The contribution of J. M. Slingo was written in the course of her employment at the Met Office, UK and is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.
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Special Issue Article
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The role of atmosphere feedbacks during ENSO in the CMIP3 models
Article first published online: 3 JUN 2009
DOI: 10.1002/asl.227
Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society and Crown Copyright
Issue
1530-261X/asset/cover.gif?v=1&s=97f741a79c8a7dcc7deffdae9e532a8ae1e86cbb "Atmospheric Science Letters")
Atmospheric Science Letters
Special Issue: NCAS Atmospheric Science Conference, 2008 in memory of the late Professor Anthony Slingo
Volume 10, Issue 3, pages 170–176, July/September 2009
Additional Information
How to Cite
Lloyd, J., Guilyardi, E., Weller, H. and Slingo, J. (2009), The role of atmosphere feedbacks during ENSO in the CMIP3 models. Atmosph. Sci. Lett., 10: 170–176. doi: 10.1002/asl.227
- †
The contribution of J. M. Slingo was written in the course of her employment at the Met Office, UK and is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.
Publication History
- Issue published online: 23 SEP 2009
- Article first published online: 3 JUN 2009
- Manuscript Accepted: 21 APR 2009
- Manuscript Revised: 8 APR 2009
- Manuscript Received: 23 JAN 2009
Funded by
- CORDIAL PICS from CNRS
- European Community ENSEMBLES. Grant Number: GOCE-CT-2003-505539
- Abstract
- Article
- References
- Cited By
Keywords:
- ENSO;
- Atmosphere feedbacks;
- CMIP3 GCMs
Abstract
Several studies using ocean-atmosphere GCMs suggest that the atmospheric component plays a dominant role in the modelled ENSO. To help elucidate these findings, the two main atmosphere feedbacks relevant to ENSO, the Bjerknes positive feedback (µ) and the heat flux negative feedback (α), are analysed here in 12 coupled GCMs.
We find that the models generally underestimate both feedbacks, leading to an error compensation. The strength of α is inversely related to the ENSO amplitude in the models and the latent heat and shortwave flux components of this feedback dominate. Furthermore, the shortwave component could help explain the model diversity in both overall α and ENSO amplitude. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society and Crown copyright.