Abstract's details

Indian Ocean Dipole leads to Atlantic Niño

Lei Zhang (University of Colorado Boulder, United States)

CoAuthors

Weiqing Han (University of Colorado Boulder, United States)

Event: 2022 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Science II: Large Scale Ocean Circulation Variability and Change

Presentation type: Type Forum only

Contribution: not provided

Abstract:

Atlantic Niño is the Atlantic equivalent of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and it has prominent impacts on regional and global climate. Existing studies suggest that the Atlantic Niño may arise from local atmosphere-ocean interaction and is sometimes triggered by the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM), with overall weak ENSO contribution. By analyzing observational datasets and performing numerical model experiments, here we show that the Atlantic Niño can be induced by the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). We find that the enhanced rainfall in the western tropical Indian Ocean during positive IOD weakens the easterly trade winds over the tropical Atlantic, causing warm anomalies in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic basin and therefore triggering the Atlantic Niño. Our finding suggests that the cross-basin impact from the tropical Indian Ocean plays a more important role in affecting interannual climate variability than previously thought.
 
Lei Zhang
University of Colorado Boulder
United States
lezh8230@colorado.edu