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The article offers news briefs related to climatology. A cold tongue which is a narrow band of cool sea surface temperature (SST) is one of the salient features in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Two of the factors that contributed to the weather-forecasting errors increase in time are the amplification uncertainties of nonlinearities in the initial state of the atmosphere and the model deficiencies leading the model to predict the wrong rate of change for even the most certain initial conditions. INSETS: DUDE, WE'RE, LIKE, PROTESTING;PLEASED TO ZAP YOU.

The nonlinearities that cause El Niño events to deviate more from the mean state than La Niña events are still not completely understood. This paper investigates the contribution of one candidate mechanism: ENSO nonlinearities originating from the atmosphere. The initially linear intermediate complexity model of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, in which all couplings were fitted to observations, describes the ENSO cycle reasonably well. In this linear model, extra terms are systematically introduced in the atmospheric component: the nonlinear response of mean wind stress to SST anomalies, the skewness of the driving noise term in the atmosphere, and the relation of this noise term to the background SST or the ENSO phase. The nonlinear response of mean wind stress to SST in the ENSO region is found to be the dominant term influencing the ENSO cycle. However, this influence is only visible when noise fields are used that are fitted to observed patterns of prescribed standard deviation and spatial decorrelation. Standard deviation and skewness of noise do have a dependence on the ENSO phase, but this has a relatively small influence on the ENSO cycle in this model. With these additional nonlinearities in the representation of the atmosphere, a step forward has been made toward building a realistic reduced complexity model for ENSO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assimilation problem for the coupled ocean–atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific is investigated using an advanced sequential estimator, the extended Kalman filter (EKF). The intermediate coupled model used in this study consists of an upper-ocean model and a steady-state atmospheric response to it. Model errors arise from the uncertainty in atmospheric wind stress. Data assimilation is applied in this idealized context to produce a time-continuous, dynamically consistent description of the model's El Niño–Southern Oscillation, based on incomplete and inaccurate observations. This study has two parts: Part I (the present paper) deals with state estimation for the coupled system, assuming that model parameters are correct, while Part II will deal with simultaneous state and parameter estimation. The dynamical structure of forecast errors is estimated sequentially using a linearized Kalman filter and compared with that of an uncoupled ocean model. The coupling produces large changes in the structure of the error-correlation field. For example, error correlations with opposite signs in the western and eastern part of the model basin are caused by wind stress feedbacks. The full EKF method is used to assimilate various model-generated synthetic oceanic datasets into the coupled model in an identical-twin framework. The assimilated datasets include the sea surface temperature and a combination of wave velocities and thermocline depth anomaly. With the EKF, the model's forecast-assimilation cycle is able to estimate correctly the phase and amplitude of the basic ENSO oscillation while using very few observations. This includes a set of observations that only cover a single meridional section of the ocean, preferably in the eastern basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPIs), located in the tropical western Pacific, are very susceptible to severe drought. Dry season (December–May) rainfall anomalies have different relationships to ENSO for USAPIs north and south of 7°N. South of 7°N, rainfall exhibits a canonical negative correlation with the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) (i.e., dry conditions during warm periods). To the north, the dry season falls into either “canonical” or “noncanonical” (positively correlated with ONI) regimes. Noncanonical years pose an important forecasting challenge as severe droughts have occurred during cool ONI conditions (referred to here as “cool dry” cases). Composite analysis of the two regimes shows that for noncanonical cool dry years, anticyclonic circulation anomalies over the tropical western North Pacific (TWNP), with a band of anomalous dry conditions extending from the central Pacific toward Micronesia, result in unexpected droughts. In contrast, canonical “cool wet” events show cyclonic TWNP circulation and increased rainfall over the northern USAPIs. Maximum SST anomalies are located near the date line during noncanonical years, and farther east during canonical years. While both regimes show negative rainfall and TWNP anticyclonic circulation anomalies before the onset of the December–May dry season, during the dry season these anomalies persist during noncanonical events but rapidly reverse sign during canonical events. SST anomalies in the noncanonical regime extend eastward from the central Pacific rather than intensify in place over the eastern Pacific in the canonical regime. Differences in the evolution of circulation, precipitation, and SST anomalies suggest distinct physical mechanisms governing the two ENSO regimes, with possible ramifications for seasonal forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increases in greenhouse gas emissions are expected to cause