On the Genesis of the 2021 Atlantic Niño

Autor: Sang‐Ki Lee, Hosmay Lopez, Franz Philip Tuchen, Dongmin Kim, Gregory R. Foltz, Andrew T. Wittenberg
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 50, Iss 16, Pp n/a-n/a (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1944-8007
0094-8276
DOI: 10.1029/2023GL104452
Popis: Abstract An extreme Atlantic Niño developed in the boreal summer of 2021 with peak‐season sea surface temperature anomalies exceeding 1°C in the eastern equatorial region for the first time since global satellite measurements began in the early 1970s. Here, we show that the development of this outlier event was preconditioned by a series of oceanic Rossby waves that reflected at the South American coast into downwelling equatorial Kelvin waves. In early May, an intense week‐long westerly wind burst (WWB) event, driven by the Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO), developed in the western and central equatorial Atlantic and greatly amplified one of the reflected Kelvin waves, directly initiating the 2021 Atlantic Niño. MJO‐driven WWBs are fundamental to the development of El Niño in the Pacific but are a previously unidentified driver for Atlantic Niño. Their importance for the 2021 event suggests that they may serve as a useful predictor/precursor for future Atlantic Niño events.
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