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gfdl on-line bibliography > 2006 citations
Reassessing the role of stochastic forcing in the 1997-1998 El Niño
| Vecchi, G. A., A. T. Wittenberg, and A. Rosati, 2006: Reassessing the role of stochastic forcing in the 1997-1998 El Niño. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L01706, doi:10.1029/2005GL024738. |
| Abstract: We explore the extent to which stochastic atmospheric variability was fundamental to development of extreme sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) during the 1997-8 El Niño. The observed western equatorial Pacific westerly zonal stress anomalies (τ a x ), which appeared between Nov. 1996 and May 1997 as a series of episodic bursts, were largely reproducible by an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) ensemble forced with observed SST. Retrospective forecasts using a hybrid coupled model (HCM) indicate that coupling only the part of τ a x linearly related to large-scale tropical Pacific SSTA is insufficient to capture the observed 1997 warming; but, accounting in the HCM for all the τ a x that was connected to SST, recovers most of the strong SSTA warming. The AGCM-estimated range of stochastic τ a x forcing induces substantial dispersion in the forecasts, but does not obscure the large-scale warming in most HCM ensemble members. |