Why was Atmospheric Circulation Decoupled from Tropical Pacific SSTs in 2014/15 winter?

Abstract:

In late 2014 and early 2015, although Niño3.4 index exceeded the threshold for a weak-moderate El Niño, a canonical atmospheric response to ENSO event was not observed in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. In an effort to understand why it was so, this study decomposed the DJF mean sea surface temperature (SST), precipitation rate and 200hPa stream function anomalies observed in the 2014/15 winter into the patterns related to the principal components of the DJF SST variability. It is found that the anomalies of these variables were mainly determined by the patterns related to two SST modes, one is the North Pacific Mode (NPM), and the other the El Niño and South Oscillation (ENSO) mode. The NPM was the dominant factor and was responsible for the apparent uncoupled air-sea relationship in the central equatorial Pacific and the east-west structure of the circulation anomalies over North America. The ENSO mode was important for SSTs in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and for the circulation in the central equatorial Pacific. Further, ENSO signal likely evolved from the NPM pattern in the 2013/14 winter, however, its full development was impeded by the unusual persistence of the strong NPM throughout the year. The analysis for DJF 2014/15 winter indicates that the SST anomalies in Niño3.4 alone were not adequate for capturing the coupling of ocean and atmosphere anomalies in the tropical Pacific, due to the fact that it can’t distinguish if the SST anomaly in the Niño3.4 region is associated with the ENSO mode or NPM, or both.