Masamichi Ohba

ENSO and Pacific Decadal Variability in the Community Climate System Model Version 4

AbstractThis study presents an overview of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon and Pacific decadal variability (PDV) simulated in a multicentury preindustrial control integration of the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) at nominal 1° latitude–longitude resolution. Several aspects of ENSO are improved in CCSM4 compared to its predecessor CCSM3, including the lengthened period (3–6 yr), the larger range of amplitude and frequency of events, and the longer duration of La Nina compared to El Nino. However, the overall magnitude of ENSO in CCSM4 is overestimated by ~30%. The simulated ENSO exhibits characteristics consistent with the delayed/recharge oscillator paradigm, including correspondence between the lengthened period and increased latitudinal width of the anomalous equatorial zonal wind stress. Global seasonal atmospheric teleconnections with accompanying impacts on precipitation and temperature are generally well simulated, although the wintertime deepening of the Al...

Role of Nonlinear Atmospheric Response to SST on the Asymmetric Transition Process of ENSO

Abstract Physical processes that are responsible for the asymmetric transition processes between El Nino and La Nina events are investigated by using observational data and physical models to examine the nonlinear atmospheric response to SST. The air–sea coupled system of ENSO is able to remain in a weak, cold event for up to 2 yr, while the system of a relatively warm event turns into a cold phase. Through analysis of the oceanic observational data, it is found that there is a strong difference in thermocline variations in relation to surface zonal wind anomalies in the equatorial Pacific (EP) during the mature-to-decaying phase of ENSO. The atmospheric response for the warm phase of ENSO causes a rapid reduction of the EP westerlies in boreal winter, which play a role in hastening the following ENSO transition through the generation of upwelling oceanic Kelvin waves. However, the anomalous EP easterlies in the cold phase persist to the subsequent spring, which tends to counteract the turnabout from the ...

A Proposed Mechanism for the Asymmetric Duration of El Niño and La Niña

El Nino and La Nina exhibit significant asymmetry not only in their spatial structure but also in their duration. Most El Ninos terminate rapidly after maturing near the end of the calendar year, whereas many La Ninas persist into the following year and often reintensify in boreal winter. Through atmospheric general circulation model experiments, it is shown that the nonlinear response of atmospheric deep convection to the polarity of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies causes an asymmetric evolution of surface wind anomalies over the far western Pacific around the mature phase of El Nino and La Nina. Because of the eastward displacement of precipitation anomalies in the equatorial Pacific during El Nino compared to La Nina, surface winds in the western Pacific are more affected by SST forcing outside the equatorial Pacific, which acts to terminate the Pacific event.

Impact of Strong Tropical Volcanic Eruptions on ENSO Simulated in a Coupled GCM

AbstractThe impact of strong tropical volcanic eruptions (SVEs) on the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its phase dependency is investigated using a coupled general circulation model (CGCM). This paper investigates the response of ENSO to an idealized SVE forcing, producing a peak perturbation of global-mean surface shortwave radiation larger than −6.5 W m−2. Radiative forcing due to volcanic aerosols injected into the stratosphere induces tropical surface cooling around the volcanic forcing peak. Identical-twin forecast experiments of an ENSO-neutral year in response to an SVE forcing show an El Nino–like warming lagging one year behind the peak forcing. In addition to a reduced role of the mean subsurface water upwelling (known as the dynamical thermostat mechanism), the rapid land surface cooling around the Maritime Continent weakens the equatorial Walker circulation, contributing to the positive zonal gradient of sea surface temperature (SST) and precipitation anomalies over the equatorial Paci...

Important Factors for the Development of the Asian–Northwest Pacific Summer Monsoon*

The Asian and northwest (NW) Pacific summer monsoons exhibit stepwise transitions with rapid changes in precipitation at intervals of roughly 1 month from mid-May through mid-July. A new method is developed to evaluate the effects of sea surface temperature (SST) and other changes on these rapid monsoon transitions. The latter changes include solar radiation, land memory, and atmospheric transient (SLAT) effects. The method compares two sets of atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) simulations, forced with observed seasonally varying and piecewise constant SST, respectively. The results indicate that the SLAT effects dominate all of the major transitions, except during mid-June when the SST cooling induced by the strong monsoon westerlies is a significant negative feedback resisting the intensification and northward advance of monsoon convection. The final regional onset of the monsoon system takes place in mid-July over the subtropical NW Pacific characterized by the abrupt enhancement of deep convection there. Despite a weak SST effect from the GCM assessment herein, major changes in convection and circulation are confined to the ocean east of the Philippines during the mid-July transition, suggesting the importance of transient atmospheric adjustments. Intense convection over other regions induces subsidence over the subtropical northwest Pacific during June, contributing to the delayed onset there. Satellite observations reveal a slow buildup of free-tropospheric moisture over the NW Pacific, leading to an abrupt intensification of convective precipitation in mid-July, suggesting a possibility that the gradual tropospheric moistening eventually triggers a threshold transition.

