• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Process-based analysis of climate model ENSO simulations : intermodel consistency and compensating errors

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Article (683.6Kb)
    Readme (924bytes)
    Figures S1–S7 (2.154Mb)
    Date
    2014-06-30
    Author
    Linz, Marianna  Concept link
    Tziperman, Eli  Concept link
    MacMartin, Douglas G.  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6839
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD021415
    DOI
    10.1002/2013JD021415
    Keyword
     ENSO; Transfer functions; Thermocline feedback; Global climate models 
    Abstract
    Systematic and compensating errors can lead to degraded predictive skill in climate models. Such errors may be identified by comparing different models in an analysis of individual physical processes. We examine model simulations of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in five Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) models, using transfer functions to analyze nine processes critical to ENSO's dynamics. The input and output of these processes are identified and analyzed, some of which are motivated by the recharge oscillator theory. Several errors and compensating errors are identified. The east-west slope of the equatorial thermocline is found to respond to the central equatorial Pacific zonal wind stress as a damped driven harmonic oscillator in all models. This result is shown to be inconsistent with two different formulations of the recharge oscillator. East Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) responds consistently to changes in the thermocline depth in the eastern Pacific in the five CMIP models examined here. However, at time scales greater than 2 years, this consistent model response disagrees with observations, showing that the SST leads thermocline depth at long time scales. Compensating errors are present in the response of meridional transport of water away from the equator to SST: two different models show different response of the transport to off-equatorial wind curl and wind curl response to East Pacific SST. However, these two models show the same response of meridional transport to East Pacific SST. Identification of errors in specific physical processes can hopefully lead to model improvement by focusing model development efforts on these processes.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119 (2014): 7396–7409, doi:10.1002/2013JD021415.
    Collections
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119 (2014): 7396–7409
     

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      Coupled ocean–atmosphere modeling and predictions 

      Miller, Arthur J.; Collins, Matthew; Gualdi, Silvio; Jensen, Tommy G.; Misra, Vasu; Pezzi, Luciano Ponzi; Pierce, David W.; Putrasahan, Dian; Seo, Hyodae; Tseng, Yu-Heng (Sears Foundation for Marine Research, 2017-05-01)
      Key aspects of the current state of the ability of global and regional climate models to represent dynamical processes and precipitation variations are summarized. Interannual, decadal, and global-warming timescales, wherein ...
    • Thumbnail

      Marine ecosystem dynamics and biogeochemical cycling in the Community Earth System Model [CESM1(BGC)] : comparison of the 1990s with the 2090s under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios 

      Moore, J. Keith; Lindsay, Keith; Doney, Scott C.; Long, Matthew C.; Misumi, Kazuhiro (American Meteorological Society, 2013-12-01)
      The authors compare Community Earth System Model results to marine observations for the 1990s and examine climate change impacts on biogeochemistry at the end of the twenty-first century under two future scenarios ...
    • Thumbnail

      Dynamical origin of low-frequency variability in a highly nonlinear midlatitude coupled model 

      Kravtsov, Sergey K.; Berloff, Pavel S.; Dewar, William K.; Ghil, M.; McWilliams, James C. (American Meteorological Society, 2006-12-15)
      A novel mechanism of decadal midlatitude coupled variability, which crucially depends on the nonlinear dynamics of both the atmosphere and the ocean, is presented. The coupled model studied involves quasigeostrophic ...
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy
    Core Trust Logo