Fisika Atmosfer (Atmospheric Physics)

Atmospheric circulation: ENSO

Dr.Techn. Marzuki dan Mutya Vonnisa, M.Sc

Departemen Fisika-FMIPA Universitas Andalas

 Last week
• Frontal zones and fronts are an important
phenomenon in the Earth‘s atmosphere
• Fronts are strongly tilted -7 Formula of
Margules
• Rossby waves are an important ingredient in
the formation of high and low pressure
systems
• High- and low pressure systems form in the
descending and ascending branch of baroclinc
waves
Ruang lingkup perkuliahan
1. Outline, literature, rule and introduction
2. Vertical structure of the atmosphere
3. Adiabatic processes - Vertical stability
4. Atmospheric radiation: Absorption, scattering, emission
5. Atmospheric radiation: The energy budget of the atmosphere
6. Atmospheric dynamics: Navier-Stokes equation, continuity equation
7. Atmospheric dynamics: Pressure gradients and wind fields, thermal wind
8. Atmospheric dynamics: Vorticity
9. Atmospheric dynamics: The planetary boundary layer
10. Atmospheric circulation: Global circulation patterns, planetary waves
11. Atmospheric circulation: Pressure systems, Hadley cell
12. Diffusion and turbulence: Molecular diffusion, basics of turbulence
13. Diffusion and turbulence: Theorem of Taylor, correlated fluctuations
14. Diffusion and turbulence: Diffusion of scalar tracers
15. Near-surface dynamics: Wind profile, influence of surface friction
16. The Hydrological Cycle
17. Climate Change
18. Strat. Chemistry: Chapman Cycle
19. Strat. Chemistry: Ozone in the atmosphere
20. Aeorosol Physics I: Aeorosol Mechanics
21. Aeorosol Physics II: Particle Formation, Particle Growth
22. Measurement Techniques
23. Modeling the Atmosphere
24. Science trip (Equatorial Atmosphere Radar site-Bukittinggi)
 El Niño (Christkind) - ENSO
At the South American, Equatorial Pacific coast (i.e. at Equador and Peru) the
surface water normally is relatively cold.

Cause: East wind of the Walker - circulation, which is driven by evaporation in

the Pacific, „pushes" warm surface water westwards. Thus cold, nutrient-rich
(and fish rich) deep water can reach the surface.

Occasionally the cold deep water is displaced by warm, nutrient poor surface
water around Christmas time (hence the name El Niño). In the nutrient poor
water there are no fishes, this can have catastrophic consequences for fishery
and subsistence of the coastal population.

The El Niño phenomenon is connected to the periodic, large scale changes in

the atmospheric pressure distribution, called „Southern Oscillation“ (Südliche
Oszillation).
The two phenomena together are called: El Niño Southern Oscillation = ENSO
Chronology of Events in the History of Understanding
El Niño and La Niña

• Late 1800s Fishermen coin the name El Niño to refer to the periodic warm
waters that appear off the coasts of Peru and Ecuador around Christmas.
• 1928 Gilbert Walker describes the Southern Oscillation, the seesaw pattern of
atmospheric pressure readings on the eastern and western sides of the Pacific
Ocean.
• 1957 Large El Niño occurs and is tracked by scientists participating in the
International Geophysical Year. Results reveal that El Niño affects not just the
coasts of Peru and Ecuador but the entire Pacific Ocean.
• 1969 Jacob Bjerknes, of the University of California, Los Angeles, publishes a
seminal paper that links the Southern Oscillation to El Niño.
• 1975 Klaus Wyrtki, of the University of Hawaii, tracks sea levels across the
Pacific and establishes that an eastward flow of warm surface waters from the
western Pacific causes sea surface temperatures to rise in the eastern Pacific.
Chronology of Events in the History of Understanding
El Niño and La Niña
• 1976 Researchers use an idealized computer model of the ocean to demonstrate
that winds over the far western equatorial Pacific can cause sea surface
temperature changes off Peru.
• 1982 A severe El Niño develops in an unexpected manner, but its evolution is
recorded in detail with newly developed ocean buoys.
• 1985 Several nations launch the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA)
program, a 10-year study of tropical oceans and the global atmosphere.
• 1986 Researchers design the first coupled model of ocean and atmosphere that
accurately predicts an El Niño event in 1986.
• 1988 Researchers explain how the "memory" of the ocean--the lag between a
change in the winds and the response of the ocean--influences terminations of El
Niño and the onset of La Niña.
• 1996-1997 The array of instruments monitoring the Pacific, plus coupled ocean-
atmosphere models, enable scientists to warn the public of an impending El Niño
event.
 The „Southern Oscillation“
Observation of the atmospheric pressure distribution in the Southern
Pacific and Indian oceans shows a marked anti-correlation. Numbers
denote the local correlation coefficients +0.8 in Djakarta, Indonesia (DJ)
and Darwin, Australia (D), resp. (red arrows) compared to -0.8 near the
Easter Islands (O) or Tahiti (T) (blue arrows).
 Trade winds
How do they affect the tropical oceans?

