Using Atmospheric Energy Transport to Quantitatively Constrain South Pacific Convergence Zone Shifts during ENSO

Abstract

AbstractThe South Pacific convergence zone (SPCZ) exhibits well-known spatial displacements in response to anomalous sea surface temperatures (SSTs) associated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Although dynamic and thermodynamic changes during ENSO events are consistent with observed SPCZ shifts, explanations for these displacements have been largely qualitative. This study applies a theoretical framework based on generalizing arguments about the relationship between the zonal-mean intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and atmospheric energy transport (AET) to 2D, permitting quantification of SPCZ displacements during ENSO. Using either resolved atmospheric energy fluxes or estimates of column-integrated moist energy sources, this framework predicts well the observed SPCZ shifts during ENSO, at least when anomalous ENSO-region SSTs are relatively small. In large-amplitude ENSO events, such as the 1997/98 El Niño, the framework breaks down because of the large change in SPCZ precipitation intensity. The AET framework permits decomposition of the ENSO forcing into various components, such as column radiative heating versus surface turbulent fluxes, and local versus remote contributions. Column energy source anomalies in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific dominate the SPCZ shift. Furthermore, although the radiative flux anomaly is larger than the surface turbulent flux anomaly in the SPCZ region, the radiative flux anomaly, which can be viewed as a feedback on the ENSO forcing, accounts for slightly less than half of SPCZ precipitation anomalies during ENSO. This study also introduces an idealized analytical model used to illustrate AET anomalies during ENSO and to obtain a scaling for the SPCZ response to an anomalous equatorial energy source.