Simulation of Asymmetric ENSO Transition in WCRP CMIP3 Multimodel Experiments

Abstract Based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) multimodel dataset, the relationships between the climatological states and transition processes of simulated ENSO are investigated. The air–sea coupled system of the observed ENSO can remain in the weak cold event for up to 2 yr, whereas those of the warm events tend to turn rapidly into a cold phase. Therefore, the authors separately investigate the simulated transition process of a warm-phase and a cold-phase ENSO in the CMIP3 models. Some of the models reproduce the features of the observed transition process of El Nino/La Nina, whereas most models fail to concurrently reproduce the process during both phases. In the CMIP3 models, four climate models simulate well the rapid transition from El Nino to La Nina. The intensity of a rapid transition of El Nino is mainly related to the intensity of the simulated climatological precipitation over the western–central Pacific (WCP). The models that have strong WCP precipitation can sim...

Role of the Indo-Pacific Interbasin Coupling in Predicting Asymmetric ENSO Transition and Duration

AbstractWarm and cold phases of El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exhibit a significant asymmetry in their transition/duration such that El Nino tends to shift rapidly to La Nina after the mature phase, whereas La Nina tends to persist for up to 2 yr. The possible role of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the Indian Ocean (IO) in this ENSO asymmetry is investigated using a coupled general circulation model (CGCM). Decoupled-IO experiments are conducted to assess asymmetric IO feedbacks to the ongoing ENSO evolution in the Pacific. Identical-twin forecast experiments show that a coupling of the IO extends the skillful prediction of the ENSO warm phase by about one year, which was about 8 months in the absence of the IO coupling, in which a significant drop of the prediction skill around the boreal spring (known as the spring prediction barrier) is found. The effect of IO coupling on the predictability of the Pacific SST is significantly weaker in the decay phase of La Nina. Warm IO SST anomalies...

Anomalous Weather Patterns in Relation to Heavy Precipitation Events in Japan during the Baiu Season

AbstractAnomalous weather patterns (WPs) in relation to heavy precipitation events during the baiu season in Japan are investigated using a nonlinear classification technique known as the self-organizing map (SOM). The analysis is performed on daily time scales using the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis Project (JRA-55) to determine the role of circulation and atmospheric moisture on extreme events and to investigate interannual and interdecadal variations for possible linkages with global-scale climate variability. SOM is simultaneously employed on four atmospheric variables over East Asia that are related to baiu front variability, whereby anomalous WPs that dominated during the 1958–2011 period are obtained. Our analysis extracts seven typical WPs, which are linked to frequent occurrences of heavy precipitation events. Each WP is associated with regional variations in the probability of extreme precipitation events. On interannual time scales, El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects the frequency of the...

Dependency of climate change and carbon cycle on CO2 emission pathways

Previous research has indicated that the response of globally average temperature is approximately proportional to cumulative CO2 emissions, yet evidence of the robustness of this relationship over a range of CO2 emission pathways is lacking. To address this, we evaluate the dependency of climate and carbon cycle change on CO2 emission pathways using a fully coupled climate–carbon cycle model. We design five idealized pathways (including an overshoot scenario for cumulative emissions), each of which levels off to final cumulative emissions of 2000 GtC. The cumulative emissions of the overshoot scenario reach 4000 GtC temporarily, subsequently reducing to 2000 GtC as a result of continuous negative emissions. Although we find that responses of climatic variables and the carbon cycle are largely independent of emission pathways, a much weakened Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is projected in the overshoot scenario despite cessation of emissions. This weakened AMOC is enhanced by rapid warming in the Arctic region due to considerable temporary elevation of atmospheric CO2 concentration and induces the decline of surface air temperature and decrease of precipitation over the northern Atlantic and Europe region. Moreover, the weakened AMOC reduces CO2 uptake by the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. However, the weakened AMOC contributes little to the global carbon cycle. In conclusion, although climate variations have been found to be dependent on emission pathways, the global carbon cycle is relatively independent of these emission pathways, at least superficially.

Rainfall downscaling of weekly ensemble forecasts using self-organising maps

This study presents an application of self-organising maps (SOMs) to downscaling medium-range ensemble forecasts and probabilistic prediction of local precipitation in Japan. SOM was applied to analyse and connect the relationship between atmospheric patterns over Japan and local high-resolution precipitation data. Multiple SOM was simultaneously employed on four variables derived from the JRA-55 reanalysis over the area of study (south-western Japan), and a two-dimensional lattice of weather patterns (WPs) was obtained. Weekly ensemble forecasts can be downscaled to local precipitation using the obtained multiple SOM. The downscaled precipitation is derived by the five SOM lattices based on the WPs of the global model ensemble forecasts for a particular day in 2009–2011. Because this method effectively handles the stochastic uncertainties from the large number of ensemble members, a probabilistic local precipitation is easily and quickly obtained from the ensemble forecasts. This downscaling of ensemble forecasts provides results better than those from a 20-km global spectral model (i.e. capturing the relatively detailed precipitation distribution over the region). To capture the effect of the detailed pattern differences in each SOM node, a statistical model is additionally concreted for each SOM node. The predictability skill of the ensemble forecasts is significantly improved under the neural network-statistics hybrid-downscaling technique, which then brings a much better skill score than the traditional method. It is expected that the results of this study will provide better guidance to the user community and contribute to the future development of dam-management models.