Hadley Trade
Cells winds
Tropical SSTs and rainfall
Tropical SSTs, Climate, & Vegetation

Papua New Guinea Coastal Peru

Normal State of the Pacific

Warm pool

Sea surface temperature, SST

Walker circulation
El Niño State of Pacific

Warm pool shifts eastward

“El Niño is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific”

Normal Conditions

Note features:

- East-west SST
- upwelling
- Thermocline depth
- Sea surface height
- Surface pressure
- trade winds
Transition to El Niño

Note changes in

- East-west SST
- upwelling
- Thermocline depth
- Sea surface height
- Surface pressure
- trade winds
Full El Niño conditions

What are changes in

- East-west SST
- upwelling
- Thermocline depth
- Sea surface height
- Surface pressure
- trade winds

?? ?
SST anomalies for 1982 and 1997 El Niño Events

Sometimes called the “warm phase”

La-Nina
SST anomalies for 1968 and 1998 La Niña Events

Sometimes called the “cool phase”

Pahami
Bedanya !!
 Why does ENSO State tend to Oscillate?

Shortest Answer:
Equatorial ocean dynamics

Short answer: Differing timescales of Kelvin

and Rossby Wave propagation

Longer answer: The oscillation is made

possible due to the asymmetry between
eastward and westward oceanic motions (see
2-D Animation in notes).

Along the equator there is a relatively fast

eastward motion called an equatorial Kelvin
wave. Peaking somewhat off the equator are
westward motions called Rossby waves. Time
scale: <1 yr for the Kelvin waves to shift the
warm pool eastward [once trades relax]; 2 yrs
for the Rossby waves to return the warm pool
to the west, to await another wind relax.

Kelvin
Rossby
Here is a 3-D animation the tropical Pacific as it cycles through an
El Niño then La Niña event. The surface shown is sea-level (in
cm) and the surface is colored according to the SST anomalies
associated with each event.
 Southern Oscillation (1935-1984)
p (Easter Islands ) − p (Darwin )
SOI = = Southern Oscillation-Index
Δp(mean)

Time series of the SOI (dashed line) and ocean surface temperature anomalies in
Puerto Chicama (Peru, drawn line). Hatched areas mark strong El Nino events
[Rasmuson 1984, Fahrbach]
SOI = Tahiti SLP - Darwin SLP
 The Southern Oscillation-Index (SOI)
1990-2006

SOI (here: Tahiti – Darwin) 1990 – 2000

(red = El Niño-Phases; blue = La Niña-Phases)
SOI (Tahiti – Darwin) 1876 – 2001

Jeweils Jan. – Dezember

Jeweils Juli Vorjahr – Juni aktuelles Jahr

 The „Normal“ Walker – Circulation
Schematic view (Roedel
1992):
Normal Walker-
circulation (after Gilbert
Walker, 1928), the
south-east trade wind
pushes the surface
water westwards thus
causing a depression of
the thermocline in the
western Pacific.
 Density of Sea Water
as Function of
Temperature and
Salinity

The anomaly of
Mean Salinity of Sea
water disappears
Water: at higher salt
34.5 Kg/m , 3 contents!
corresponding to 34.7 PSU
Salinity and temperature combine to dictate the ocean's density. Greater salinity, like colder
(practical salinity
temperatures, units)
results in an increase in ocean density with a corresponding depression of the sea
surface
1 psuheight. In warmer,
= 1.0051 fresher waters, the density is lower resulting in an elevation of the sea
x Salinity
surface. These ocean height differences are related to the circulation of the ocean.
The surface salinity in two regions contributes to El Niño events: an area of warmer
Freezing point at 35 PSU:
temperatures and lower salinity in the western Pacific, and the higher salinity and cooler
temperatures
-1.91oC in the eastern Pacific. Differences in surface salinity are related to changes in
temperature and upper ocean heat content, which are part of the El Niño phenomenon. They
have the potential to influence the Earth's climate through air-sea interaction at the ocean's
surface. The anomalie
anomaly ofofwater
water
 The „Normal“ Walker – Circulation