changes both in climatic variability in the Pacific linked to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and in long-term average climate. While mean state and variability changes have been studied separately, much less is known about their combined impact or relative importance. Additionally, studies of projected changes in ENSO have tended to focus on changes in, or adjacent to, the Pacific. Here we examine projected changes in climatic conditions during El Niño years and in ENSO-driven precipitation variability in 36 CMIP5 models. The models are forced according to the RCP8.5 scenario in which there are large, unmitigated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations during the twenty-first century. We examine changes over much of the globe, including 25 widely spread regions defined in the IPCC special report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). We confirm that precipitation variability associated with ENSO is projected to increase in the tropical Pacific, consistent with earlier research. We also find that the enhanced tropical Pacific variability drives ENSO-related variability increases in 19 SREX regions during DJF and in 18 during JJA. This externally forced increase in ENSO-driven precipitation variability around the world is on the order of 15%–20%. An increase of this size, although substantial, is easily masked at the regional level by internally generated multidecadal variability in individual runs. The projected changes in El Niño–driven precipitation variability are typically much smaller than projected changes in both mean state and ENSO neutral conditions in nearly all regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate the influence of El Niño on midtropospheric CO2 from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and the Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers, version 2 (MOZART-2). AIRS midtropospheric CO2 data are used to study the temporal and spatial variability of CO2 in response to El Niño. CO2 differences between the central and western Pacific Ocean correlate well with the Southern Oscillation index. To reveal the temporal and spatial variability of the El Niño signal in the AIRS midtropospheric CO2, a multiple regression method is applied to the CO2 data from September 2002 to February 2011. There is more (less) midtropospheric CO2 in the central Pacific and less (more) midtropospheric CO2 in the western Pacific during El Niño (La Niña) events. Similar results are seen in the MOZART-2 convolved midtropospheric CO2, although the El Niño signal in the MOZART-2 is weaker than that in the AIRS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synoptic-scale westward-propagating disturbances over the eastern Pacific (EP) are analyzed in boreal autumn, utilizing spectral analysis, composite analysis, and energy budget analysis. The results are compared with those over the western Pacific (WP). Spectral peaks of total precipitable water (TPW) and vertical velocity at 850 hPa ( ω850), and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) are detected at periods of ~3-7 days over the EP. Meanwhile over the WP, a spectral peak of OLR is pronounced, but peaks of TPW and ω850 are not detected. Composite analysis reveals that disturbances that have a coupled structure, with a vortex at its center near ~9°N and a mixed Rossby-gravity (MRG) wave-type disturbance, frequently exist over the EP. At the same time, the disturbances have a double-deck structure associated with divergence both in the upper and in the middle to lower troposphere. These disturbances are associated with both deep convection and congestus, which generate kinetic energy of the disturbance in the upper and in the lower troposphere, respectively. Examining diabatic heating in relation to the coupled disturbances, deep heating with the peak at the height of ~7.5 km is greatest in the northeastern part of the vortex. The coupled MRG wave-type disturbance provides a relatively deep cross-equatorial southerly flow into the northeastern part of the vortex. It is suggested that deep rain is maintained with the existence of deep convergence produced by the coupled disturbances over the EP, where a very shallow convergence field exists on average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although sustained observations yield a description of the mean equatorial current system from the western Pacific to the eastern terminus of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array, a comprehensive observational dataset suitable for describing the structure and pathways of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) east of 95°°W does not exist and therefore climate models are unconstrained in a region that plays a critical role in ocean--atmosphere coupling. Furthermore, ocean models suggest that the interaction between the EUC and the Galáápagos Islands (∼∼92°°W) has a striking effect on the basic state and coupled variability of the tropical Pacific. To this end, the authors interpret historical measurements beginning with those made in conjunction with the discovery of the Pacific EUC in the 1950s, analyze velocity measurements from an equatorial TAO mooring at 85°°W, and analyze a new dataset from archived shipboard ADCP measurements. Together, the observations yield a possible composite description of the EUC structure and pathways in the eastern equatorial Pacific that may be useful for model validation and guiding future observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea surface temperature (SST) changes constitute a major indicator and driver of climate changes induced by greenhouse gas increases. The objective of the present study is to investigate the role played by the detailed structure of the SST