Respective influences of IOD and ENSO on the Tibetan snow cover in early winter

Using reanalysis data and snow cover data derived from satellite observations, respective influences of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the Tibetan snow cover in early winter are investigated. It is found that the snow cover shows a significant positive partial correlation with IOD. In the pure positive IOD years with no co-occurrences of El Niño, negative geopotential height anomalies north of India are associated with warm and humid southwesterlies to enter the plateau from the Bay of Bengal after rounding cyclonically and supply more moisture. This leads to more precipitation, more snow cover, and resultant lower surface temperature over the plateau. These negative geopotential height anomalies north of India are related to the equivalent barotropic stationary Rossby waves in the South Asian wave guide. The waves can be generated by the IOD-related convection anomalies over the western/central Indian Ocean. In contrast, in the pure El Niño years with no co-occurrences of the positive IOD, the anomalies of moisture supply and surface temperature over the plateau are insignificant, suggesting negligible influences of ENSO on the early winter Tibetan snow cover. Further analyses show that ENSO is irrelevant to the spring/early summer Tibetan snow cover either, whereas the IOD-induced snow cover anomalies can persist long from the early winter to the subsequent early summer.     

The self-organizing map,a new approach to apprehend the Madden–Julian Oscillation influence on the intraseasonal variability of rainfall in the southern African region

The Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) is the major mode of intraseasonal variability (30–60 days) in the tropics, having large rainfall impacts globally, and possibly on southern Africa. However, the latter impact is not well understood and needs to be further explored. The life cycle of the MJO, known to be asymmetric, has been nevertheless analyzed usually through methods constrained by both linearity and orthogonality, such as empirical orthogonal function analysis. Here we explore a non-linear classification method, the self-organizing map (SOM), a type of artificial neural network used to produce a low-dimensional representation of high-dimensional datasets, to capture more accurately the life cycle of the MJO and its global impacts. The classification is applied on intraseasonal anomalies of outgoing longwave radiation within the tropical region over the 1980–2009 period. Using the SOM to describe the MJO is a new approach, complimentary to the usual real-time multivariate MJO index. It efficiently captures this propagative phenomenon and its seasonality, and is shown to provide additional temporal and spatial information on MJO activity. For each node, the subtropical convection is analyzed, with a particular focus on the southern Africa region. Results show that the convection activity over the central tropical Indian Ocean is a key factor influencing the intraseasonal convective activity over the southern African region. Enhanced (suppressed) convection over the central Indian Ocean tends to suppress (enhance) convection over the southern African region with a 10-day lag by modulating the moisture transport.     

How accurately do coupled climate models predict the leading modes of Asian-Australian monsoon interannual variability?

Accurate prediction of the Asian-Australian monsoon (A-AM) seasonal variation is one of the most important and challenging tasks in climate prediction. In order to understand the causes of the low accuracy in the current prediction of the A-AM precipitation, this study strives to determine to what extent the ten state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere-ocean-land climate models and their multi-model ensemble (MME) can capture the two observed major modes of A-AM rainfall variability–which account for 43% of the total interannual variances during the retrospective prediction period of 1981–2001. The first mode is associated with the turnabout of warming to cooling in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), whereas the second mode leads the warming/cooling by about 1 year, signaling precursory conditions for ENSO. The first mode has a strong biennial tendency and reflects the Tropical Biennial Oscillation (Meehl in J Clim 6:31–41, 1993). We show that the MME 1-month lead prediction of the seasonal precipitation anomalies captures the first two leading modes of variability with high fidelity in terms of seasonally evolving spatial patterns and year-to-year temporal variations, as well as their relationships with ENSO. The MME shows a potential to capture the precursors of ENSO in the second mode about five seasons prior to the maturation of a strong El Niño. However, the MME underestimates the total variances of the two modes and the biennial tendency of the first mode. The models have difficulties in capturing precipitation over the maritime continent and the Walker-type teleconnection in the decaying phase of ENSO, which may contribute in part to a monsoon “spring prediction barrier” (SPB). The NCEP/CFS model hindcast results show that, as the lead time increases, the fractional variance of the first mode increases, suggesting that the long-lead predictability of A-AM rainfall comes primarily from ENSO predictability. In the CFS model, the correlation skill for the first principal component remains about 0.9 up to 6 months before it drops rapidly, but for the spatial pattern it exhibits a drop across the boreal spring. This study uncovered two surprising findings. First, the coupled models’ MME predictions capture the first two leading modes of precipitation variability better than those captured by the ERA-40 and NCEP-2 reanalysis datasets, suggesting that treating the atmosphere as a slave may be inherently unable to simulate summer monsoon rainfall variations in the heavily precipitating regions (Wang et al. in J Clim 17:803–818, 2004). It is recommended that future reanalysis should be carried out with coupled atmosphere and ocean models. Second, While the MME in general better than any individual models, the CFS ensemble hindcast outperforms the MME in terms of the biennial tendency and the amplitude of the anomalies, suggesting that the improved skill of MME prediction is at the expense of overestimating the fractional variance of the leading mode. Other outstanding issues are also discussed.     

Plagioclase fabrics in some metablastic rocks

A peculiar orientation of plagioclase porphyroblasts hag been ascertained in some blastic rocks. There are several types of intergranular coordination between neighbouring plagioclase blasts. They are laid facing the equivalent crystallographical planes each other or in twin-like relation. Detailed measurements of these plagioclase fabrics told us that the symmetry elements revealed in one crystal also effectively govern over the two or more neighbouring plagioclase grains without any distinctions whether they are in direct contact or separately formed.     