The normal Walker-circulation (after Gilbert Walker, 1928), the south-east trade wind
pushes the surface water westwards thus causing a depression of the thermocline in
the western
Pacific.Animation: http://www.enso.info/enso.html
 Peak of an El Niño Evolution:

Depression of the thermocline in the eastern Pacific, reversal of the Walker-

circulation, precipitation in the eastern Pacific (South America).
Animation: http://www.enso.info/enso.html
 Time Series of the Observed Sea Surface
Temperature Anomaly in the Tropical Pacific

El Niño

La Niña

The Niño 3 Region is bounded by 90W-150W and 5S- 5N. The

Niño 3.4 Region is bounded by 120W-170W and 5S- 5N
Nino 4 from 160 East to 150 West, and from 5 South to 5 North

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/history.html
 ENSO Index (1950-2008)
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/

Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) based on six variables: Sea-level pressure (P),
zonal (U) and meridional (V) components of the surface wind, sea surface
temperature (S), surface air temperature (A), and total cloudiness fraction of the
sky (C).
Comparison of MEI for Strong El Nino Events
 Relative Differences in Water Vapour (Total Column)
and cloud Cover in the El Niño 1997/1998
Relative anomalies
(average 10/1997 to
3/1998) of total column
precipitable water and the
O2 absorption El Niño
period with respect to
average of the non El Niño
years (1996/1997,
1998/1999, 1999/2000,
2000/2001).
Note significant El Niño
induced anomalies in the
tropics, but also for mid and
high latitudes.

From: Wagner T., Beirle S.,

Grzegorski M., Sanghavi
S., Platt U. (2005), El-Niño
induced anomalies in global
data sets of water vapour
and cloud cover derived
from GOME on ERS-2, J.
Geophys. Res. 110,
D15104,
doi:10.1029/2005JD005972
.
http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/science/jason1-quick-look/index.html

Jason: Follow-up mission to TOPEX/POSEIDON

(TOPography EXperiment)

Jason-1 is a satellite oceanography mission to

monitor global ocean circulation, study the ties
between the ocean and the atmosphere, improve
global climate forecasts and predictions, and
monitor events such as El Niño and ocean eddies.
Global Consequences
of El Niño
 Extreme climate of the global Troposphere and
Stratosphere in 1940–42 related to El Nino
Consistent northern winter climate extremes related to strong El Nino events. Top, polar stereographic pro-
jection of anomaly fields (with respect to 1961–90) of surface air temperature27, sea level pressure (SLP)29,
300 hPa and 100 hPa geopotential height (GPH in units of geopotential metres, gpm) and 100 hPa tempe-
rature, in the northern extratropics averaged from January to April, 1940–42. Light shadings denote a low recon-
struction skill (reduction of error RE,0.2 based on two split sample validations11). Bottom, same anomaly fields for
the winters during the 26 strongest El Nino years (Oct.–Sept. NINO3.4 .1 8C) in the CCSM-2.0 control run.

S. Brönnimann, J. Luterbacher, J. Staehelin, T. M. Svendby, G. Hansen & T. Svenøe,

Nature 431, 971-974, 2004
 The TAO/TRITON - Chain of Buoys in the Tropicad

AO/ R 0 A ray
0

o ATLAS o TRITON • Subsurface ADCP

30°S + -
120tiE lBOQ
TAO-Data
Current ENSO Status
Current ENSO Status
17 model forecasts
El Niño Forecasting

El Niño

La Niña
ENSO and Global Warming
Still no consensus

Persistent El Niño? Persistent La Niña?

Surface ocean warms Surface ocean warms

uniformly. differentially; West warms
Warming penetrates to more.
thermocline. WEP SST warming drives
Ocean-atm coupling convection there
sustains El Niño mode. Strengthens Walker Cell.
Ocean-atm coupling sustains
La Niña mode.
 Summary
• The term „El Niño“ (Christkind) has two meanings:
1) A reversal of the normal situation where the surface water at the
South American, Equatorial Pacific coast (i.e. at Ecuador and Peru)
normally is relatively cold and this water is displaced by warm, nutrient
poor surface water around Christmas time (hence the name El Niño).
2) A particularly strong reversal event

• In the nutrient poor water there are no fishes, this can have catastrophic
consequences for fishery and subsistence of the coastal population.

• El Niño is caused by a reversal in the Walker circulation

• The El Niño phenomenon is also connected to the periodic, large scale
changes in the atmospheric pressure distribution, called „Southern
Oscillation“ (Südliche Oszillation).

• The two phenomena together are known as:

El Niño Southern Oscillation = ENSO