change on the large-scale atmospheric circulation and the distribution of precipitation. For that purpose, simulations from the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace Coupled Model, version 4 (IPSL-CM4) are used where the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is doubled. The response of IPSL-CM4 is characterized by the same robust mechanisms affecting the other coupled models in global warming simulations, that is, an increase of the hydrological cycle accompanied by a global weakening of the large-scale circulation. First, purely atmospheric simulations are performed to mimic the results of the coupled model. Then, specific simulations are set up to further study the underlying atmospheric mechanisms. These simulations use different prescribed SST anomalies, which correspond to a linear decomposition of the IPSL-CM4 SST changes in global, longitudinal, and latitudinal components. The simulation using a globally uniform increase of the SST is able to reproduce the modifications in the intensity of the hydrological cycle or in the mean upward mass flux, which also characterize the double CO2 simulation with the coupled model. But it is necessary (and largely sufficient) to also take into account the zonal-mean meridional structure of the SST changes to represent correctly the changes in the Hadley circulation strength or the zonal-mean precipitation changes simulated by the coupled model, even if these meridional changes by themselves do not change the mean thermodynamical state of the tropical atmosphere. The longitudinal SST anomalies of IPSL-CM4 also have an impact on the precipitation and large-scale tropical circulation and tend to introduce different changes over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The longitudinal SST changes are demonstrated to have a smaller but opposite effect from that of the meridional anomalies on the Hadley cell circulations. Results indicate that the uncertainties in the simulated meridional patterns of the SST warming may have major consequences on the assessment of the changes of the Hadley circulation and zonal-mean precipitation in future climate projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of intraseasonal Kelvin waves and tropical instability waves (TIWs) in the intraseasonal and low-frequency mixed-layer temperature budget were examined in an isopycnal ocean model forced by QuikSCAT winds from 2000 to 2004. Correlations between temperature tendency and other terms of the intraseasonal budget compare well with previous results using Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) observations: the net heat flux has the largest correlation in the western Pacific and zonal advection has the largest correlation in the central Pacific. In the central Pacific, the intraseasonal variations in zonal advection were due to both the zonal background velocity acting on the Kelvin wave temperature anomaly and the Kelvin wave’s anomalous velocity acting on the background temperature. In the eastern Pacific, three of the four temperature budget terms have comparable correlations. In particular, the vertical processes acting on the shallow thermocline cause large SST anomalies in phase with the intraseasonal thermocline anomalies. On intraseasonal time scales, the influence of individual composite upwelling and downwelling Kelvin waves cancel each other. However, because the intraseasonal SST anomalies increase to the east, a zonal gradient of SST is generated that is in phase with intraseasonal zonal velocity. Consequently, heat advection by the Kelvin waves rectifies into lower frequencies in the eastern Pacific. Rectification resulting from TIWs was also seen. The prevalence of intraseasonal Kelvin waves and the zonal structure of intraseasonal SST from 2002 to early 2004 suggested that they might be important in setting the eastern Pacific SST on interannual time scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether shifts between the correlative evolutions of ENSO and the seasonal cycle in the tropical Pacific Ocean can produce effects that are large enough to alter the evolution of the coupled atmosphere–ocean system. The approach is based on experiments with an ocean general circulation model (OGCM) of the Pacific basin, in which the seasonal and nonseasonal (interannually varying) components of the surface forcing are prescribed with different shifts in time. The shift would make no difference in terms of ENSO variability if the system were linear. The surface fluxes of heat and momentum used to force the ocean are taken from 1) simulations in which the OGCM coupled to an atmospheric GCM produces realistic ENSO variability and 2) NCEP reanalysis data corrected by Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set climatology for the 20-yr period 1980–99. It is found that the response to the shifts in terms of eastern basin heat content can be 20%–40%of the maximum interannual anomaly in the first experiment, whereas it is 10%–20% in the second experiment. In addition, the response to the shift is event dependent. A response of this magnitude can potentially generate coupled atmosphere–ocean interactions that alter subsequent event evolution. Analysis of a selected event shows that the major contribution to the response is provided by the anomalous zonal advection of seasonal mean temperature in the equatorial band. Additional OGCM experiments suggest that both directly forced and delayed signals provide comparable contributions to the response. An interpretation of the results based on the “delayed oscillator” paradigm and on equatorial wave–mean flow interaction is given. It is argued that the same oceanic ENSO anomalies in different times of the oceanic seasonal cycle can result in different