Resting cells of microorganisms in the 20–100 μm fraction of marine sediments in an Antarctic coastal area

We investigated the morphological features, vertical sinking fluxes, and number densities of the resting cells of ice-associated microorganisms in the 20–100 μm fraction of natural marine sediments collected from ice-covered and ice-free areas around Syowa Station, Lützow-Holm Bay, East Antarctica. We identified the resting cells of various taxonomic groups, including the spores of a diatom, cysts of three dinoflagellates, cysts of five oligotrich ciliates, and the eggs of a mesozooplankton. This is the first report of oligotrich ciliate cysts from Antarctic waters. The resting spores of Thalassiosira australis (diatom), cysts of Polarella glacialis (dinoflagellate), and egg type 1 sink to the bottom sediment during summer. Our results suggest that some planktonic and ice-associated microorganisms in Antarctic coastal areas send their resting cells to the bottom sediments as seed populations for the following generation.     

Deposition of atmospheric mineral particles in the North Pacific Ocean

Total deposition of atmospheric mineral particles (wet plus dry) has been measured during consecutive two-week sampling intervals from January, 1981 to March, 1982 at four island stations (Midway, Oahu, Enewetak, and Fanning) of the SEAREX Asian Dust Study Network in the North Pacific. The total deposition of mineral aerosol during the period from February to June is higher than that during the period from July to January at most of the stations. A systematic geographical trend is apparent in the dust flux, with greater fluxes at higher latitudes. The deposition values are correlated with the atmospheric mineral particle concentrations at these stations. The mineral particles are transported from arid regions in Asia to the North Pacific, and the annual dust deposition to the ocean appears to be dominated by sporadic dust events of short duration. Wet deposition dominates the removal of dust particles from the atmosphere over the North Pacific. The total deposition of atmospheric mineral material to the central North Pacific is estimated to be 20×10¹² g yr^-1.     

THE CLIMATE FEATURES OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEA WARM POOL

There exists a warm pool in the South China Sea (SCS). The temporal and spatial distribution and evolution of SCS warm pool is investigated using water temperatures at a depth of 20 min the sea. The formation of the warm pool is discussed by combining water temperatures with geostrophic currents and simulated oceanic circulation. It is found that there are significant seasonal and interannual changes in the warm pool and in association with the general circulation of the atmosphere. The development of SCS warm pool is also closely related to the gyre activities in the sea and imported warm water from Indian Ocean (Java Sea) besides radiative warming.     

Predictability of the subtropical dipole modes in a coupled ocean–atmosphere model

Predictability of the subtropical dipole modes is assessed using the SINTEX-F coupled model. Despite the known difficulty in predicting subtropical climate due to large internal variability of the atmosphere and weak ocean–atmosphere coupling, it is shown for the first time that the coupled model can successfully predict the South Atlantic Subtropical Dipole (SASD) 1 season ahead, and the prediction skill is better than the persistence in all the 1–12 month lead hindcast experiments. There is a prediction barrier in austral winter due to the seasonal phase locking of the SASD to austral summer. The prediction skill is lower for the Indian Ocean Subtropical Dipole (IOSD) than for the SASD, and only slightly better than the persistence till 6-month lead because of the low predictability of the sea surface temperature anomaly in its southwestern pole. However, for some strong IOSD events in the last three decades, the model can predict them 1 season ahead. The co-occurrence of the negative SASD and IOSD in 1997/1998 austral summer can be predicted from July 1st of 1997. This is because the negative sea level pressure anomalies over the South Atlantic and the southern Indian Ocean in September–October (November–December) that trigger the occurrence of the negative SASD and IOSD are related to the well predicted tropical Indian Ocean Dipole (El Niño/Southern Oscillation). Owing to the overall good performances of the SINTEX-F model in predicting the SASD, some strong IOSD, and El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the prediction skill of the southern African summer precipitation is high in the SINTEX-F model.     

The birth and evolution of an eastward propagating air-sea coupled disturbance in an aqua-planet

Summary The birth and evolution of an air-sea coupled disturbance relevant to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events is investigated using a simple coupled aqua-planet model composed of the Gill's moist atmosphere and the Anderson-McCreary ocean. A coherent air-sea coupled disturbance with the zonal wavenumber 1 emerges from different initial disturbances either in the atmosphere or the ocean and propagates eastward as observed in the 1982/83 event. In the case of an initial westerly wind burst, oceanic Kelvin waves generated by the winds cause weak but long-lasting ocean temporature anomalies which trigger the air-sea coupled disturbance. When the initial disturbance is in the oceanic mixedlayer temperature, the coupled disturbance is excited more easily because the oceanic relaxation time is long compared to the atmospheric one. This is consistent with the result that the coupled disturbance collapses when the disturbance is forced to vanish on the oceanic side rather than on the atmospheric side.With 8 Figures     

The Indian Ocean subtropical dipole mode simulated in the CMIP3 models

Using observation data and outputs from the “twentieth-century climate in coupled models” (20c3m) control runs of coupled general circulation models submitted to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 3 (CMIP3), the ability of CMIP3 models to simulate the Indian Ocean subtropical dipole (IOSD) and its influence on the rainfall anomaly over the southern African region is investigated. Many models simulate the IOSD, but the location and shape of the sea surface temperature anomaly vary among models. This model bias is closely linked to the bias in simulating the anomalous strengthening and southward shift of the subtropical high. Almost all models fail to simulate the rainfall anomaly associated with the IOSD owing to the inaccurate simulation of the location of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure anomalies.