The Phase‐Locking of Tropical North Atlantic and the Contribution of ENSO

The Tropical North Atlantic (TNA) is characterized by significant interannual variability in sea surface temperature (SST), which is phase‐locked to the boreal spring. In this study, the phase‐locking of TNA is investigated by adopting a linear stochastic‐dynamical model (SDM) using seasonally modulated TNA feedbacks together with the seasonal modulation of ENSO forcing. In the observations, the role of local TNA feedbacks and ENSO forcing in TNA phase‐locking are equivalently important with both preferring the peak of TNA variability to appear in the boreal spring. Besides, the seasonal modulation of TNA feedbacks and ENSO forcing strength are both mainly controlled by thermodynamic processes. In most climate models, the contribution of ENSO on TNA phase‐locking is weaker than that in observations. The strength of ENSO‐related TNA phase‐locking is highly correlated with the relationship between ENSO and TNA, which is mainly determined by the amplitude of ENSO and its teleconnection patterns.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Geophysical Research Letters

• Publication date

  2021-11-19

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1029/2021GL095610
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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