ENSO evolutions because of nonlinear interactions between equatorially trapped waves at work during ENSO and the seasonally varying upper-ocean currents and thermocline structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causes and global context of the North American drought between 1998 and 2004 are examined using atmospheric reanalyses and ensembles of atmosphere model simulations variously forced by global SSTs or tropical Pacific SSTs alone. The drought divides into two distinct time intervals. Between 1998 and 2002 it coincided with a persistent La Niña–like state in the tropical Pacific, a cool tropical troposphere, poleward-shifted jet streams, and, in the zonal mean, eddy-driven descent in midlatitudes. During the winters reduced precipitation over North America in the climate models was sustained by anomalous subsidence and reductions of moisture convergence by the stationary flow and transient eddies. During the summers reductions of evaporation and mean flow moisture convergence drove the precipitation reduction, while transient eddies acted diffusively to oppose this. During these years the North American drought fitted into a global pattern of circulation and hydroclimate anomalies with noticeable zonal and hemispheric symmetry. During the later period of the drought, from 2002 to 2004, weak El Niño conditions prevailed and, while the global climate adjusted accordingly, western North America remained, uniquely among midlatitude regions, in drought. The ensemble mean of the climate model simulations did not simulate the continuation of the drought in these years, suggesting that the termination of the drought was largely unpredictable in terms of global ocean conditions. The global context of the most recent, turn of the century, drought is compared to the five prior persistent North American droughts in the instrumental record from the mid-nineteenth century on. A classic La Niña pattern of ocean temperature in the Pacific is common to all. A cold Indian Ocean, also typical of La Niña, is common to all five prior droughts, but not the most recent one. Except in southern South America the global pattern of precipitation anomalies of the turn of the century drought is similar to that during the five prior droughts. These comparisons suggest that the earlier period of this most recent drought is the latest in a series of multiyear droughts forced by persistent changes in tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures. Warm tropical North Atlantic Ocean temperatures may play a secondary role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tropical Pacific Ocean is a climatically important region, home to El Niño and the Southern Oscillation. The simulation of its climate remains a challenge for global coupled ocean–atmosphere models, which suffer large biases especially in reproducing the observed meridional asymmetry across the equator in sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall. A basin ocean general circulation model is coupled with a full-physics regional atmospheric model to study eastern Pacific climate processes. The regional ocean–atmosphere model (ROAM) reproduces salient features of eastern Pacific climate, including a northward-displaced intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) collocated with a zonal band of high SST, a low-cloud deck in the southeastern tropical Pacific, the equatorial cold tongue, and its annual cycle. The simulated low-cloud deck experiences significant seasonal variations in vertical structure and cloudiness; cloud becomes decoupled and separated from the surface mixed layer by a stable layer in March when the ocean warms up, leading to a reduction in cloudiness. The interaction of low cloud and SST is an important internal feedback for the climatic asymmetry between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. In an experiment where the cloud radiative effect is turned off, this climatic asymmetry weakens substantially, with the ITCZ migrating back and forth across the equator following the sun. In another experiment where tropical North Atlantic SST is lowered by 2°C—say, in response to a slow-down of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation as during the Younger Dryas—the equatorial Pacific SST decreases by up to 3°C in January–April but changes much less in other seasons, resulting in a weakened equatorial annual cycle. The relatively high resolution (0.5°) of the ROAM enables it to capture mesoscale features, such as tropical instability waves, Central American gap winds, and a thermocline dome off Costa Rica. The implications for tropical biases and paleoclimate research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several oceanic operational programs use remotely sensed fluxes to complement atmospheric operational analyses from major national weather prediction centers. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the ability of the ocean model (ORCA) to correctly simulate the dynamic of the tropical Pacific Ocean in 1996–98 when forced by the satellite turbulent fluxes (wind stress and latent heat fluxes). The results are compared with the oceanic response resulting from forcing the model with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational analysis. Three sensitivity simulations forced with satellite and atmospheric analysis fields are performed. The control experiment is forced with the ECMWF fluxes. The solutions of these simulations are compared with data from the Tropical Atmosphere–Ocean (TAO) buoys and from sea surface temperatures analysis by Reynolds and Smith in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The analysis results indicate that the model reproduces well the major spatial and temporal oceanic structures