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Simulation of state-dependent high-frequency atmospheric variability associated with ENSO

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Abstract

High-frequency atmospheric variability depends on the phase of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Recently, there is increasing evidence that state-dependent high-frequency atmospheric variability significantly modulates ENSO characteristics. Hence, in this study, we examine the model simulations of high-frequency atmospheric variability and, further, its dependency on the El Nino phase, using atmospheric and coupled GCMs (AGCM and CGCM). We use two versions of physical packages here—with and without convective momentum transport (CMT)—in both models. We found that the CMT simulation gives rise to a large climatological zonal wind difference over the Pacific. Also, both the climate models show a significantly improved performance in simulating the state-dependent noise when the CMT parameterization is implemented. We demonstrate that the better simulation of the state-dependent noise results from a better representation of anomalous, as well as climatological, zonal wind. Our further comparisons between the simulations, demonstrates that low-frequency wind is a crucial factor in determining the state-dependency of high-frequency wind variability. Therefore, it is suggested that the so-called state-dependent noise is directly induced by the low-frequency wind anomaly, which is caused by SST associated with ENSO.

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Acknowledgments

This work was mostly done when J.-S. Kug visited CCSR during the summer in 2007. This work was supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant CATER_2006-4206 and the second stage of the Brain Korea 21 Project. F.-F. Jin was partly supported by NSF grants ATM-0652145 and ATM-0650552 and NOAA grants GC01-229. M. Kimoto was supported by the Innovative Program of Climate Change Projection for the 21st Century (KAKUSHIN program) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. Y. Takayabu is partially supported by the Global Environment Research Fund (S-5-2) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate Environment System Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, South Korea

    Jong-Seong Kug, K. P. Sooraj, Daehyun Kim & In-Sik Kang

  2. Department of Meteorology, SOEST, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Fei-Fei Jin

  3. Center for Climate System Research (CCSR), University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yukari N. Takayabu & Masahide Kimoto

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  1. Jong-Seong Kug
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Correspondence to Jong-Seong Kug.

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Kug, JS., Sooraj, K.P., Kim, D. et al. Simulation of state-dependent high-frequency atmospheric variability associated with ENSO. Clim Dyn 32, 635–648 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0434-2

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