Weak ENSO Asymmetry Due to Weak Nonlinear Air-Sea Interaction in CMIP5 Climate Models

作者：Sun, Yan; Wang, Fan^*; Sun, De-Zheng

来源：Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 2016, 33(3): 352-364.

DOI：10.1007/s00376-015-5018-6

• ENSO asymmetry
• nonlinearity
• air-sea interaction
• cold tongue
• CMIP5
• deep convection

State-of-the-art climate models have long-standing intrinsic biases that limit their simulation and projection capabilities. Significantly weak ENSO asymmetry and weakly nonlinear air-sea interaction over the tropical Pacific was found in CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5) climate models compared with observation. The results suggest that a weak nonlinear air-sea interaction may play a role in the weak ENSO asymmetry. Moreover, a weak nonlinearity in air-sea interaction in the models may be associated with the biases in the mean climate-the cold biases in the equatorial central Pacific. The excessive cold tongue bias pushes the deep convection far west to the western Pacific warm pool region and suppresses its development in the central equatorial Pacific. The deep convection has difficulties in further moving to the eastern equatorial Pacific, especially during extreme El Nino events, which confines the westerly wind anomaly to the western Pacific. This weakens the eastern Pacific El Nino events, especially the extreme El Nino events, and thus leads to the weakened ENSO asymmetry in climate models. An accurate mean state structure (especially a realistic cold tongue and deep convection) is critical to reproducing ENSO events in climate models. Our evaluation also revealed that ENSO statistics in CMIP5 climate models are slightly improved compared with those of CMIP3. The weak ENSO asymmetry in CMIP5 is closer to the observation. It is more evident in CMIP5 that strong ENSO activities are usually accompanied by strong ENSO asymmetry, and the diversity of ENSO amplitude is reduced.

• 出版日期2016-3
• 单位中国科学院海洋研究所