including the main characteristics of the 1997–98 El Niño. More specifically, the comparisons with buoys indicate that the experiment forced by the winds and the satellite latent heat fluxes is closer to the observations. They provide weak rms difference and strong correlations along the whole 500-m depth column. Furthermore, the correlations with the SST analysis vary between 75% and 95% compared to 65% and 77% for the experiment forced by ECMWF fluxes. The currents in the first 350 m also show a strong sensitivity to satellite turbulent fluxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical model of the tropical Pacific Ocean is used to investigate the processes that cause the horizontal temperature advection of tropical instability waves (TIWs). It is found that their temperature advection cannot be explained by the processes on which the mixing length paradigm is based. Horizontal mixing of temperature across the equatorial SST front does happen, but it is small relative to the “oscillatory” temperature advection of TIWs. The basic mechanism is that TIWs move water back and forth across a patch of large vertical entrainment. Outside this patch, the atmosphere heats the water and this heat is then transferred into the thermocline inside the patch. These patches of strong localized entrainment are due to equatorial Ekman divergence and due to thinning of the mixed layer in the TIW cyclones. The latter process is responsible for the zonal temperature advection, which is as large as the meridional temperature advection but has not yet been observed. Thus, in the previous observational literature the TIW contribution to the mixed layer heat budget may have been underestimated significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The atmospheric energy transport variability associated with decadal sea surface temperature variability in the tropical Pacific is studied using an atmospheric primitive equation model coupled to a slab mixed layer. The decadal variability is prescribed as an anomalous surface heat flux that represents the reduced ocean heat transport in the tropical Pacific when it is anomalously warm. The atmospheric energy transport increases and compensates for the reduced ocean heat transport. Increased transport by the mean meridional overturning (i.e., the strengthening of the Hadley cells) causes increased poleward energy transport. The subtropical jets increase in strength and shift equatorward, and in the midlatitudes the transients are affected. NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data show that the warming of the tropical Pacific in the 1980s compared to the early 1970s seems to have caused very similar changes in atmospheric energy transport indicating that these atmospheric transport variations were driven from the tropical Pacific. To study the implication of these changes for the coupled climate system an ocean model is driven with winds obtained from the atmosphere model. The poleward ocean heat transport increased when simulated wind anomalies associated with decadal tropical Pacific variability were used, showing a negative feedback between decadal variations in the mean meridional circulation in the atmosphere and in the Pacific Ocean. The Hadley cells and subtropical cells act to stabilize each other on the decadal time scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining the linearly coupled atmospheric and oceanic signals related to interannual variability in sea surface temperatures and upper-air wind fields, a hemispheric-scale ocean–atmosphere teleconnection mode is isolated that is significantly correlated with equatorial Pacific SSTs 12 months later. The interannual component of this teleconnection mode is related to a basin-scale dipole in the upper-air wind fields stretching across the extratropical Pacific, with additional anomalies extending from the eastern tropical Pacific over North America and into the Atlantic basin. In addition, it is related to variability in the SST field with warm anomalies found over the tropical/subtropical western Pacific as well as the equatorial eastern Pacific; also, there are related cold anomalies over the extratropical central North Pacific that extend down into the central subtropical/tropical Pacific. Diagnostic studies investigating the ocean–atmosphere structure for this mode of variability indicate that the large-scale variations in the upper-air circulation patterns are associated with anomalous equatorward propagation of transient and stationary wave activity over the North Pacific. In addition, they are characterized by vertical circulation patterns over both the subtropical and extratropical Pacific, which are collocated with variations in surface pressure and wind stress fields over the central subtropical and tropical North Pacific. Previous research has shown that modifications of these two fields are significantly related to the evolution of equatorial Pacific SSTs and may provide the dynamic mechanism whereby the ocean–atmosphere teleconnection mode described here influences the development of the ENSO system. This influence appears to be related to a modification of the basin-scale heat content over the central and eastern tropical Pacific; however, significant discussion is provided concerning alternative hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the goals of the East Pacific Investigation of Climate, year 2001 process study (EPIC2001), was to understand the mechanisms controlling the forcing of deep atmospheric convection over the tropical eastern Pacific. An intensive study was made of convection in a 4° × 4° square centered on 10°N, 95°W in September and October of 2001. This is called the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) study region