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Influence of two types of El Niños on the East Asian climate during boreal summer: a numerical study

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An Erratum to this article was published on 04 October 2017

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Abstract

The sea surface temperature anomaly pattern differs between the central Pacific (CP) and eastern Pacific (EP) El Niños during boreal summer. It is expected that the respective atmospheric response will be different. In order to identify differences in the responses to these two phenomena, we examine the Community Atmosphere Model Version 4 simulations forced with observed monthly sea surface temperature during 1979–2010 and compare with the corresponding observations. For CP El Niño, a triple precipitation anomaly pattern appears over East Asia. During EP El Niño, the triple pattern is not as significant as and shifts eastward and southward compared to CP El Niño. We also examine the influence of CP La Niña and EP La Niña on East Asia. In general, the impact of CP (EP) La Niña on tropics and East Asia seems to be opposite to that of CP (EP) El Niño. However, the impacts between the two types of La Niña are less independent compared to the two types of warm events. Both types of El Niño (La Niña) correspond to a stronger (weaker) western North Pacific summer monsoon. The sensitivity experiments support this result. But the CP El Niño (La Niña) may have more significant influence on East Asia summer climate than EP El Niño (La Niña), as the associated low-level anomalous wind pattern is more distinct and closer to the Asian continent compared to EP El Niño (La Niña).

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  • 04 October 2017

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Acknowledgments

This research is jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41175076) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2009CB421404). RW acknowledges the support of a Hong Kong Research Grants Council grant (CUHK403612) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41275081). ZC acknowledges the support of the high-performance grid computing platform of Sun Yat-sen University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Monsoon and Environment Research/Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, No. 135, Xingangxi Road, Guangzhou, 510275, People’s Republic of China

    Zesheng Chen & Zhiping Wen

  2. Institute of Space and Earth Information Science/Department of Physics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Renguang Wu

  3. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Ping Zhao

  4. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Cao

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  1. Zesheng Chen
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  2. Zhiping Wen
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Correspondence to Zhiping Wen.

Additional information

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3922-4.

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Chen, Z., Wen, Z., Wu, R. et al. Influence of two types of El Niños on the East Asian climate during boreal summer: a numerical study. Clim Dyn 43, 469–481 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1943-1

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