Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The decay pace of El Niño can significantly modify its impacts on the Asian climate during the post‐El Niño summer. Hence, accurately reproducing the observed decay pace in state‐of‐art coupled models is essential for realistic climate simulations. In the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project models, El Niño decays slower than observed. This slower decay can be attributed to weaker‐than‐observed air‐sea coupling in the models that causes a weaker atmospheric convective response and smaller westerly anomalies along the equatorial Pacific during the El Niño life cycle. The smaller westerly anomalies result in a slower discharge of equatorial ocean heat, weaker negative/positive thermocline anomalies along/off the equator and thus a weaker meridional gradient of the thermocline anomalies. This weakens the easterly current anomalies, diminishes the zonal advection feedback, and ultimately slows the decay pace of El Niño in the models.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
DOI: 10.1029/2024gl112518
Authors: Yihua Wei, Chaoxia Yuan, Han‐Ching Chen, Jing‐Jia Luo
Institution: Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
Awards: G3665811546, G8146397649
OpenAlex ID: W4407429956