because it encompasses the eastern Pacific intertropical convergence zone. Starting from an analysis of the theoretical possibilities and a plethora of dropsonde, in situ, radar, and satellite data, it is found that newly developing convection occurs where a deep layer of air (of order 1 km deep or deeper) is conditionally unstable with only weak convective inhibition. Shallower conditionally unstable layers are associated with numerous small clouds, but do not seem to produce deep convection. The occurrence of deep convection over the ITCZ study region is presumably related to the propensity of the environment to produce areas of weak convective inhibition over such a deep layer. Three theoretically possible factors control the formation of such convectively unstable areas: 1) the strength of the total surface heat (or moist entropy) fluxes; 2) the advection of moisture into the region; and 3) temperature anomalies caused by dry adiabatic ascent of the inhibition layer, which lies typically between 700 and 850 mb. The areal fraction covered by such instability is small even on highly convective days. In the tropical eastern Pacific, it is found that the total surface entropy flux is the most significant of these factors, with a warm layer in the 700–850-mb range, resulting presumably from subsidence, playing an important suppressive role in certain cases. These two factors account for approximately two-thirds of the variance in satellite infrared brightness temperature averaged over the study region. Moisture (or moist entropy) advection appears to be of less importance. Tropical disturbances such as easterly waves, Kelvin waves, and the Madden–Julian oscillation presumably control convection primarily via these two mechanisms during their passage through this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uses high-resolution reanalysis techniques of the Pacific Ocean's warm pool atmosphere (WPA). Occurrence of WPA close to a state of radiative-convective-dynamic equilibrium; Analysis suggesting the large-scale circulation imports; Rate of radiative cooling.

The Center for Ocean--Land--Atmosphere Studies anomaly coupled prediction system, using a sophisticated dynamical model of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the global atmosphere, is described. The resolution of the component models is moderate, with the atmospheric spectral model truncated at triangular total wavenumber 30 and 18 vertical levels. The ocean model is a Pacific Basin model with 0.58 latitude and 1.58 longitude resolution in the waveguide and 20 vertical levels. The performance of the uncoupled component models motivates the anomaly coupling strategy and has led to the development of a simple empirical technique for converting the 850-mb zonal wind into a zonal surface stress that is used in the prediction experiments described here. In developing ocean initial conditions, an iterative procedure that assimilates the zonal wind stress based on the simulated sea surface temperature anomaly error is applied. Based on a sample of 78 18-month hindcasts, the predictions have useful skill in the Nino-3 region for at least 12 months. The systematic error of the predictions is shown to be relatively small because the ocean initial conditions are in reasonable equilibrium with the ocean model. Finally, composites of the hindcast warm El Niño--Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events indicate that the model simulates the basic features of ENSO, but there are errors in the horizontal structure of the sea surface temperature anomaly that potentially limit the predictability of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results from multiyear integrations of a coupled ocean--atmosphere general circulation model are described. The atmospheric component is a rhomboidal 15, 18-level version of the Center for Ocean--Land--Atmosphere Studies atmospheric general circulation model. The oceanic component is the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ocean model with a horizontal domain extending from 708S to 658N. The ocean model uses 1.58 horizontal resolution, with meridional resolution increasing to 0.58 near the equator, and 20 vertical levels, most in the upper 300 m. No flux adjustments are employed. An initial multiyear integration showed significant climate drift in the tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures. Several modifications were made in the coupled model to reduce these errors. Changes were made to the atmospheric model cloudiness parameterizations, increasing solar radiation at the surface in the western equatorial Pacific and decreasing it in the eastern Pacific, that improved the simulation of the time-mean sea surface temperature. Large errors in the wind direction near the western coast of South America resulted in large mean SST errors in that region. A procedure to reduce these errors by extrapolating wind stress values away from the coast to coastal points was devised and implemented. Results from the last 17 years of a 62-yr simulation are described. The model produces a reasonably realistic annual cycle of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature. However, the upper-ocean thermal structure has serious errors. Interannual variability for tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, precipitation, and sea level pressure that resemble the observed El Niño--Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in structure and evolution is found. However, differences from observed behavior are also evident. The mechanism responsible for the interannual variability appears to be similar to the delayed oscillator mechanism that occurs in the real climate system... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]