this biologicallyinduced SST cooling is intensified and conveyed to other tropical-ocean basins when atmosphere-ocean coupling is taken into account. It is also found that the presence of chlorophyll affects the magnitude of ENSO by two different mechanisms; one is an amplifying effect by the mean chlorophyll, which is associated with shoaling of the mean thermocline depth, and the other is a damping effect derived from the interactively-varying chlorophyll coupled with the physical model. The atmosphere-ocean coupling reduces the biologically-induced ENSO amplifying effect through the weakening of atmospheric feedback. Lastly, there is also a biological impact on ENSO which enhances the positive skewness. This skewness change is presumably caused by the phase dependency of thermocline feedback which affects the ENSO magnitude.

show abstract

Role of ocean biology‐induced climate feedback in the modulation of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation

Cited by 38 publications

References 18 publications

Quantification of the Feedback between Phytoplankton and ENSO in the Community Climate System Model

Quantification of the Feedback between Phytoplankton and ENSO in the Community Climate System Model

The Finite Element Sea Ice-Ocean Model (FESOM) v.1.4: formulation of an ocean general circulation model

Impact of bio-physical feedbacks on the tropical climate in coupled and uncoupled GCMs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About