Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature variability and its relation to El Niño‐Southern Oscillation

Enfield, David B.; Mayer, Dennis A.

doi:10.1029/96jc03296

Cited by 772 publications

(799 citation statements)

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“…1). Instrumental records show decreased precipitation over northeastern Brazil, the Amazon Basin, and the Altiplano-Puna plateau at about 3500 m elevation during the El Niño phase of the ENSO (Ropolewski and Halpert 1987;Enfield and Mayer 1996). During this time, in contrast, increased rainfall occurs in northwestern (Ecuador, northern Peru) and southwestern (Chile) South America, and in southeastern Brazil (Ropolewski and Halpert 1987;Kiladis and Diaz 1989;Bianchi and Yañez 1992).…”

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This leads to weakening of the SE trades and intensification of the NE trades, with greater precipitation in tropical and subtropical South America. Such changes occur with mean periodicities of 10 to 14 years (Enfield and Mayer 1996;Chang et al 1997). In our study area, we would expect more rain during such minimum TAV years.…”

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of particular importance are decadal variations in the interhemispheric SST gradient across the Equator in the Atlantic, which is also called the Tropical Atlantic SST Variability (TAV) (Enfield and Mayer 1996;Chang et al 1997). When the cross-equatorial SST gradient is reduced, which corresponds to low TAV amplitudes, the tropical North Atlantic is cool relative to the South Atlantic, resulting in increased surface pressure over the North Atlantic and a southward shift of the ITCZ.…”

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late Pleistocene Climate Change and Erosion in the Santa Maria Basin, NW Argentina

Trauth¹,

Bookhagen²,

Müller³

et al. 2003

Journal of Sedimentary Research

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Present erosion and sediment flux in the semiarid intramontane Santa Maria Basin, NW Argentina, are compared with conditions during a period of wetter and more variable climate at about 30,000 14 C yr ago. The results suggest that the influence of climate change on the overall erosional sediment budget is significant, mainly because of a change in the erosion regime coupled with an increase in mass movements. The most effective mechanism to increase landslide activity in this environment is a highly variable climate on interannual timescales. In contrast, Quaternary changes in erosional budgets due to variations in moisture regimes is small in the Santa Maria Basin. Because the magnitude of a potential increase in background erosion as well as enhanced landsliding is smaller than typical levels of uncertainty of erosional budgets for such large basins, it is not likely that climate-driven erosional unloading can influence tectonic style and rates in this semiarid environment on time scales of several thousands to a few tens of thousands of years.

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Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late Pleistocene Climate Change and Erosion in the Santa Maria Basin, NW Argentina

Trauth¹,

Bookhagen²,

Müller³

et al. 2003

Journal of Sedimentary Research

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“…A domain that considers both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is necessary to gauge the covariability of environmental conditions that influence Caribbean climate (Enfield and Mayer, 1997;Enfield and Alfaro, 1999;Wang et al, 2006). We chose the variables Ts, SLP, and U because they are underpinned by an extensive database of surface ship and station observations (Woodruff et al, 1987;Kalnay et al, 1996) and have the advantage of being continuous in space and so enable comparisons of changes over land and sea.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ANOM5 and 6 are significantly negatively related at lags −12 to +6 months (r max = −0.50) suggesting that MDR-area and South Atlantic SST interact in dipole fashion. Hastenrath (1978Hastenrath ( , 1984, Enfield (1996), and Enfield and Mayer (1997) have shown that rainfall anomalies around the Caribbean are related to both tropical North Atlantic and east Pacific SSTs. Although the two SST indices are positively correlated, their influence on rainfall is strongest when anomalies are of opposite signs.…”

Section: The Inter-annual Modesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joint modes of climate variability across the inter‐Americas

Jury

Malmgren

2011

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Surface temperature (Ts), sea-level pressure (SLP), and zonal wind (U) fields from NCEP/NCAR reanalysis spanning the period 1949-2006 have been jointly analysed by means of principal component analysis to assess the dominant modes of climate variability in the inter-American region, including the eastern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Two aspects of these time-series were analysed: the annual cycle and its residual. Seasonal modes 1 and 2 take the form of north-south dipoles of Ts over oceanic and terrestrial environments. Seasonal mode 3 derives from SLP changes over the Amazon with a Caribbean wind response. Temporal fluctuations in the residual (ANOM) fields are resolved by six modes. ANOM1-3 is dominated by SLP and Ts changes across the equator in the Atlantic and east Pacific. The ANOM4 pattern is an isolated wind mode in the NE Atlantic. ANOM5 and 6 are dominated by sea temperature patterns in the South Atlantic and in the path of African easterly waves crossing the tropical Atlantic. The residual time scores are marked by significant warming (Ts) trends and co-located lower pressure. Cycles in the anomaly time scores tend to occur at 2-to 5-year periods. Modes dominated by atmospheric variables exhibit greater high-frequency 'noise' than oceanic modes. Predictability is assessed through development of multivariate regression models trained on Caribbean rainfall and related target time-series. The seasonal dipole between North and South America is found to modulate Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation and tropical Atlantic influence on Caribbean rainfall.

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Impacts of canonical and Modoki El Niño on tropical Atlantic SST

Amaya

Foltz

2014

JGR Oceans

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The impacts of canonical and Modoki El Niño on tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) are quantified using composite analysis. Results show that El Niño Modoki fails to produce significant warming in the tropical Atlantic, in contrast to the well known warming following canonical El Niño events. El Niño Modoki instead induces significant cooling in the northeastern tropical Atlantic and near-neutral conditions elsewhere in the tropical Atlantic. It is shown that the difference in SST response stems primarily from a much stronger Pacific/North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern and stronger atmospheric Kelvin wave response during canonical events compared to Modoki. The stronger PNA pattern and Kelvin waves during canonical events generate anomalously weak surface winds in the tropical North Atlantic, driving anomalously weak evaporative cooling and warmer SSTs. Past research has shown significant decadal variability in the frequency of noncanonical El Niños relative to canonical events. If such variability continues, it is likely that the impact of El Niño on tropical Atlantic SST will also fluctuate from one decade to the next.

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Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature variability and its relation to El Niño‐Southern Oscillation

Cited by 772 publications

References 31 publications

Late Pleistocene Climate Change and Erosion in the Santa Maria Basin, NW Argentina

Late Pleistocene Climate Change and Erosion in the Santa Maria Basin, NW Argentina

Joint modes of climate variability across the inter‐Americas

Impacts of canonical and Modoki El Niño on tropical Atlantic SST

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